Trump's Other Invasion: Silent But Deadly
With virtually no pushback, Trump is commandeering private power plants at a cost of millions to people in more than a dozen states
Last month, well before the California National Guard and U.S. Marines took to the streets of Los Angeles, the Trump administration invaded and took over power sources serving at more than a dozen states.
No troops involved, just federal paperwork asserting control, commandeering two privately owned power plants to make them carry out the plans of Pres. Donald Trump, effectively nationalizing the plants for no purpose other than cosplaying ideological fanfic disguised as policy.
The first invasion was May 23, 2025.
In an “emergency order,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright hijacked the the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in West Olive, MI.
The second invasion was just a week later, May 30, 2025.
This time, Wright took over two units of the Eddystone Generating Station in Eddystone, PA.
Both plants were the energy-industry equivalent of the aging cop in a buddy movie who’s just days from retirement. The Michigan plant was supposed to shut down on June 1. The Pennsylvania one, too.
Wright forced their private owners to keep operating them. Which, read that again.
The emergency justifying these invasions and the de facto nationalizing of private-sector facilities was the possibility of brownouts or outages. Because summer is coming. And the energy companies had both issued worst-case scenarios contemplating possible power outages.
Both facilities are powered by … wait for it … fossil fuels.
The two de facto seizures stemmed from a Trump executive order on the first day of his second term. It declared … wait for it again … a national emergency. (Fifteen states are suing to overturn that order.)
As Inside Climate News has reported, though, Trump inherited a country actually in better shape energy-wise than it has been. Lower prices, less volatility. No emergency.
So what’s the basis for Trump’s national energy emergency? He just declares it so, with zero data to demonstrate any actual trends or worrying issues. Energy and critical minerals infrastructure and systems, Trump simply fiats, are “far too inadequate.”
Pres. Joe Biden’s “harmful and shortsighted policies” both caused high energy prices and made them worse, if I’m reading Trump’s tortuous language correctly. The result is “an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy.” It’s an “active threat to the American people,” especially, he says, “those living on low- and fixed-incomes.”
It’s not, however, a big enough threat to warrant even mentioning solar or wind power:
The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals…
So instead of boosting existing sustainable energy, Trump’s forcing private companies to continue burning fossil fuels to generate more electricity than they need to.
As with most Trump emergencies, the cure is worse than the fictional disease.
The Michigan plant spews out nine million tons of carbon emissions annually. Earth Justice calls it the single biggest source of pollution and climate emissions in western Michigan. The result includes an estimated 44 deaths every year.
And that’s not even the whole of it.
In February, the Trump White House seized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is independent by statute. Democratic and even Republican former FERC appointees agreed that Trump’s power-grab of the power agency threatens multiple initiatives intended to address exactly the problems Trump cited as the emergency justifying his takeover.
On April 8, we learned we had a second national energy emergency that apparently wasn’t prevented by the Jan. 20 executive order on the first national energy emergency. This time, the executive order wasn’t issued in the name of America’s low- and middle-income energy users.
Now it was about ensuring power for tech billionaires and their terrible AI. There was, Trump wrote, “an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by rapid technological advancements, including the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers and an increase in domestic manufacturing.”
That last part was a sop to Trump’s pretend surge in new American manufacturing. This executive order said that the nation’s grid “must utilize all available power generation resources, particularly those secure, redundant fuel supplies that are capable of extended operations.”
Except “all available” again didn’t include wind or solar, both of which are available and part of all. “Extended operations” meant forcing private companies to keep fossil fuel going. Regardless of whether the company or the local jurisdictions wanted it to.
The order also authorized Wright to “prevent … an identified generation resource in excess of 50 megawatts of nameplate capacity from leaving the bulk-power system.” In other words, the Dept. of Energy was given the power to just…stop private companies from stopping.
And the two power-plant orders came after a dry run — with a willing collaborator. The Republican governor of Puerto Rico supported a May 16 executive order compelling short-term actions to deal with the island’s endless power woes.
The emergency apparently wasn’t that bad, though, because a couple weeks later, the Energy Department yoinked $365 million planned for Puerto Rico’s solar and battery storage resources. Because why get energy from the sky on a tropical island when you can pay to have fossil fuels shipped to you.
(Renewables only account for 19% of Puerto Rico’s energy. The rest is petroleum (42%), natural gas (33%), and coal (7%)).
Michigan was a different story. The plant there wanted to shut down and the state government had ordered it to. And past emergency orders have been tied to crises like weather events that tax the system. Not ideological fantasy.
According to one law firm, past emergency orders have had durations tied to the length of actual emergencies — so, just hours or days. Trump’s order lasts 90 days. And could be extended.
And the nonprofit that helps operate the Michigan plant just weeks before the May 23 order issued a press release that, yes, acknowledged risks, but was literally headlined that the group “…projects adequate resources are available to serve summer demand…”
The risks mentioned were (a) tied to extreme circumstances, but also (b) routinely mitigated by purchasing power from other grids. In other words, all manageable, not meriting emergency measures now. (If anything poses a threat to power generation during a disaster, it might just be Trump’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.)
The plant’s other operator, Consumer Energy, had said prior to the May 23 order that it was “prepared to deliver safe, reliable and affordable power to customers across the region throughout the summer.”
POWER magazine called the order wresting control “the first of its kind in the mainland U.S. in recent history.” The second of its kind came the day after that article.
Wright issued order #2, taking over Pennsylvania’s Eddystone units — powered by “natural gas” — on May 30. Just days before its planned closure.
And according to Earth Justice, the Energy Department said Eddystone would be evaluated again — under undetermined criteria — once the department “can contrive a new rationale” to force its continued operation.
After the Michigan seizure, an internal Energy Department memo was posted online warning of logistical “challenges” in forcing Consumers Energy to continue burning coal after spending years winding it down. The memo’s now gone from the department website.
The New York Times reported that the operators scrambled to get plant retirees to not retire. And the Michigan plant had to find some coal to burn.
But the price of coal is on fire. Coal-fueled energy costs have risen 28% in just the past four years.
Michigan Public Service Commission Chair Dan Scripps said, “The unnecessary recent order from the U.S. Department of Energy will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses across the Midwest.” Scripps told the Times he’s guessing it’ll add tens of millions of dollars to regional power bills.
Lawsuits are being considered by the state and Public Citizen, the advocacy group.
According to Tyson Slocum, the group’s Energy Program director, the Michigan order “serves no purpose beyond attempting to prop up the dying coal industry.”
According to Wright, “This administration will not sit back and allow dangerous energy subtraction policies [to] threaten the resiliency of our grid and raise electricity prices on American families.”
But that’s exactly what they’re doing by not turning to wind and solar and actively shutting down projects to increase America’s energy supply with renewable sources.
Eddystone is part of a grid that supplies power to 13 states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, along with Washington, DC. The J.H. Campbell coal-fired plant provides electricity for customers in 15 states.
They’re all now looking at price hikes that very few of them are likely ever to know stem from Trump’s order.
In fact, the damage to America’s energy supply that Trump and his party are doing is already projected to mean price hikes for people who use electricity, energy executives and even some Republicans concede. By one estimate, the average household will pay $250 more per year for electricity if Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act legislation passes.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
This fucking news is fucked!
Private industry is fine with the GOP, so long is they can order it around. Once again, the "party of business" right up until it isn't. 🙄