For the second time, the Trump administration has issued an emergency order extending the operations of the J.H. Campbell coal power plant in West Olive, Michigan. The plant is a major emitter of toxic air and water pollution.
On August 20, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order extending operations of the 63-year-old facility, citing fabricated energy risks. In his order, Wright cited electric grid instability, projected reserve margin shortages during periods of high demand, threats to public health and safety from possible outages, and emphasized maintaining “affordable, reliable, and secure baseload power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.”
However, energy experts and analysts have widely disputed the Department of Energy’s claims that closing the J.H. Campbell coal plant would risk grid reliability. They have emphasized that the regional grid operator had already approved the plant’s retirement plan with no forecasted reliability issues, and state regulators, the utility, and independent analysts all confirmed that closure would not jeopardize grid stability.
The J.H. Campbell facility is not the only coal plant the Trump administration has forced to remain open. The DOE issued a similar order to the Eddystone Generation Station in Pennsylvania. It also used an emergency order to redirect funds from solar projects and to maintain Puerto Rico’s unreliable fossil-fuel based grid.
The J.H. Campbell facility is one of the Michigan’s top greenhouse gas emitters. The plant releases millions of pounds of dangerous pollutants—including particulates, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury—into the air each year. It emitted 8.9 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, contributing to climate change.
Each year, J.H. Campbell discharges approximately 100,000 pounds of water pollution into Lake Michigan, including about 10,000 pounds of toxic heavy metals. The plant also uses three ponds to store coal ash.
In 2019 the company produced the second largest share of coal ash in the state, according to the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC). MEC and other environmental groups have alleged that heavy metals and residuals from the ash ponds have been leaking into groundwater.
An ash pond monitoring well outside the plant showed arsenic levels that were 5.7 times higher than the federal drinking water standard. It also found elevated levels of boron, sulfate, total dissolved solids, pH, cobalt, lithium, mercury, molybdenum, selenium and thallium.
The decision to block the shutdown of the plant based on falsehoods comes as no surprise. The Trump administration is focused on bolstering the fossil fuel industry and doing everything possible to undermine, obfuscate and deny the science of climate change. Representatives of the oil and gas industries contributed an estimated $450 million to Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, and they are now getting something for their money.
Trump’s socially devastating and retrograde policies also found expression the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which withdrew support for renewable energies and handed billions of dollars to the oil and gas industries. Trump has delivered on the “wish list” of policy demands issued by the American Petroleum Institute (API) after his election. According to NBC News, API President Mike Sommers stated that the bill “includes almost all of our priorities.”
In January, after pledging to back domestic production of fossil fuels, Trump invoked the National Emergencies Act, stating, “this means you can do whatever you have to do to get out of that problem,” according to NPR (National Public Radio). The administration also ordered department and agency heads to make recommendations as to how federal eminent domain or the Defense Production Act might be used to block the transition to cleaner energy sources.
Currently, the US does not have a fuel shortage and produces more gas and oil than any other country in the world. In fact, analysts project that the world will soon have an oversupply of oil and natural gas, with supply from the US exceeding demand.
According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Consumers Energy has already spent $29 million over five weeks to keep the old plant open past its planned shutdown date. Consumers Energy has warned that the administration might continue to issue 90-day extensions throughout the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
On Friday, August 15, a request from the energy provider was granted that imposes a significant portion of the burden onto rate payers across 10 states.
Michael Lenoff, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, told Mlive, “The federal government should not be requiring a business to incur tens of millions of dollars in losses, then insisting that the business gets to recoup those losses from anyone paying an electric bill.”
In July, Michigan Democratic Party Attorney General Dana Nessel filed legal challenges in federal court to the Trump administration’s first emergency order. These lawsuits accuse the Trump administration of deliberately ignoring assurances that J.H. Campbell’s capacity would be adequately replaced by other sources. The cases also allege that the administration is interfering illegally and imposing millions of dollars in costs onto rate payers in an attempt to prop up the coal industry.
Nessel’s actions, however, are an act of political theater that fail to address the underlying issues and will be tied up in court for months if not years while the coal plant continues to pollute. Meanwhile, the Democrats have been slow to respond to the Trump administration and acting only after the fact.
The DOE’s decision has infuriated residents in the area who were expecting the Michigan’s final coal-fired plant to be closed by May 31, 2025. Ottawa County residents held a protest on Friday, August 15, to demand the closure of the plant.
The community pays a high price for living near the plant. The combustion of coal releases fine particles of soot that can bury themselves deep within the lungs, which is linked to severe and potentially fatal heart and respiratory conditions.
Coal emissions are known to cause several other health problems, along with respiratory illnesses such as lung disease, neurological disorders, and developmental impairment in both humans and animals. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), J.H. Campbell is responsible for an estimated 44 early deaths and 455 asthma attacks every year.
“My family had a countdown for it closing, we couldn’t wait. I was flabbergasted when the administration said they had stopped it shutting down. Why are they inserting themselves into a decision a company has made? Just because politically, you don’t like it? It’s all so dumb,” Mark Oppenhuizen, a resident who has lived near the plant for 30 years, told the Guardian. Oppenhuizen also suspects that the pollution from the plant has worsened his wife’s lung disease.
A study by the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that after a similar coal facility closed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2016, hospital visits for childhood asthma initially dropped by 41 percent, followed by an additional 4 percent decrease each month. This illustrates why the closure of J.H. Campbell is so crucial.
Dr. Steven Ashmead, a member of the Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action and a family physician, is concerned with the risks coal-fired plants pose to residents, including very serious negative health problems. He told ONN, “Public health of Michigan is more important than the political favors the Trump administration owes in coal, in the fossil fuels for over 60 years.
Ashmead continued, “We cannot stress that enough pollutants like carbon dioxide, particulate matter, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and radioactive radon exposure is highest to those of us living closest to the plant right now. However, those westerly winds blow those emissions straight to Grand Rapids and beyond. The coal ash contains at least 17 toxic heavy metals, including lead, mercury, cadmium, all of which damage human health and at least six neurotoxins and five known or suspected carcinogens.”
The Environmental Defense Fund counted 71 coal plants, along with numerous other polluting facilities, that have received pollution clearances from the Trump administration, allowing for increased emissions of airborne toxins linked to health problems.
Caroline Reiser, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, characterized the administration’s favoritism toward fossil fuels as a “political takeover of the electricity grid.” She further stated that “the result of this will be higher electricity bills, more pollution in our communities and a worsening climate crisis.”
Like other actions of the Trump administration, the extension of the J.H. Campbell plant’s operations is an assault on democratic norms carried out in the interests of the financial oligarchy. While Trump’s DOE feigns concern over a fabricated “energy emergency,” the actual aim is to run roughshod over the recognition by broad sections of the public that greenhouse gas emitting power generating facilities must be shut down immediately.
Trump’s blatant, dictatorial interference on behalf of a section of the energy industry—along with the impotence of the Democratic Party—once again demonstrates the entire US political establishment is united in placing corporate interests above the lives, health and future of the working class.