It was shocking back in May 2025 when the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of forcing an old coal plant to keep running, mere days before the facility was slated to retire.
And then the orders just kept coming.
So far, the Trump administration has leveraged federal emergency powers to force seven old fossil-fueled power plants — all but one of them coal-fired — to stay online, claiming that they are crucial to maintaining grid reliability. The thing is, state regulators, utilities, and grid operators had already deemed those polluting facilities unnecessary and spent years planning for their retirement. Some plants are even broken or have sat idle because the grid doesn’t actually need their pricey power.
Coal is a really expensive source of energy, and everyday Americans will likely be the ones to foot the bill for President Donald Trump’s crusade to prop up the faltering industry. The total cost of the administration’s stay-open orders sits at roughly $430 million as of Aug. 6, according to a running tally from the Sierra Club.
Read the details in the article.