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Ongoing delays and disruptions to a federal rural energy program threaten to disproportionately impact Midwest farmers and Republican congressional districts, experts say.
For more than two decades, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) has helped thousands of farmers install solar, energy-efficient grain dryers, biodigesters, wind turbines, and other cost-saving clean energy improvements.
Since 2014, Illinois has benefited more than any other state, with over $140 million in REAP grants, according to federal data obtained by the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center through a public records request.
Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio are also in the top 10 states receiving grants during that period. REAP proponents say the numbers show what’s at stake as the program faces chaos and uncertainty under the Trump administration.
“It’s popular with all different stripes — not just political stripes, any type of farmer,” said Lloyd Ritter, who helped draft the program as senior counsel for former Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “It could be poultry, corn, soybeans, wheat — everybody benefits because the program is so flexible and innovative, you can utilize the program for your type of needs in your area.”
Carmen Fernholz and his wife are among the success stories. The couple has run an organic farm in Minnesota for more than 50 years. Last summer Fernholz used a REAP grant to install a 40-kilowatt solar array. It powers everything on the farm from the electric lawnmower to the heating, and over the last year he’s earned an additional $600 a month on average by sending electricity on the grid back to his rural electric cooperative.
Since 2014, REAP has provided more than $1.2 billion for more than 13,000 solar projects, making up about 70% of the total REAP dollars. More than $292 million went to energy efficiency, including for windows, lighting, heating, and efficient grain driers. Millions more were awarded for biogas, biomass, biofuels, wind energy, hydroelectric power, and other projects.
This has created crucial energy savings and revenue for farmers, as well as important business for solar developers, energy-efficiency auditors, and various types of contractors. Farmers raising livestock and poultry and growing corn, soy, and other crops are the most common recipients of REAP, but funds have also gone to small rural businesses including distilleries, breweries, a car wash, a mental health clinic, a newspaper publisher, and a moving company.
More than 75% of the grants went to congressional districts represented by Republicans. Ritter noted that REAP was a deeply bipartisan effort from the start, led by both Harkin and former Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana.
“These are their voters,” Ritter said of Republican leaders. “The thing that is so great about REAP is it lowers energy costs and saves farmers money, which ties into the [Trump administration] agriculture secretary’s recent announcements about building rural prosperity and farm security.”
The program was turbocharged by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Under the federal Farm Bill, REAP grants covered up to 25% of a project’s costs. The IRA created an additional funding source and allowed grants to cover up to 50% of a project’s cost.
More than $1 billion in REAP grants have been promised (or “obligated”) under IRA in just the past two years, while since 2014, Farm Bill REAP grants have totaled $623 million.
More than 80% of the IRA REAP grants — totaling $818 million — were awarded to solar projects, more than 5,000 of them nationwide. Those arrays are expected to generate over 8,000 gigawatt-hours of clean energy annually, according to the federal data.
REAP grants are paid as reimbursement after a project is completed. About $770 million worth of IRA-funded REAP grants have not been paid out yet, according to the data. That’s not surprising given that projects may still be under construction, but after President Donald Trump froze IRA funds earlier this year, some farmers and clean energy advocates are worried about whether promised grants will be paid in full.
Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, has done extensive data analysis on REAP. Given the Trump administration’s hostility toward clean energy, he wonders what REAP will look like in the future.
“Will they support solar and wind projects?” Olsen asked. “This is a crew that likes refineries, likes ethanol, big centralized energy technologies. I could see them only making awards to biomass, ethanol, maybe some energy efficiency.”
In addition to grants, REAP provides loan guarantees for projects. That money does not go directly to the recipient, but the guarantee helps them secure private financing since the government promises to back up the loan if the recipient were to default. More than $3 billion worth of loan guarantees have been made under REAP since 2014, the data shows.
While the majority of REAP grants go to solar and energy efficiency, REAP has also obligated over $115 million to biogas, biofuel, and biomass projects; over $12 million to wind; and more than $8 million each to hydroelectric and geothermal projects.
Battery projects are also eligible for REAP, though only a few of those grants have been made thus far.
Fernholz, the farmer in Minnesota, hopes he can tap such a grant in the future. “The next step for people like myself should be looking at energy storage,” said Fernholz, who grew up on his parents’ farm as one of nine siblings.
He uses sustainable practices like conservation tillage and a tiling system to keep water from running off into nearby rivers. He also has 100 acres of native grassland and wetlands in a conservation reserve program. Solar is a major contribution to these efforts.
“When the REAP grant came through, that was a blessing, the frosting on the cake,” Fernholz said.
A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture policy document, which outlines a strategy to “Make Agriculture Great Again,” says that going forward, REAP will disincentivize solar on “productive farmland.” Ritter is worried that means few ground-mounted solar arrays will receive grants, though he imagines panels on barn and farmhouse rooftops will still be awarded.
“I can understand there are some concerns about the loss of farmland. It’s an emotional issue,” Ritter said. But he notes that housing development is the largest cause of farmland loss. Indeed, the American Farmland Trust reported in 2022 that between 2016 and 2040, the country is on track to convert over 12 million acres of farmland and ranchland to low-density residential development, like scattered houses and subdivisions with big lots. (Another roughly 6 million acres could be lost to higher-density residential development, commercial buildings, and industrial sites, the trust says.)
Ritter said installing solar can actually help prevent such conversions, by providing farmers revenue and energy savings that increase the financial viability of their farms. Meanwhile, agrivoltaic practices — like grazing livestock between rows of panels — mean solar and farming can coexist.
“There are a lot of great ways to do solar on prime farmland,” Ritter said. “You can build energy dominance and farm at the same time.”
Since 2009, Bill Jordan has helped close to 100 farmers write REAP grants to install solar with his company Jordan Energy in upstate New York.
“Electric bills are always in the top 10 expenses of running a farm business,” said Jordan. “Any business that’s going to run itself well will look at those costs. Behind-the-meter solar is a way of offsetting the cost of your own electricity, and it’s a wise diversification of farm revenue.”
Jordan said he has met “farmers who are milking 150 cows and making more money on the solar farm than on milk production. It’s also a diversification that the next generation gets. As farmers do family succession planning, the younger generation gets excited about solar.”
Jordan hopes solar funding under REAP doesn’t diminish because of partisan politics, emphasizing that it drives solar manufacturing and installation jobs along with helping farmers.
“These are good American jobs,” he said. “Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Creating energy independence is really what this is about.”
A home electrification and solar pilot program for lower-income Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard residents is cutting participants’ energy bills nearly 60% and is expected to inform Massachusetts’ ongoing efforts to bring renewable energy and energy efficiency to all households.
“What the commonwealth has to have available, if we’re going to even hope to achieve our climate goals, is that there have to be options for people at every income level,” said Maggie Downey, chief administrative officer of the Cape Light Compact, the organization that administered the pilot.
