President Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take “immediate steps” to save ailing coal and nuclear power plants from closing, the White House announced Friday afternoon.
“President Donald J. Trump believes in total energy independence and dominance, and that keeping America’s energy grid and infrastructure strong and secure protects our national security, public safety, and economy from intentional attacks and natural disasters,” according to a White House statement.
“Unfortunately, impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading to a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation’s energy mix, and impacting the resilience of our power grid.”
Trump wants Perry to prepare recommendations before taking action to keep the plants from closing.
The announcement came after a memo was leaked Thursday night ahead of a Friday meeting of the National Security Council to discuss a way to save the nation’s coal and nuclear power plants, which are being out-competed by low-cost natural gas plants.
The Trump administration’s memo included ordering federally overseen grid operators to buy electricity from the power plants, allowing them to evade market pressures and keep running, according to a copy of a White House draft memo reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
[Opinion: Trump becomes Obama 2.0 with coal bailout]
PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator, says there is no immediate threat to grid security from power plant retirements.
Representatives of a huge industry coalition opposing federal interference in the electricity market said if the White House moves forward with the plan, it would stoke a “firestorm” in the electricity sector and they would go straight to court.
“If this effort goes forward, we anticipate mounting a significant legal challenge,” said Dena Wiggins, president and CEO of Natural Gas Supply Association. “This misguided attempt to artificially resuscitate a specific set of aging and uneconomic power plants will do far more harm than good.”
The coalition opposing the First Energy request includes the oil and natural gas industry, merchant utilities, manufacturers, and the solar and wind industries. The coalition says any such plan is outside the scope of the law and would undermine the function of the restructured markets overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The memo reflects a plan that would give utility First Energy everything it asked for in a petition it sent to Perry in April.
The company asked Perry to use his authority under the Federal Power Act to issue an emergency must-run order. But the scope of the petition is much broader than how the authority has been used in the past. It has been used to keep one plant running for a short period, such as several months, because of reliability concerns.
Perry also has said he is looking at using the Defense Production Act, which gives the federal government the authority to keep power plants running in time of war or as a matter of national security.
The memo says the White House is looking at both laws to keep the plants going. It also lays out a plan to create a “Strategic Electric Generation Reserve” with the goal of promoting a national defense and maximizing domestic energy supplies, almost like a Strategic Petroleum Reserve for electricity.
