Indiana’s environmental and consumer advocates are racing to court in Washington, D.C., to shut down a pair of coal units that federal officials ordered to keep running past their planned 2025 retirement dates.
In mid-March, a coalition of Hoosier groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn emergency orders issued in late December that have kept two Indiana coal units burning and are currently set to expire on March 23, 2026. Depending on how the court rules, or whether the U.S. Department of Energy extends the orders again, those plants could either shut down this week as originally planned or keep operating under federal command.
The Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Just Transition Northwest Indiana and the Hoosier Environmental Council, represented by national counsel, are asking the court to set aside orders that kept NIPSCO’s R.M. Schahfer units in Wheatfield and a CenterPoint Energy F.B. Culley unit near Newburgh online, as reported by The Indiana Lawyer. The petitioners argue the Energy Department misused its emergency authority and that forcing the aging units to keep burning will leave ratepayers holding the bag for extra costs and pollution.
DOE Says Orders Are About Grid Reliability
The Department of Energy says Secretary Chris Wright leaned on Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to direct NIPSCO, CenterPoint and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator to keep specified units “available to operate” while the region faces capacity risk. In a December 23 press release, the agency cited analyses from MISO and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation that flagged near term reliability concerns and said the orders would run through March 23, 2026, to lower the risk of blackouts, according to the Department of Energy.
Groups Say No Emergency and Big Costs
Advocates counter that there was no sudden shortfall that justified a federal emergency order and say the move steamrolls careful retirement planning by plant owners and state regulators, a point their counsel emphasized in a press release from Earthjustice. A Synapse Energy Economics memo prepared for the groups estimates net losses of roughly $229,000 per day, or about $20.6 million over a 90 day order period, and warns that those costs will likely be passed through to regional ratepayers. That is not exactly pocket change for Hoosier households.
Utilities Say They Will Explore Recovery Options
NIPSCO has told the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that it plans to seek recovery of the costs tied to keeping the Schahfer units operating, while CenterPoint has said running the Culley unit currently has “no bill impacts to customers” as it explores how to recover those expenses, The Indiana Lawyer reports. Both utilities say they followed the federal directive and made the units available to the market. Whether the extra costs ultimately show up on customer bills will be sorted out later by state regulators in rate cases.
What Comes Next
The emergency orders are scheduled to lapse on March 23, 2026, but the petitioning groups have asked the D.C. Circuit to move quickly and vacate them. If the court declines, advocates warn that federal officials could stack on additional 90 day extensions.
That playbook has already appeared elsewhere. At Michigan’s J.H. Campbell plant, similar orders and extensions have drawn parallel legal challenges and fresh scrutiny of the added costs for regional ratepayers, as reported by E&E News.
Legal Stakes for Hoosiers
The core legal fight is over whether DOE correctly invoked Section 202(c), a rarely used authority that the agency says allows short term orders to prevent gaps in electricity supply, according to the Department of Energy. Petitioners argue that threshold has not been met and that the move amounts to unlawful agency overreach.
If the D.C. Circuit grants relief before the March 23 deadline, the coal units could shut down on their original schedule. If not, Indiana customers may ultimately face higher bills and nearby communities more pollution while state regulators and utilities sort out a tangle of cost recovery disputes.