The program, known as the Cape and Vineyard Electrification Offering, gave solar panels to all 55 participating households and heat pumps to 45 of those, most at no cost and some with a low co-payment, depending on income levels. Twelve households also received batteries, and some got electric dryers and stoves, to transition the homes completely off fossil fuels. Installations began in January 2024, and the final one wrapped up in May 2025.
The results: The average household is saving some $150 per month on energy costs and reducing net electricity use by 59% by getting much of its needed power from the on-site solar panels, according to an analysis published by the consultancy Guidehouse at the end of last month. Perhaps unsurprisingly, participating residents are quite satisfied with these outcomes, giving the program an exceptionally good “net promoter score” of 71%.
“My costs are drastically lower,” said Judy Welch, a homeowner in the Cape Cod town of Chatham who was one of the first folks to sign on for the upgrades. “In the summer now, I don’t have any bills, and I have the air conditioning on the whole time.” Her winter energy bills have also dropped to nearly zero thanks to the solar-powered heat pumps; previously, Welch paid around $500 a month to run electric baseboard heating.
Massachusetts has long had strong incentives for renewable energy and been a leader in policies promoting energy efficiency. The state has had less success, however, in helping lower-income households realize the benefits of these measures. At the same time, Massachusetts residents — especially those who make less money — face some of the highest energy burdens in the country. On Cape Cod, households making less than one-third of the area median income spent an average of 27% of their income on energy as of 2023, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy. (An updated figure is unavailable because the federal tool that provided this data is no longer live.)
The Cape and Vineyard Electrification Offering was conceived of as a way to overcome the sometimes unmanageable up-front cost of efficiency and clean energy upgrades, and to amplify the impact of individual technologies by deploying them together. Solar panels would keep down the cost of operating heat pumps, and batteries would maximize the amount of zero-cost electricity available to each home.
“It’s all bundled for the participant in a way that makes sense and optimizes all these different systems and combines them through one program,” said Todd Olinsky-Paul, senior project director for the Clean Energy Group, a Vermont-based nonprofit that advocates for a just energy transition. “I haven’t seen that anywhere else.”
The pilot was designed and offered by the Cape Light Compact, a unique regional organization that negotiates electric supply prices and administers energy-efficiency programming for the 21 towns on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. The compact proposed versions of the pilot in 2018, 2020, and 2021, before the state gave it the go-ahead in 2023.
The version that was finally approved called for 100 homes to participate in the pilot. As the effort rolled out, however, planners realized how challenging it is to deploy a standard package to houses with a wide range of ages and conditions. In some cases, interested homeowners decided against participation when they realized they would have to pay more than they hoped or discovered their yards were too shaded to generate much solar power. Some who did participate needed mold remediation or roof replacements; others were unable to receive batteries because they didn’t have basements.
“There is really no single solution for these questions,” Downey said. “It is so site-specific and customer-specific.”
Ultimately, 55 homes enrolled, as the unanticipated roadblocks raised the expected cost of serving each participant. On average, the Cape Light Compact spent about $45,700 on each heat pump installation, $30,000 on each solar installation, and $33,000 on each battery system, according to preliminary calculations.
These figures raised some questions at a recent meeting of the compact’s governing board, at which the Guidehouse report was presented. Downey acknowledged the cost, but pointed out that the need to transition off fossil fuels is inevitable — and comes with a price tag.
“You cannot hide the expense of what we have in front of us to deal with,” she told the board.
The report offers suggestions for improving any future iterations of the initiative. Pilot participants were prohibited from enrolling their solar systems in the state’s net-metering offering, and therefore their compensation for excess energy sent back into the grid was between 5 cents and 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, rather than at least 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. The evaluation suggests that future programs should allow the use of net metering to improve financial benefits even further. The report also suggests improving coordination among the various installers involved to make the process run more smoothly for participants.
The Cape Light Compact will present the results at the August meeting of the state Energy-Efficiency Advisory Council, the group responsible for writing Massachusetts’ triennial energy-efficiency plan. From there, the council will decide how to use the information to guide future equity-focused electrification efforts and determine the appropriate amount of financial support for households at different income levels.
“The results show that there are savings, and that energy burdens are reduced by more than 50%, when you pair it all with solar,” Downey said. “If we want to have low- to moderate-income customers come with us, we need to have options — that’s all part of the conversation.”
Utility customers will pay the price — literally — if the Trump administration continues to unnecessarily force fossil-fueled power plants to stay open in the name of grid reliability, energy experts and regulators warn.
An April executive order from President Donald Trump tasks the Department of Energy with taking unilateral authority to obligate power plants to keep operating, even after utilities, states, and regional grid operators have spent years making sure they’re safe to close.
Last week, in response to the order, the DOE released a report that claims current power plant retirements and additions put the country at massive risk of blackouts by 2030. It calls for “decisive intervention” to prevent that outcome. The agency has already used emergency powers to halt the closure of the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan and the Eddystone oil- and gas-burning plant in Pennsylvania.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated in an opinion piece published by The Economist this week that the administration’s goal is “expanding our supply of reliable energy” and “delivering more secure energy to Americans more cheaply.”
But energy analysts say the report uses worst-case scenarios to reach its conclusions, mainly by ignoring the hundreds of gigawatts of new generation — almost all of it solar, batteries, and wind power — slated to come online in the near future. Meanwhile, state regulators and environmental and consumer groups have challenged the DOE’s stay-open orders, arguing it overstepped sound grid-planning policy and precedent to solve a grid “emergency” that it has manufactured.
Ordering aging fossil-fueled power plants to stay open would force utility customers to pay billions of dollars for some of the least efficient and least reliable power plants on the grid — not to mention those worst for the climate and the health of nearby communities.
Coal has shrunk from nearly half the country’s electricity generation in 2008 to only about 15% at the start of this year, a trend driven primarily by competition from cheaper fossil gas and renewables. A June report from think tank Energy Innovation found that coal power was 28% more expensive in 2024 than in 2021, meaning consumers spent about $6.2 billion more last year than they would have for the same amount of electricity three years prior.
It’s difficult to predict how much more expensive power could get if the DOE forces additional fossil-fueled plants to stay open. But Gabriella Tosado, a senior associate on RMI’s carbon-free electricity team, offered an estimate using the think tank’s modeling for states where data is available.
RMI ran a “100% self-commitment” analysis to calculate the increase in customer costs that would come from running all coal plants at “maximum availability” throughout the year, using 2024 data. “Nationally, running coal plants more often last year would have increased customer costs by $15 billion,” or a roughly 3% increase in total annual U.S. power-sector costs, she said.
“If operators of coal plants could make more money by running coal plants more often, they would,” she said. “Running them more will only distort market prices and drive up costs for families and small businesses.”
Alison Silverstein, an energy analyst and former adviser to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, agreed. “If even an investor-owned utility wants to retire an old fossil plant, that’s telling you it’s extraordinarily expensive and highly unreliable, and they don’t think their regulators are going to give them enough money to keep the plant open,” she said.
