Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant, located off the shore of beautiful Lake Michigan, was slated to close last May. The operating utility, Consumers Energy, had been planning the coal plant’s retirement for years to transition away from dirty energy and save customers money. Employees were reassigned, farewell tours were held. Local residents were thrilled to see the polluting coal plant go.

One such resident is Mark Oppenhuizen, who has lived near the Campbell coal plant for 30 years. He and his family have long feared the plant’s pollution was worsening his wife’s lung disease, he told The Guardian.

Then, against the utility and community’s wishes, Trump’s coal executive order and a Department of Energy order forced the plant to stay open for 90 days past its planned retirement date.

Two 90-day extensions later, the Campbell coal plant is still operating, despite the financial and health costs to local communities. The Trump administration is expected to issue another extension tomorrow. And Mark’s family and other nearby residents are still breathing in coal dust from this outdated plant.

For decades, the U.S. has shifted away from polluting, expensive and scarce coal. The Trump administration has instead prioritized coal power.

Campbell is likely not the only outdated coal plant the Trump administration will force to remain open. The administration is expected to force additional coal plants to stay open past their planned retirement dates later this year. In addition to requiring these plants to stay online, the Trump administration has also given the flailing coal industry $625 million taxpayer dollars. Here’s why that’s bad for the rest of us.

1. Coal power is expensive

Trump’s insistence on supporting coal and fossil fuels is driving up energy costs nationwide. Coal power has one of the highest costs of any energy source, and these costs have only increased. In 2024, the cost to generate coal power was about 28% higher than it was just three years earlier.

In Michigan, keeping the Campbell coal plant open is costing households $615,000 each day. This doesn’t even include the cost of unexpected breakdowns or malfunctions, which are now required to be fixed and increase the already high costs of keeping the plant open. The number also doesn’t account for the costs of pollution-related health issues from the plant.

Keeping coal plants operating is driving up energy bills, but can shutting them down lower costs? In Oregon, the answer is yes. After closing the North Valmy Generating Station, a coal fired power plant, the local utility saw their costs drop so much that they plan to lower electricity rates. By closing expensive coal plants, while increasing cheap clean energy, utilities across the country could lower energy bills for everyday people like you and me.

2. Coal power is unreliable

Not only is coal power expensive, it is also not as reliable as its supporters want you to believe. In Texas, the newest coal plant in the country failed so catastrophically that it will be offline for two years. And this is not the first time a major failure at the plant has forced it to cease operations for a year or more. Back in Michigan, parts of the Campbell plant keep failing, so it regularly produces less energy than it theoretically could. Coal plants break down twice as much as wind turbines, with unplanned outages causing trouble for grid operators trying to keep the lights on. These coal plant failures show that we badly need reliable wind and solar energy and battery storage.

Trump’s wholehearted support of fossil fuels is driving up our energy costs and making energy less reliable. And it’s having disastrous consequences for the environment.

As energy demand and costs rise, clean energy is the best solution

Energy demand is growing, and we need a plan to keep up with it. The cheapest and fastest way to bring more energy onto the grid is with battery storage and renewables: wind and solar.

Solar and wind have some of the lowest prices per kilowatt hour. And, thanks to advances in technology over the last several years, clean energy infrastructure (such as solar panels) is now faster and cheaper to build.

Despite the advantages of cheap, clean, renewable energy over coal power, Trump is shutting down clean energy projects across the country while he props up the failing coal industry.

While President Trump and congressional Republicans are doing everything they can to drive up our costs, some members of Congress are taking action to make energy more affordable. The draft Cheap Energy Agenda bill, released in late September by Representatives Sean Casten (IL-06) and Mike Levin (CA-49), aims to lower energy costs by:

• Incentivizing utilities to save consumers money
• Shifting the burden of powering data centers off of everyday customers
• Providing energy assistance to millions of households
• Restoring clean energy tax credits
• Expanding grid capacity while allocating costs fairly
• Incentivizing projects in cost-burdened and hardest-hit communities
• Preventing presidents from declaring sham “energy emergencies” to prop up Big Oil.

Call your members of Congress right now and ask them to support the Cheap Energy Agenda and tell Trump: leave coal power in the past where it belongs!