President Trump on Thursday said his administration is considering granting a request for an emergency order to save nuclear and coal power plants across the Midwest.
“We’ll be looking at that 202, you know what a 202 is, we’ll be looking at that, we’re trying,” Trump said during off-the-cuff remarks at roundtable event on tax reform in West Virginia.
“About nine of your people just came up to me outside, could you talk about 202, and we’ll be looking at that as soon as we get back.”
Trump is referring to section 202 of the Federal Power Act, which gives Energy Secretary Rick Perry the authority to direct the “temporary” continued use of power plants in circumstances that include war, energy shortages, or sudden surges in demand.
Ohio utility First Energy late last month asked Perry to use that provision, soon after it announced it would close three of its nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The company’s coal and nuclear divisions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Saturday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Akron, Ohio.
Trump’s comment on the First Energy request is the first sign he is personally engaged on the issue.
It comes a day after he reportedly attended a private dinner hosted by Jeff Miller, who was First Energy’s top lobbyist last year and formerly the campaign manager for Perry’s presidential campaign.
West Virginia, where Trump made the comments, is a state with a strong coal mining constituency.
The president has repeatedly touted his administration’s efforts to bring coal jobs back by weakening or removing regulations intended to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.
The administration has failed in other efforts to help coal and nuclear power, which are struggling to compete with cheap natural gas and rising renewables in the wholesale power markets.
In January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected Perry’s proposal to give special payments to coal and nuclear plants.
First Energy lobbied for FERC to grant that request.
After it failed, the company asked Perry to act alone to use the emergency authority of the Federal Power Act.
First Energy says the grid is threatened because of the retirement of coal and nuclear power plants that have years of useful life “but cannot operate profitably under current market conditions.”
The company wants the Energy Department to force PJM, the federally overseen grid operator, to enter into contracts with coal and nuclear plants across the PJM region to provide electricity “as needed to maintain the stability of the electric grid.”
But PJM has said the grid’s reliability is not urgently at risk and is opposed to using the Federal Power Act to help First Energy.
“This is not an issue of reliability,” PJM said last week. “There is no immediate emergency. “
Environmental groups, former regulators, consumer advocates, and competitors to coal and nuclear also have said there is no emergency and have said helping First Energy’s plants would undermine the free-market competition that has helped consumers pay low power rates.