Indeed, many U.S. utilities are operating coal plants that can’t compete on cost with gas-fueled facilities and renewables. This practice, known as “uneconomic dispatch,” allows utilities to continue to collect the costs of fuel and operations from customers to pay off their investment in the power plant, but increases the amount that customers pay for power, according to multiple studies over the past decade.
All told, think tank RMI estimates that this kind of “uneconomic dispatch” of coal plants has already put U.S. electricity consumers on the hook for $24 billion in excess expenditures from 2015 to 2024. For utility customers nationwide, including those served by utilities with little or no coal-fired power, that averages out to $9 per year. But for customers of utilities that own the most expensive-to-run coal plants, the added charge is as high as $200 a year.
Making more aging fossil-fueled power plants stay open would only further inflate these costs borne by utility customers, at a time when energy prices are already slated to soar due to Trump administration policies.
It’s especially costly to utility customers when long-running plans to close down a power plant are abruptly reversed. That’s exactly what’s happened with the J.H. Campbell plant, one of the two facilities the Trump administration has ordered to stay open in recent months.
In its case, the additional expenses associated with the sudden reversal may range from tens of millions of dollars to “close to $100 million,” said Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in the state. That’s in addition to whatever costs come from operating the plant down the line.
The DOE’s order to keep the plant running through August came eight days before its scheduled May 31 retirement under a plan that has been in the works since 2021, Scripps explained. The utility that owns J.H. Campbell, Consumers Energy, had “exhausted their supplies of coal and other things required to run a coal plant,” he said, meaning it had to pay more expensive spot-market prices to secure them at such short notice. The utility also had to “scramble to make sure the plant was staffed,” since many employees had already been assigned to other jobs or planned to retire.
Consumers Energy might have to go through this disruptive process all over again when the initial stay-open order expires next month. Under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, the DOE can only force plants to keep running under emergency circumstances for 90 days at a time, but it’s allowed to issue more such orders with no advance warning.
“I think the sense was we could get through the summer, but if we were going to do this on 90-day cycles, at some point you have to do the repairs necessary to keep this plant — or any plant — in good working condition,” Scripps said. “With a known retirement date for the past three years, a lot of that work hasn’t happened.”
Continuing to run J.H. Campbell also undermines plans to build the new generation that makes it safe to close old power plants. To enable the shutdown of J.H. Campbell, Consumers Energy bought a 1.2-gigawatt gas-fired power plant and continued to build and contract for utility-scale solar power and battery storage.
All of these decisions were made under the longstanding regulatory compact that puts grid-reliability planning and utility regulation in the hands of states and regional operators. Those processes are “driven by data, driven by best practices, and subjected to robust scrutiny from states and other market participants,” Scripps said. For the DOE to overrule all of that work “is what’s most concerning to states.”
Cost anxieties aside, critics of the DOE’s actions insist its interventions are unnecessary because current grid-planning methods already ensure power plants won’t close if doing so will unduly increase the risk of outages. Regional grid operators have in recent years used their existing authority to delay power plant closures to maintain reliability. Utilities have also punted on or withdrawn plans to retire coal plants in the face of booming electricity demand from data centers, factories, and electric vehicles.
The DOE’s report last week doesn’t specify what actions the agency plans to take to deal with grid reliability. But Trump’s April executive order, titled “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” calls on the agency to create a “protocol to identify which generation resources within a region are critical to system reliability,” and to use “all mechanisms available under applicable law,” including its Section 202(c) authority, to prevent any“critical” generator from closing.
“The question on everyone’s mind is, ‘Is this a one-off? Or is there something more sweeping that will come out of that review?’” Scripps said. “I think we’re still waiting on that.”
In the meantime, 108 power plants remain set to close by the end of Trump’s term, including 25 coal plants, according to a June analysis by The New York Times. It’s unclear if the DOE intends to permit those closures to move ahead.
“I’ve heard that from some of my colleagues from across the region, that when looking at plant retirements, if there’s a sense that DOE would force you to run it anyway, maybe you hold off,” Scripps said. “That’s the wrong way to do grid planning. But you don’t want your customers paying more than they should.”
An enormous array of over 750,000 solar panels blankets the prairie landscape in Pueblo, Colorado, providing clean energy to one of the largest electricity-based steel mills in the country.
The Rocky Mountain Steel mill, which opened in 1881, today uses electricity instead of coal to produce steel rails and pipes. In late 2021, it became the first and largest solar-powered steel plant in the United States — and possibly the world — when electricity began flowing from the 300-megawatt Bighorn Solar project next door, supplying roughly 90% of the power used by the facility’s electric arc furnace.
The storied steel mill recently marked a different kind of milestone. Atlas Holdings, a private-equity firm in Connecticut, said last month that it plans to acquire Evraz North America, which owns the facility in Pueblo as well as steelmaking operations in Portland, Oregon, and Western Canada. The sale is expected to close later this year.
“This [is] a major investment in creating a more vibrant domestic steel production industry right here in the United States and Canada,” Sam Astor, a partner at Atlas, said in a June 27 news release.
The deal, which could reach up to $500 million, arrives at a complex moment for U.S. steelmakers working to decarbonize their facilities.
Recent U.S. efforts to build cutting-edge, low-emissions ironmaking facilities that use green hydrogen — made with renewable power — have all but vanished due to challenging economics and shifting political tides. Building large clean-energy projects like Bighorn Solar to power industrial sites just got much harder to do under the megabill that President Donald Trump signed into law this month, which slashes incentives for and imposes restrictions on wind and solar.
At the same time, the nation’s steel industry is slowly getting cleaner as manufacturers invest in new capacity that relies on electricity and fossil gas, not coal. And Rocky Mountain Steel is no longer the country’s only solar-powered steel plant. U.S. Steel’s Big River Steel mill in Arkansas draws from the 250-MW Driver Solar project, while steelmaker Nucor Corp. has a deal to buy 250 MW of power from the Sebree Solar farm under construction in Kentucky.
Steel is an essential material used to make everything from railroads, bridges, and buildings to solar-panel racks, electric vehicles, and grid components. Producing the high-strength metal is currently an extremely dirty business, responsible for as much as 9% of global carbon dioxide emissions and a significant amount of harmful local air pollution.
That’s because most steel production globally involves burning copious amounts of coal in a blast furnace to turn raw iron ore into iron; the iron is then made into steel in a separate furnace. The United States still operates a dozen blast furnaces, which account for roughly 30% of the country’s annual steel production.
The remaining 70% of U.S. steel output comes from electric arc furnaces, including the hulking unit at Rocky Mountain Steel’s facility, which is capable of producing 1.1 million tons of steel per year. These power-hungry furnaces turn scrap metal into a glowing orange liquid that is then transformed into recycled steel parts.
