US Considers Emergency Powers to Restart Closed Coal Plants (1)

The US is eyeing emergency authority to bring back coal-fired plants that have closed and stop others from shutting, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Monday.

“Under the national energy emergency, which President Trump has declared, we’ve got to keep every coal plant open,” Burgum told Bloomberg Television in an interview on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston. “And if there had been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back.”

Burgum, who also serves as the chair of the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, said Biden-era policies were threatening the US power grid, necessitating emergency action.

Since 2000, about 770 individual coal-fired units have retired, according to data from Global Energy Monitor, amid competition from cheaper natural gas and to a lesser-extent renewables.

Coal accounts for about 15% of power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000, according to the US Energy Information Administration. An additional 120 coal-fired power plants are scheduled to shutdown in the next five years in part because of environmental regulations that have made them uneconomic, according to the America’s Power trade group representing utilities and miners such as Peabody Energy Corp. and Core Natural Resources Inc.

For more on CERAWeek — Day 1, click here for our TOPLive blog.

The remarks from Burgum, who previously served as the governor of North Dakota, a major coal producing state, come as Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview Friday the administration was crafting a “market-based” plan to stem the closure of US coal-fired power plants as it seeks to supply more electricity before an expected boom in demand from artificial intelligence.

Read More: US Crafting Plan to Stem Coal-Plant Closures, Energy Chief Says

Trump, in his first term, attempted efforts to throw a life-line to cash-strapped coal and nuclear power plants, including a plan to invoke emergency authority typically reserved for natural disasters and other crises to order pay some to stay online to “serve the public interest.” Another effort involved forcing the nation’s grid operators to buy their electricity.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Millie Munshi at mmunshi@bloomberg.net

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