D.C. Circuit Vacates the DOE Emergency Order Forcing Michigan’s 1,420 MW Campbell Coal Plant to Keep Running
- FERC & Federal Policy & Markets Regulatory
Marin Holt
- 0
- 9 minutes read
- Ruling date: September 11, 2026
- Plant capacity: 1,420 MW
- Costs reported by Consumers Energy: 295 million dollars, May 2025 to June 30, 2026
- Current DOE order runs to: November 14, 2026
- Other plants under similar orders: 6
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the Department of Energy’s emergency order on Friday, September 11, 2026. The order had forced Consumers Energy to run its majority-owned, 1,420 MW J.H. Campbell coal plant in West Olive, Michigan past its approved retirement date of May 31, 2025. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel reports that Consumers Energy has booked 295 million dollars in costs tied to the plant from May 2025 through June 30, 2026. The utility wants to recover that money from electric customers across the north and central regions of MISO.
What Actually Changed
Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act now has a narrower reading. The court held that an emergency under that section means a grid reliability risk calling for immediate action by DOE. A medium-term or long-term supply concern does not qualify.
The panel put the burden back on the states. “It is the states, informed by federal, regional, and load-serving entities’ assessments of available supply and reliability needs, that bear the responsibility to plan for and avert reliability risks on an ongoing basis,” the court said. It noted that the Michigan Public Service Commission and MISO had both approved the Campbell retirement after extensive reviews.
The court rejected what it called DOE’s “sweeping conception” of the statute. “The Department’s reading of ’emergency’ invites frequent federal interventions that are unsupported by the statute and threaten the stability of the energy market,” the panel wrote. It also found that DOE justified the Campbell order by citing “fragments” of two documents and one MISO presentation.
What Did Not Change
The plant is still running today. DOE’s sixth Campbell order runs to November 14, 2026, and this ruling vacated the first order, not the whole chain. Consumers Energy said it is reviewing the decision while it continues to comply with the current order.
Six other plants remain under similar DOE orders. All but one of them burn coal, and DOE has reissued every order before it expired. Three more challenges to those orders are still pending at the D.C. Circuit, so this ruling settles the legal theory without settling the other cases.
Why It Matters
Retirement dates become plannable again. Developers, interconnection queues and capacity auctions all assume a unit leaves when the state and the RTO say it leaves. A federal override that can be renewed every 90 days turns that date into a guess, and a guess prices badly.
The ruling also names who owns reliability. Under this reading, a state commission and an RTO decide whether a retirement creates a shortfall. DOE gets a backstop for short, sharp events such as storms, war or the sudden loss of specific units.
DOE can still appeal to the Supreme Court, and the November 14 order stands in the meantime. Anyone modeling MISO or PJM capacity through 2027 should treat the six remaining orders as live until a court says otherwise.
Enforcement Reality
The cost figures depend on which filing you read, and they measure different things. Consumers told the SEC in a July 28 filing that the net cost of complying with the DOE emergency orders was 259 million dollars through June 30, after applying 239 million dollars of MISO revenue. The attorney general cites 295 million dollars in gross costs over roughly the same window. POWER Magazine, reading the same SEC filings, put the running cost at about 642,000 dollars per day.
Nobody has ordered a refund. Cost recovery runs through MISO and the state commissions, and vacating one order does not by itself claw back money already spent. Nessel argues the retirement plan the orders overrode was expected to save Michigan ratepayers nearly 600 million dollars.
The petitioners were not the utility. Earthjustice brought the suit for the Sierra Club and Urban Core Collective. Michigan’s attorney general argued for Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. NRDC, the Michigan Environmental Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Vote Solar, the Ecology Center and the Union of Concerned Scientists also joined.
Critical Perspective
The ruling is narrower than the headline. It vacated DOE’s first Campbell order. DOE’s sixth order still runs to November 14, 2026, and the plant burns coal tomorrow morning either way. A precedent that moves no megawatts for two months is a precedent, not a remedy.
Then there is the money, and nobody agrees on the number. Consumers reported 295 million dollars in gross costs to the attorney general, 259 million dollars net of 239 million dollars in MISO revenue to the SEC, and POWER Magazine read the same filings as roughly 642,000 dollars a day. Three figures, three scopes, and no refund mechanism in any of them. Vacating an expired order does not return a dollar, and the customers who paid have no docket of their own to appear in.
The reasoning also cuts both ways. The court says states, RTOs and load-serving entities own reliability planning on an ongoing basis. That is a clean rule while the forecasts hold. If a real shortfall shows up in MISO in 2027, those same states will want a fast federal backstop, and this opinion narrows the door they would knock on.
The reissue cadence survives untouched. Six other plants remain under DOE orders, every one renewed before it expired, and three more challenges are still pending at the D.C. Circuit. Nothing in this decision stops DOE from writing a seventh Campbell order on November 14 with a better evidentiary record. No one has asked a court to enjoin the practice itself, only the individual orders.
Sources
- Michigan Attorney General (2026-09-11)
- Utility Dive (2026-09-11)
- POWER Magazine (2026-09-11)
