Gov. Evers Calls on Trump to Stop Extending Life of Coal Plants
Warns that federal order keeping aging plants online could cost Wisconsin ratepayers $117 million.
Gov. Tony Evers addresses reporters during a school visit Monday, May 11, 2026, in Barneveld, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin ratepayer advocates are calling on the Trump administration to stop extending the life of coal plants previously slated to come offline.
Evers sent a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Monday. In the letter, Evers warns that the administration’s orders keeping aging coal plants online could cost Wisconsin ratepayers an estimated $117 million over the next few years.
“Wisconsinites should not and cannot continue to pay for the Trump Administration’s reckless decisions,” the letter reads. “Instead of forcing old, expensive coal power plants to stay online past their scheduled retirement dates, U.S. DOE should be working to lower energy costs for Americans.”
It was the second time the governor has called on the administration to stop keeping coal plants open. Evers sent a previous letter to the Department of Energy in April.
During President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has used 90-day emergency orders to extend the life of coal plants in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and Colorado.
The administration has said keeping coal plants open will reduce the risk of blackouts while securing reliable electricity.
And while it hasn’t forced any coal plants in Wisconsin to remain open, the Trump administration did announce $19 million in federal funding last month for a modernization project at a coal plant in Columbia County whose retirement was twice delayed.
The Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin has intervened in court proceedings challenging the use of those orders to keep plants open, including one coal plant in Michigan, one in southwestern Indiana and another in northwestern Indiana.
In both states, CUB says the utilities proposed closing the coal plants following state reviews of their plans for future energy generation infrastructure.
In a legal filing in the Michigan case, ratepayer advocates from Wisconsin and other states warn the emergency order keeping the plant open “exacerbates the ongoing affordability crisis in the Midwest.”
That’s because a 2025 order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission required costs associated with running the plant be spread among consumers throughout the Midwest grid operator’s service area, the filing reads.
In court documents, consumer advocates warn keeping the Michigan plant open will “cause millions of Americans to pay more for electricity.”
Earlier this year, the Department of Energy said keeping the Michigan plant open after it was scheduled to shut down in May 2025 helped stabilize the grid during the recent winter storms.
“Beautiful, clean coal was the MVP during peak capacity events this past year,” Wright said in a May 2026 statement. “Hundreds of American lives have likely been saved because of President Trump’s actions saving America’s coal plants, including this Michigan coal plant.”
Environmental groups argue there’s no such thing as clean coal, and that burning coal contributes to the effects of climate.
Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, said the administration’s argument that these plants are needed to ensure reliability is tough to believe because it continues issuing 90-day orders while state utility planning processes look years out.
“Those planning processes are looking ahead years and years, and so I’d much rather be attached to something that’s planning for years rather than trying to plan for energy policy 90 days at a time,” he said. “It’s just problematic to be trying to rely on emergency orders to decide what plants are going to stay open.”
Under the cost sharing order in the Michigan case, Content said utility customers in eastern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula would be on the hook for “tens of millions of dollars.”
That estimate doesn’t include costs passed onto Wisconsin customers from the Indiana coal plants, he added.
“It’s not something that we think is appropriate for customers to be paying a surcharge for something that doesn’t really help the grid in any measurable amount,” he said. “At a time when Wisconsin’s bills are already rising faster than inflation, to be layering on these surcharges is a concern.”
Gov. Evers calls on Trump administration to stop extending life of coal plants was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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