Producing steel this way can curb CO2 emissions by up to 75% compared to traditional coal-based methods, according to industry research. However, the carbon intensity of steel made in an electric arc furnace depends on the electricity used — and most of the 100-plus such facilities operating in the U.S. rely primarily on coal- and gas-fired electric grids.
Until a few years ago, Rocky Mountain Steel got its power from Xcel Energy’s coal-fired power plant in Pueblo.
Lightsource bp financed, owns, and operates the neighboring $285 million Bighorn Solar project. The developer sells the electricity it generates to Xcel under a 20-year power purchase agreement; the utility then provides power to Evraz North America for the steel mill. When the 1,800-acre solar array came online in late 2021, Bighorn became the nation’s largest on-site solar facility dedicated to a single customer.
“This project proves that even hard-to-abate sectors like steel can be decarbonized when companies come together with innovative solutions,” Kevin Smith, who was then the CEO of Lightsource bp, Americas, said in an October 2021 press release. The fixed-rate power agreement gives the mill’s owner “the low, predictable electricity prices it needs to stay in Pueblo and invest in its future there, keeping more than 1,000 jobs in the local community,” according to the release.
Evraz North America first announced plans to sell its assets in August 2022 after its parent company, Evraz plc, was sanctioned by the British government following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Evraz plc is part-owned by a Russian oligarch.
Atlas Holdings, the firm acquiring Evraz North America, didn’t immediately return questions this week about whether the sale would affect the solar-power agreement in Pueblo. However, Atlas noted in its June 27 news release that the “Pueblo steel mill stands as a remarkable testament to commitment to sustainability” owing to the solar project.
A contested solar agrivoltaics project avoided having its permit denied by Ohio regulators, likely thanks to the neutral stances of a county board and one of its townships.
The Ohio Power Siting Board approved construction of the 120-megawatt Frasier Solar project late last month despite local groups’ organizing efforts, which led the other township within the project’s 840-acre footprint and a neighboring township to pass anti-solar resolutions. The power siting board has found that unanimous local government opposition was reason enough to decide other solar projects did not meet a public interest requirement under state law. One of those cases is before the Ohio Supreme Court.
In the Frasier case, however, local governing bodies for Knox County and Clinton Township stayed neutral. Knox County voted unanimously in 2023 to accept a payment arrangement instead of property taxes, which will add more than $40 million for local governments over the project’s 40-year useful life, but it took a neutral position on the project itself.
About six months after an evidentiary hearing — basically an administrative trial — on Frasier Solar, Knox County restricted new solar projects within most of its boundaries. However, legal counsel for the Ohio Ethics Commission found that a conflict of interest prevented Drenda Keesee, a newly elected Knox County commissioner, from taking official action against Frasier Solar because she owned property next to the project site. Another county commissioner served as an ad hoc power siting board member for the Frasier decision, so he could not take a position before hearing the case. He wound up voting with the board’s majority to grant the permit.
Prior to the administrative trial, Clinton Township’s board had clarified that despite an anti-solar position for future projects, it was officially neutral on Frasier Solar.
“We had a very small dog in the fight,” Clinton Township Trustee Jay Maners told Canary Media, noting that most of the project will be in Miller Township. He recalled that there was sparse attendance at early trustee meetings when the project was discussed, with most in favor of it. Then “everything exploded” with people suddenly voicing opposition, he said.
“There was a lot of misinformation,” Maners said, such as solar opponents falsely claiming tax dollars would pay for the project, and solar proponents warning about rising energy prices.
The Ohio Power Siting Board’s June 26 ruling discussed Clinton Township’s neutral stance on Frasier Solar, as well as that of Knox County, to stress that local government opposition was not unanimous. The board found that the project was in the public interest and approved the permit.
Supporters are celebrating the win for Frasier Solar but worry about how much the power siting board focused on whether local government opposition was unanimous. That leaves solar energy vulnerable to a standard that depends on potentially arbitrary local government rulings, rather than regulatory experts’ judgment of projects’ merits.
Frasier Solar is exempt from parts of Senate Bill 52, a 2021 law that lets counties block large solar and wind projects before they get to the power siting board. Yet its developer, Open Road Renewables, faced substantial local opposition and misinformation, much of which was stoked by a dark money group with multiple connections to fossil fuel interests and the anti-solar speakers it brought in. Opponents also went to local township meetings to push for anti-solar resolutions.
The staunch local opposition and involvement of fossil fuel interests fit a pattern playing out across the country. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University last month reported a 32% jump in the number of contested projects for 2024 compared with 2023.
Only within the past few years have state regulators used unanimous local government opposition as a reason to kill proposed solar projects. Those projects, like Frasier, were otherwise exempt from parts of the 2021 law. But Ohio regulations don’t contain such a rule. Another part of Ohio law appears to say that local government consent isn’t a condition for siting decisions.
“I’m certainly happy to see this project move forward, and it had every reason to move forward,” said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Yet he questioned what the role of the power siting board is if it lets unanimous local opposition control whether projects go ahead.
“They’ve got the goal post cemented in, and it’s in the wrong location,” Sawmiller said. As he sees it, the board and its staff have a responsibility to use their expertise to make decisions in the public interest for the whole state.
It’s also hard to fact-check local government resolutions, said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a Cleveland State University law professor who testified as an expert witness for the Ohio Environmental Council. Those decisions could be based on misinformation or simply be a response to political pressure, with little focus on the factual basis for objections.
Frasier Solar became “known nationally as part of a case study on how the fossil fuel industry stokes opposition to renewable energy projects,” said Dave Anderson, policy and communications director for the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group on utility and fossil fuel influence.
Testimony at the administrative trial revealed that an anti-solar group called Knox Smart Development had big financial backing by Tom Rastin, who has been a leader of the Empowerment Alliance, an anonymously funded group that promotes the natural gas industry. Rastin is a former vice president of Ariel Corp., which makes equipment for the oil and gas industry.
Anti-solar media flourished throughout the area during the permitting process too. An eight-page Ohio Energy Reporter sent by bulk mail consisted mostly of anti-solar advertorials. Anti-solar stories and ads also ran in outlets such as the Mount Vernon News, which ProPublica described as a conservative “pink slime” publication.
Evidence introduced by the developer last summer characterized some of the opposition’s publicity as “misinformation campaigns,” which the power siting board noted in its opinion.
Nonetheless, the project had an “encouraging level of support, both locally and from across the state,” said Craig Adair, vice president for development at Open Road Renewables. About 40% of those who spoke at local public hearings or filed comments favored the project.
More significantly, the siting board considered the merits of comments, not just the total numbers. In doing so, the board focused on Robertson’s testimony, which found that half of opponents’ unique arguments at local hearings were factually inaccurate or unsupported by evidence. About a third were already addressed by permit conditions, and nearly one-tenth were just subjective opinions, she also found.
“The happy news is that the siting board and the staff weren’t snowed by the number of opposing comments,” Robertson told Canary Media. “We really were able to take the wind out of their sails on the vast majority of the negative comments.” A similar analysis may help in future cases, she suggested. “We can’t let truth and facts disappear. We have to keep pushing what is real.”
