By America-Today    September 26，2025

The coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station operates in Kentucky last year.

President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered some retiring coal plants

to stay online, even as they have struggled to remain economically viable.

Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal

plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an

independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups.

Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement

could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from

Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. It was carried out on behalf of

Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council

and Sierra Club.

Under Trump, the agency has issued emergency orders to maintain operations at

coal plants that were scheduled for retirement. While federal officials say the

coal plants need to stay online to avoid blackouts, power plant owners and state

regulators planned their closures because they were no longer economically

viable or needed for reliability.

But Trump, who has pushed to unleash more fossil fuel development and to

stymie wind and solar, has ordered a retiring coal plant in Michigan to stay online,

along with an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania.