Lifelines for coal plants cost millions. New legislation wants them to end
Lifelines for coal plants cost millions. New legislation wants them to end
Sophie Hartley, Indianapolis StarMon, October 12, 2026 at 8:57 AM UTC
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Just a few weeks after the United States Department of Energy gave two Indiana coal plants another lifeline, U.S. Representative Democrat Frank Mrvan, who represents Indiana's first congressional district in northwest Indiana, introduced legislation that would curtail the federal government's ability to interfere with electric grids across the country.
The federal government wielded an obscure legal tool to keep a handful of set-to-retire coal plants online when the Trump administration revved up a regulatory procession last year to reinvigorate the coal industry. The list included two in Indiana: NIPSCO's R.M. Schahfer Generating Station in northwest Indiana and CenterPoint Energy's F.B. Culley Generating Station on the Ohio River.
The cost of keeping the two coal plants online is growing for utilities whose ratepayers were already facing steep electric bills. On average, NIPSCO customers paid the highest electric bills across a 2025 statewide residential bill survey. In January, an Earthjustice-commissioned analysis estimated the first three months of keeping the Indiana coal plants online past scheduled retirement cost the utilities $56 million; the plants are now entering their tenth month of extensions.
“Northwest Indiana residents are struggling to make ends meet, and a major part of that burden is the cost of heating and cooling their homes,” Mrvan said in a statement. “Consumers deserve transparency about what is driving their utility costs and what can be done to lower them."
The proposed legislation addresses several of the frustrations that groups litigating the DOE's emergency orders have raised in court. The Utility Affordability and Transparency Act would prohibit the DOE from using these orders to delay retiring power plants or to require electricity generation from power plants that have already been closed.
Under the legislation, the DOE would need to publish cost estimates and study alternatives to keeping plants open. Utilities would also be required to create a transparent line item on customer bills noting additional costs associated with complying with federal emergency orders.
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Emergency orders would remain legal in certain situations. The DOE has historically intervened in local electric grids during crises, such as hurricanes or war. But, last year, the DOE started using emergency orders to keep a handful of coal plants across the country online during an administration-wide coal revival campaign that involved EPA rollbacks and executive orders aimed at supporting the fossil fuel industry.
The DOE described the emergency at hand as "a sudden increase in demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy, and other causes."
Litigation opposing the DOE's decision to keep coal plants across the country online is slowly working through the courts. Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the DOE's interpretation of the word emergency to keep a coal plant in Michigan alive in the first of such cases to reach a decision. That case could set a precedent for the two Indiana pending cases.
Questions about Indiana's electric grid? Ask IndyStar's environmental reporting team.
Sophie Hartley is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach her at sophie.hartley@indystar.com or on X at @sophienhartley. IndyStar's environmental reporting is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Lifelines for coal plants cost millions. New legislation wants them to end
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