The board’s ruling also noted evidence provided by chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers about jobs and other positive economic benefits. Additional experts for the Ohio Environmental Council described how the solar farm and revenue from it could help local governments deal with climate change impacts.
“Given the risks Ohio faces from climate change, the board’s review of any application is incomplete without considering impacts,” said Karin Nordstrom, one of the Ohio Environmental Council’s lawyers in the case.
Adair welcomed the other parties’ supporting evidence and said he hopes to see the same level of scrutiny in future cases. “As long as the board continues to review projects on their merits and not fall prey to the misinformation, it’s encouraging,” he said.
Still, solar and wind projects continue to face hurdles under state law that don’t apply to fossil fuels. While counties now have the power to block most large solar and wind projects, local governments can’t even enforce zoning restrictions against oil and gas development.
“A lot of businesses are going to say, ‘I’ll take my investment elsewhere,’” Adair said. And while some projects like Frasier may get approval, the combination of SB 52 and other deference to local governments “is going to leave you vulnerable to getting the supply that you need on the grid,” he added.
As the Trump administration doubles down on fossil fuels, the rest of the world is investing more and more in clean energy.
This year, $2.2 trillion will be invested in clean energy, efficiency, and electrification globally, according to the International Energy Agency — double the $1.1 trillion that will flow toward fossil fuels.
It’s a remarkable change from a decade ago. Back in 2015, fossil fuels still attracted more money than clean energy. In 2016, perhaps galvanized by the Paris Agreement signed the very same year, investors channeled more funding toward clean energy than toward fossil fuels.
Investors haven’t looked back since — and all forms of clean energy have taken off as a result, led by China, the world’s most prominent “electrostate.” Over the last decade, wind and solar have grown from making up just over 4% of global electricity production to accounting for 15% as of last year. Solar in particular has increased eightfold over that time; no energy category will attract more money than photovoltaics this year, per IEA.
This widening gap suggests some progress in the global effort to move away from fossil fuels. Investment is a leading indicator of actual, physical things — new solar plants, wind turbines, power lines, and more — being built. The trillions invested in this year, last year, and so on, will translate to record-breaking amounts of clean-energy installations in the years to come.
But despite the promise, IEA says current investment levels are not enough to meet global pledges made in late 2023 to boost renewables and energy efficiency. Investment in renewables needs to double. Energy efficiency, a sector experts have long viewed as underfunded, needs investment to almost triple. So does electrification.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel investment has remained stubbornly high even as it loses ground to clean energy. Only in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, did the world spend less than $1 trillion on coal, gas, and oil.
That mirrors a concerning trend within the global power sector: Renewables are growing at a record-breaking pace, faster than many thought possible, and yet emissions are still rising as countries simply use more electricity, burning more fossil fuels as a result. This dynamic will not solve climate change. In order for the world to decarbonize, investment in clean energy needs to be high enough for it to displace — and drive down — fossil-fuel use.
ENFIELD, N.C. — On a sweltering Saturday last month, climate activists, local elected leaders, and their families and friends gathered around a boarded-up home on the main strip of Enfield, North Carolina, donning sun hats and wielding garden tools.
To a hip-hop soundtrack blasting loud enough that the entire town of 2,000 could probably hear, the crew labored in the 90-degree heat to plant perennials, lay patio stones, and generally pretty-up the small yard in front of the nearly 1,800-square-foot bungalow.
“We are in beautification mode outside,” said Enfield Mayor Mondale Robinson, “because inside we’re at a standstill for the lack of funds right now.”
The century-old home will ultimately serve as a “weatherization hub” for Enfield, where many households hover near the poverty line but electricity bills regularly top $400. Powered by solar panels and a backup battery, the hub will host do-it-yourself energy-efficiency workshops and provide a stable internet connection for remote workers, Robinson said.
The hub is just one piece of a multifaceted clean energy vision charted by Robinson, together with other town leaders and climate nonprofits. Still recovering from a debilitating car accident from May, the wheelchair-bound mayor served as DJ, grounds supervisor, and occasional worker — to the certain chagrin of his doctor.
The scene was a fitting metaphor for where Robinson and his colleagues find themselves at the moment: hobbled by the ferocity with which the federal government has targeted clean energy and equity initiatives, but determined to press on no matter what.
“So, we stand in this heat,” Robinson said, “the same heat my grandfather and his grandfather labored in for free for somebody else. We do it for free right now, but not for somebody else — for what’s to come. It’s folk out there that don’t know that this building is for them. In spite of our federal government, in spite of, sometimes, our state government, we still stand up. We still try.”
The event last month was also about community. Climate leaders who’d worked together for years and others who’d just met took breaks in the shade to connect and reconnect.
“It’s all about people,” said Helen Whiteley, an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Design Climate program who is supporting the town in its clean energy ambitions. “When you find people who believe things that are similar, you hold onto them and try to collaborate with them.”
One of the poorest and Blackest towns in America, Enfield could have a bright future, leaders here believe: The Halifax County community could supply its own solar power, upgrade its housing stock to be more energy efficient, and create gathering places powered by clean energy.
But when Robinson and his allies were first laying their plans, the prospects for assistance from the federal government were far rosier than they are today.
The bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act — both signed into law by former President Joe Biden — promised aid for clean energy and for historically disadvantaged communities.
Federal programs spurred by these laws could have potentially funded a replacement of the town’s dilapidated and outdated grid. Tax credits might have offset at least 40% of the cost of a new solar farm and battery that would supply electricity to businesses and residences, stabilizing household electric bills. A planned resilience center on the town’s fairground, intended as a gathering place during weather disasters and as an incubator for sustainable businesses, could have also benefited.
But in six short months, President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have shut down or imperiled many of these initiatives. The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, an initiative established by the 2021 infrastructure law that Enfield hoped to tap for funding, is kaput for the time being.
“That was the best one,” Nick Jimenez, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said with a sigh. “That could have done the grid plus solar.”
After Trump signed the budget bill into law July 4 and issued a subsequent executive order July 7, tax incentives are now sharply curtailed. Credits for home rooftop solar and energy-efficiency upgrades will dry up at year’s end.
“A fair number of our colleagues in Washington see just ink on paper,” said Rep. Rodney Pierce, a Democrat who represents Halifax County in the North Carolina House. “It’s not just letters and numbers. These are people. These are families, communities. It’s disappointing,” he said at the gathering last month.
At the same time, Pierce acknowledged, skepticism about clean energy has grown among state politicians. A bill to ratchet down local tax incentives for solar farms has cleared two committees in the state House. Another measure would eliminate an interim target for utility Duke Energy to curb its carbon emissions, removing a key driver for clean energy. The GOP-run General Assembly could yet enact the legislation, Senate Bill 266, by overriding the veto of Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat.
Both Black men in their mid-40s, Pierce and Robinson attended rival public high schools in the county, the state legislator said. Both are quick to link the quest for clean energy to the ongoing struggle for civil rights and economic justice.
“Those of us who grew up in persistently impoverished counties like Halifax — we can ill afford to be reticent to encouraging and exploring other sources of energy,” said Pierce, who voted against SB 266. “That’s why I’m out here. I count Mayor Robinson as a friend.”
To be sure, some remnants of Biden-era climate funding have slipped through the grasp of Trump and his allies in the GOP.
A multimillion-dollar grant for grid improvements deployed to the state thanks to the infrastructure law could yet help Enfield upgrade its aging substation and low-capacity power lines. “That hasn’t been targeted yet,” Jimenez said of the program.
Funding for EnergizeNC, meant to help develop rooftop and community solar in low-income areas like Enfield, is also intact. So are rebates designed to help households buy more efficient appliances and perform other upgrades to save energy. Indeed, because of its atrocious energy burden, Halifax County was among the first two counties to access the Energy Saver North Carolina program when it launched early this year.
That’s why Enfield leaders and their allies are focused on affordable, energy-efficient housing and the weatherization hub, for now.
“This was always going to be about what we could get from philanthropy and what the mayor could marshal up from his resources,” said William Munn, regional director of the Carolinas for advocacy group Vote Solar. “We think now, given the federal situation, this is probably the most likely thing we can get done as quickly as possible.”
Robinson bought the home on South McDaniel Street earlier this year for $32,500. For another $100,000 or so, Munn believes it can be upfitted and ready to serve.
“The sooner the money comes in, the faster it gets done,” he said. “We believe this is a small enough project that, once this is done, we can market it and keep pitching it. We want to send the message that this is just the beginning.”
Robinson has high hopes for the hub’s completion. “We’re at a point now where we need people to start seeing that this thing is not 12 years away, two years away, or even a year away,” he said. “With a little investment, this thing could be done by the end of the summer.”
It’s been a bad week for the U.S. energy transition.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans effectively repealed large swaths of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act last Friday, a move that will set back the nation’s efforts to decarbonize just as they were gaining steam.
But the United States is not the only country in the world. It’s one of the biggest emitters, true, but it’s responsible for only about 13% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
And luckily, even as Trump hitches the U.S. to fossil fuels, the world is continuing to move quickly toward cleaner sources. Let’s take a tour of some global energy-transition bright spots.
In China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, wind and solar capacity overtook coal and gas in the first quarter of 2025 — a first, according to a Global Energy Monitor report released this week. The country is still building and using immense amounts of fossil fuels, but reports suggest its emissions may finally be in reverse.
In the European Union, solar was the largest source of electricity across all of June. It’s the first time solar has led the pack for an entire month in the EU, according to a new Ember report, producing 22% of the region’s electricity. Meanwhile, coal fell to its lowest-ever level, a reflection of the region’s push to eliminate the dirty fuel: Ireland shuttered its last coal plant in late June, becoming Europe’s 15th coal-free country. Italy and Spain are slated to close their last major coal plants this summer, too.
Across the entire world, $2 is now invested in clean energy, efficiency, and the grid for every $1 invested in fossil fuels. That’s serious progress, and a big reason why clean energy is growing so rapidly worldwide. Last year, more than 90% of the new electricity built globally was clean energy. Meanwhile, EV adoption is set to leap 25% this year, compared with 2024, setting yet another record even amid headwinds in the U.S., according to BloombergNEF. More than one-quarter of new passenger vehicles sold worldwide will be battery-powered.
To be clear, the trajectory the world is on right now is not fast enough to meet global climate commitments. All of the progress mentioned above needs to accelerate further — and the U.S. resisting the energy transition is a big deal. But with or without the U.S., the global energy transition is happening, and a future that’s powered by solar, wind, batteries, nuclear, and other forms of carbon-free power is on the way.
Megabill fallout
One week ago today, Trump signed the GOP megabill into law and changed the trajectory of the U.S. energy transition with the stroke of a pen.
The law made deep cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act, the national climate law passed by the Biden administration in 2022. As a result, the U.S. is now expected to install clean energy at a slower pace, sell fewer EVs, and emit a lot more carbon dioxide in the coming years. Oh, and energy prices are going to rise, too. If you’re looking for a piece to share widely that covers the basics, try this one I published on Monday.
Every sector faces slightly different challenges from the law. Even geothermal energy, a favored clean energy source among Republicans, faces a rocky road, Canary’s Maria Gallucci reported this week. The law could have been worse for solar and wind — but it will still pose big challenges, Jeff St. John reports. It could even prevent some fully permitted offshore wind projects from moving forward, Clare Fieseler writes.
Trump’s pro-coal push faces challenges
A month and a half ago, the Department of Energy ordered two fossil-fueled plants that were on the brink of shutting down to stay open. It might have been an opening salvo in a major effort from the Trump administration to keep aging, dirty coal plants open past their planned close dates, Jeff St. John reported this week.
The move comes as the Trump administration, and in particular DOE Secretary Chris Wright, frequently refers to renewable energy as unreliable and calls for more fossil-fuel use instead. A new DOE report furthers that line of argument, though it has been criticized as relying on flawed assumptions. Meanwhile, examples pop up near-weekly of how clean energy actually helps the grid. During a heat wave in late June, for instance, solar and batteries helped save New England from potential blackouts, Sarah Shemkus reports for Canary Media.
Now, state regulators and environmental and consumer groups are challenging the legality of Trump’s pro-coal intervention, arguing that the grid can be safely run without it.
More reliable in Texas: Texas has dramatically increased its grid reliability and maintained affordable electricity prices as it’s integrated more solar, batteries, and wind, undermining Trump’s repeated claims that renewables make the grid unstable. (Reuters)
Rooftop regression: Rooftop solar installations are set to plummet following the GOP megabill’s repeal of a longstanding federal incentive, with analysts estimating between 40% and 85% less demand over the next decade. (Washington Post)
Ford-ging ahead: Ford says last-minute changes to Republicans’ big budget bill saved tax credits that it’s counting on as it builds a $3 billion Michigan battery factory. (New York Times)
Salt in the wound: President Trump directs the Treasury Department to strictly curtail which projects can access wind and solar tax credits before they are phased out in 2028 under the new Republican budget bill. (The Hill)
Permission denied: About one in five counties across the U.S. have passed laws to restrict or outright ban construction of new solar and wind farms, and are curtailing battery storage facilities too. (Heatmap)
A tough turn for tribes: Tribal leaders say the new federal tax and spending law will cause widespread clean-energy job losses in their communities and jeopardize climate projects. (Grist)
Drilling declines: A Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas survey shows regional oil and gas production declined in the second quarter of 2025 amid global unrest and Trump administration trade policies, and many operators say they now plan to drill fewer wells than they predicted this year. (Axios)
Heat pumps are cool: If you’re thinking about getting central air conditioning at your house — or replacing your existing system — have you considered a heat pump instead? (Canary Media)
Time to go car shopping: And if you’re contemplating getting an electric vehicle anytime soon, here’s some advice: Do it before the end of September, when the federal tax credit now sunsets under the GOP law. (Canary Media)
Have you been thinking about getting an electric vehicle? It may be time to put your foot on the accelerator.
On July 4, President Donald Trump signed the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — and thus hastened the expiration date for tax credits that knock thousands of dollars off the price of an EV.
Under former President Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, these incentives would have lasted another seven years. They’ll now sunset in just a few months, on Sept. 30.
That leaves a small window of opportunity for shoppers willing to move fast.
“There are just so many benefits to driving an EV, and we encourage people to take advantage of the tax credits while they’re here,” said Ingrid Malmgren, senior policy director at the nonprofit EV advocacy organization Plug In America.
Getting an EV is one of the best ways to reduce your planet-warming pollution — on par with or better than replacing your fossil-fueled heating with a heat pump. And though they tend to cost more up front than cars that guzzle gasoline, EVs have many advantages. For starters, they provide a smoother, quieter driving experience. They also eliminate trips to the gas station and cost less to operate and maintain, pointed out Sara Baldwin, senior director of the electrification policy team at think tank Energy Innovation. A 2023 analysis by the nonpartisan group found that in every state, it’s cheaper to charge all EV models than to fill up their gas-powered counterparts.
Here’s a rundown of the incentives that are available until the end of September:
The New Clean Vehicle Credit (30D) can get you $7,500 off your federal tax bill for a brand-new, qualifying EV model that meets strict requirements around where it’s assembled and where the battery bits come from, for example. Fueleconomy.gov has a list, and dealers should be able to flag eligible vehicles. In addition, your household must earn less than $300,000 for married couples filing jointly, or $150,000 for single filers. You can get the discount right when you make your purchase.
The Used Clean Vehicle Credit (25E) can lop up to $4,000 off your federal tax bill for qualifying pre-owned EVs. The income thresholds are half of those for 30D: $150,000 for married couples filing jointly and $75,000 for single filers. You can get the discount at the point of sale.
The Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit (45W) of up to $7,500 can’t be claimed by consumers, but it benefits them anyway. Auto dealers can take the federal tax credit themselves, passing on the savings to leasing customers. Also affectionately dubbed the EV “leasing loophole,” the credit can be used for vehicles that don’t meet the stringent requirements to claim 30D.
Plus, there’s one more relevant credit that has a slightly longer lead time:
The Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit (30C) provides up to $1,000 off your federal tax bill to install qualified EV charging equipment if you live in an eligible area. This credit doesn’t expire until June 30, 2026.
“The tax credits have been really powerful at helping to drive EV adoption and to make EVs more accessible to lower- and moderate-income families,” Malmgren said.
Once they’re gone, experts are expecting the growth of the EV market to slow — but not stop — under the Trump administration.
The loss of the tax credits is compounded by other headwinds from the federal government, which has imposed ever-shifting tariffs, frozen funding to build out a network of EV chargers, and revoked California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards. Before Congress stripped California of that autonomy, BloombergNEF had forecast that EVs would make up just 27% of car sales in the U.S. in 2030, down from last year’s prediction of 48%. Now, the research firm expects EV sales to fall even lower.
For the next two-and-a-half months that the federal incentives are intact, automakers and dealers could drop prices to try to move their inventory more aggressively, said Loren McDonald, chief analyst at EV and charging data firm Paren.
Fueled by the tax credits, the EV market has already had a steady drumbeat of some “amazingly low lease prices,” Malmgren noted. For example, in July, the 2024 Fiat 500e and the 2025 Toyota bZ4X, an all-electric SUV, are both on offer for $179 per month, InsideEVs reports.
Customers could see more deals like these if sellers anticipate a slump in consumer interest once the tax credits expire. However, discount offers are likely to be patchy, with the most popular models maintaining higher price points if demand for them outstrips supply, McDonald said.
In the used-EV sector, the $4,000 credit can make an especially big difference; some used EVs are priced as low as $15,000 or $20,000 to begin with.
“The used EV market is quietly on fire,” said Liz Najman, director of market insights at Recurrent, a company that aggregates data on battery health from tens of thousands of EVs across the United States. Used EVs are selling faster than at any point since COVID, she added.
Check out Recurrent’s guide to shopping for used EVs and Plug In America’s PlugStar.com, a brand-neutral resource to help people find the vehicle that’s right for them. Type in your ZIP code, and the site shows you local EV incentives.
Have specific features you want in your vehicle? Find a match for your needs — including range, seating, four-wheel-drive, and more — with Plug In America’s virtual shopping assistant. The tool can connect you to dealers registered with the IRS to provide federal EV tax credits.
“Given all the changes going on, try to find a dealer that offers the point-of-sale rebate,” Najman said, so you don’t have to worry about claiming it yourself next tax season. “Work with a dealer who has IRS credentials, who can show you on the spot that they’re logging in and the car is qualified.”
If you run into trouble in your EV search, you can reach out to Plug In America; the nonprofit offers free one-on-one support for prospective and current EV drivers.
And don’t forget to land on your charging strategy — at home, work, or a public station. If you decide to get a charger, install it before you bring your EV home for ultimate convenience.
“The clock is now ticking on the federal tax incentives for new, used, and leased EVs,” Najman said. “The sooner you start looking, the better.”
In late spring, the Department of Energy ordered two aging and costly fossil-fueled power plants that were on the verge of shutting down to stay open. The agency claimed that the moves were necessary to prevent the power grid from collapsing — and that it has the power to force the plants to stay open even if the utilities, state regulators, and grid operators managing them say that no such emergency exists.
More of these orders could be on the way. The DOE published a report this week, in response to one of the “Beautiful Clean Coal” executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in April, that lays out the case for Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former gas industry executive who has denied there is a climate change crisis, to demand that more fossil-fueled plants remain open past their scheduled closures.
But state regulators, regional grid operators, environmental groups, and consumer groups are pushing back on the notion that the grids in question even need these interventions — and are challenging the legality of the DOE’s stay-open orders.
Last month, state utility regulators and environmental groups filed rehearing requests with the DOE, demanding that it reconsider emergency orders to force the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan and the Eddystone oil and gas-burning plant in Pennsylvania to stay open through the summer.
The DOE claimed that the threat of large-scale grid blackouts forced its hand. But state utility regulators, environmental groups, consumer advocates, and energy experts say that careful analysis from the plant’s owners, state regulators, regional grid operators, and grid reliability experts had determined both plants could be safely closed.
These groups argue that clean energy, not fossil fuels, are the true solution to the country’s grid challenges — even if the “big, beautiful” bill signed by Trump last week will make those resources more expensive to build. Some of the environmental organizations challenging DOE’s orders have pledged to take their case to federal court if necessary.
“We need to get more electrons on the grid. We need those to be clean, reliable, and affordable,” said Robert Routh, Pennsylvania climate and energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups demanding that DOE reconsider its orders. Keeping J.H. Campbell and Eddystone open “results in the exact opposite. It’s costly, harmful, unnecessary, and unlawful.”
The groups challenging the DOE’s J.H. Campbell and Eddystone stay-open orders point out that the agency is using a power originally designed to protect the grid against unanticipated emergencies, including during wartime, but without proving that such an emergency is underway.
“This authority that the Department of Energy is acting under — Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act — is a very tailored emergency authority,” said Caroline Reiser, NRDC senior attorney for climate and energy. “Congress intentionally wrote it only to be usable in specific, narrow, short-term emergencies. This is not that.”
For decades, the DOE has used its Section 202(c) power sparingly, and only in response to requests from utilities or grid operators to waive federal air pollution regulations or other requirements in moments when the grid faces imminent threats like widespread power outages, Reiser said.
But the DOE’s orders for Eddystone and J.H. Campbell were not spurred by requests from state regulators or regional grid operators. In fact, the orders caught those parties by surprise.
They also came mere days before the plants were set to close down and after years of effort to ensure their closure wouldn’t threaten grid reliability. J.H. Campbell was scheduled to close in May under a plan that has been in the works since 2021 as part of a broader agreement between utility Consumers Energy and state regulators, and which was approved by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the entity that manages grid reliability across Michigan and 14 other states.
“The plant is really old, unreliable, extremely polluting, and extremely expensive,” Reiser said. “Nobody is saying that this plant is needed or is going to be beneficial for any reliability purposes.”
To justify its stay-open order, the DOE cited reports from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), a nonprofit regulatory authority that includes utilities and grid operators in the U.S. and Canada. NERC found MISO is at higher risk of summertime reliability problems than other U.S. grid regions, but environmental groups argue in their rehearing request that the DOE has “misrepresented the reports on which it relies,” and that Consumers Energy, Michigan regulators, and MISO have collectively shown closing the plant won’t endanger grid reliability.
Eddystone, which had operated only infrequently over the past few years, also went through a rigorous process with mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM Interconnection to ensure its closure wouldn’t harm grid reliability. The DOE’s reason for keeping that plant open is based on a report from PJM that states the grid operator might need to ask utility customers to use less power if it faces extreme conditions this summer — an even scantier justification than what the agency cited in its J.H. Campbell order, Reiser said.
As long as the DOE continues to take the position that it can issue emergency stay-open orders to any power plant it decides to, these established methods for managing plant closures and fairly allocating costs will be thrown into disarray, she said.
“We have a system of competitive energy markets in the United States that is successful in keeping the lights on and maintaining reliability the vast, vast majority of the time,” Reiser said. “The Department of Energy stepping in and using a command-and-control system interferes with those markets.”
Utility regulators from MISO states including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin made a similar argument in their rehearing request to the DOE. “This expansive use of emergency powers sets a troubling precedent, enabling intervention in routine, state-approved planning decisions without an actual crisis,” they wrote. “Such preemptive action risks undermining the credibility of future emergency orders, distorting market signals, and eroding the statutory balance between federal and state authority.”
Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, highlighted the years of work that went into enabling the J.H. Campbell plant to safely close, and the hundreds of millions of dollars that replacing it with fossil gas, solar, and battery resources would save.
“For DOE to substitute its judgment of what’s necessary for the work that’s done by the states and the regional grid operators is something that a large number of states of different political makeups find most troubling,” he said.
Forcing aging and expensive power plants to stay open past their long-planned retirement dates also threatens to drive up costs for utility customers at a time when energy prices are already set to rise due to GOP policies. Think tank Energy Innovation forecasts the megabill passed by congressional Republicans last week will lead to a 25% increase in wholesale electricity prices by 2030, as cuts to tax credits stifle investment in solar, wind, and battery projects and force power grids to rely on older, costlier resources.
This week’s DOE report “is another attempt to push the false narrative that our country’s energy future depends upon decades-old coal- and gas-plants, rather than clean renewables,” Greg Wannier, senior attorney at the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “The only energy crisis faced by the American public is the catastrophic increase in costs that the Trump Administration is forcing on the country’s ratepayers.”
Coal has fallen from nearly half U.S. generation capacity in 2011 to just 15% last year, and more than 120 U.S. coal plants are expected to close over the next five years. Coal industry groups and many Republicans blame state climate regulations for that trend. But energy experts agree that the primary driver is that coal plants are unable to provide power at prices that can compete with fossil gas or renewables.
Aging power plants like J.H. Campbell and Eddystone, which were built roughly 60 years ago, are among the most expensive to run — one of the main reasons why those two were both slated for retirement. Forcing them to restart and stay open for three months on the eve of their planned closures involves additional costs to secure new fuel contracts, undertake deferred maintenance, and rehire workers.
Utility customers in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic grid regions those plants are connected to will now bear all of those costs. While the total dollar amount has yet to be calculated, it could run into the tens of millions for each plant, or as much as $100 million for J.H. Campbell, Scripps told reporters in June.
Under its Section 202(c) authority, the DOE doesn’t have to deal with the costs its emergency orders incur, said Clara Summers, campaign manager for the Citizens Utility Board, an Illinois-based utility customer watchdog group. Instead, it gets to delegate the method of recovering those expenses to grid operators and regulators.
But the DOE has failed to show that keeping those plants open will benefit customers, which puts those entities in a bind.
“There is a standard in ratemaking that costs should be prudently incurred,” Summers said. “Since these costs are manufactured emergencies and are not prudently incurred, they are not just and reasonable.”
That’s the argument that environmental and consumer watchdog groups have made in filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. power grid. The groups have asked FERC to reject plans to recover costs from DOE’s J.H. Campbell and Eddystone orders on the grounds that the DOE has failed to show how keeping the plants open will benefit consumers.
“What’s especially frustrating about that is that we already have capacity markets that are there to make sure that we have enough electricity, and consumers already pay for that,” Summers said. Those costs to utility customers are rising dramatically in PJM, where years of backlogged interconnection processes have prevented new solar, wind, and battery projects from coming online to help replace power plants being closed. MISO also saw prices spike in its most recent capacity auction.
“The whole function of those markets is to ensure we have enough electricity — and those markets procure enough electricity,” Summers said. “This is something PJM agrees with, that MISO agrees with, that NERC agrees with.”
The DOE has 30 days from when the rehearing requests were filed to open a review of its stay-open orders, Reiser said. If the DOE doesn’t issue an order within that time, “it basically opens up the option for us to go to court.”
The DOE has never used its Section 202(c) authority in this way before, which means it has never been challenged in court on the issues at hand, Reiser said.
But “the fact that there are related executive orders kind of directing the Department of Energy to do these things doesn’t change the basic standards of how our legal system works and how courts interpret statutes,” she added. “No matter the reasoning, they still have to comply with the law.”
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