Kind of stunning.
Arbitrary “emergency” power grab by grifting Secretary of Energy Chris Wright opposed by owners of a slated-to-close coal plant in Colorado – who have now sued, calling the action a “taking” of their property rights, to make the right economic decision.
Wright’s actions are divorced from reality, and serve no purpose but to directly transfer ratepayer’s money to the accounts of wealthy cronies and donors.
You really have to ask yourself if Republicans actually believe in anything. In service of their wealthy donors, whether it’s property rights, first or even second(!) amendment rights, or even the safety of children against sexual predators.
The owners of a Colorado power unit say the Department of Energy violated their Constitutional rights when it ordered them to continue running a coal-fired generator they had been planning for years to retire at the end of 2025.
By mandating the generator’s availability to operate, the order “constitutes both a physical taking and a regulatory taking” of property by the government without just compensation or due process, in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and federal law, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority said in a Jan. 29 request for clarification and rehearing.
Moreover, they said, keeping the unit available to operate “will not best meet DOE’s goal of securing dispatchable electricity resources in the northwestern United States.”
The owners of a Colorado power unit say the Department of Energy violated their Constitutional rights when it ordered them to continue running a coal-fired generator they had been planning for years to retire at the end of 2025.
By mandating the generator’s availability to operate, the order “constitutes both a physical taking and a regulatory taking” of property by the government without just compensation or due process, in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and federal law, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority said in a Jan. 29 request for clarification and rehearing.
Moreover, they said, keeping the unit available to operate “will not best meet DOE’s goal of securing dispatchable electricity resources in the northwestern United States.”
Tri-State and Platte River said the unit had become uneconomical to run, requiring frequent repairs. In fact, they said they had to undertake repairs just to make the unit operable in order to comply with the order.
“The costs of compliance fall directly on their members and customers, who must now pay to respond to the DOE’s finding that utilities in the northwestern United States have ‘a shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation of electric energy, and other causes,’” they said. “The members and customers must pay those costs even though neither Tri-State nor Platte River are experiencing these shortages and not all the members and customers served by Tri-State and Platte River are located in the region identified by the Order.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a Request for Rehearing (PDF) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) challenging DOE’s third arbitrary and illegal order seeking to stop the planned retirement of Consumers Energy’s J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in West Olive, Michigan, under the pretense of a fabricated energy emergency. The filing challenges DOE’s order on its inability to show an actual emergency, as well as for several other violations of DOE’s authority under the Federal Power Act, which grants DOE’s emergency powers.
“Nearly seven months into this fabricated emergency, what is now clear is that DOE will continue issuing these unlawful orders unless the courts intervene,” Nessel said. “My office has filed to halt these arbitrary orders each time, and we will continue to challenge them to protect Michigan ratepayers. These actions by DOE ignore careful planning, disregard regulatory approvals, and serve no purpose other than to drive up costs for utility customers while standing in the way of more efficient and cost-effective energy resources.”
“We’ve already seen how the Trump administration has unlawfully forced the J.H. Campbell coal plant right here in Michigan to stay open under the guise of its fake energy emergency,” said Attorney General Nessel. “Now, the Department of the Interior is bypassing essential environmental regulations simply to pad Big Oil’s profits. My office will continue pushing back against these illegal actions and defending the rule of law.”
Experts say some of the administration’s policies are compounding the problem. Trump has targeted solar and wind energy by cutting tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s flagship industrial policy. According to climate group Resources for the Future, tax credit cuts could increase utility bills by 5 to 7 per cent by 2030.
He has also repeatedly attacked offshore wind farms under construction on the east coast, issuing a series of stop-work orders and lease suspensions. He has justified these moves by saying renewables are “too expensive and too weak”. Critics allege he is deliberately undermining competition to the fossil fuel industry and limiting use of technologies that are among the fastest and cheapest to deploy.
The Department of Energy has issued multiple emergency orders forcing utilities to keep ageing coal-fired electricity generation plants scheduled for decommissioning open. It argues these actions are necessary to minimise the risk of blackouts and reduce electricity prices.
Critics say keeping these coal plants open is unnecessary, costly and technically difficult, as many are prone to breakdowns. If this policy is maintained into 2028, it could cost customers between $3bn to $6bn a year, according to a report by Grid Strategies commissioned by environmental groups.
“You really have to ask yourself if Republicans actually believe in anything.”
Well, sure they do. They believe in themselves, their pocketbooks, and their personal power and influence. Everything else is secondary, and absolutely irrelevant if it affects them negatively.
The illusion that Republicans stand on moral or philosophical principles have gone the way of the dinosaur in the Trump era.
This was yesterday, and it’s absolutely remarkable. MTG would have been close to the last person I’d think would say such things:
Greene: MAGA ‘was all a lie’
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5718355-marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-maga-lie/
‘“I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen.’
Some of those old Reagan- and Bush-appointed judges date from a time when Republicans were for protecting business from [public responsibility and] government regulation. Them days are gone.
Truly good news when the people who’d been burning coal for money sue the Trump gang to let them proceed with shutting the thing down. Transparently fake “emergency” orders are starting to pile up, as are the impact of how Trump and his undisciplined crew are creating emergencies and then making things worse as the public pushes back.
Beyond energy and lost jobs and financial hardship from orders, Trump’s crew are also playing with conservative fire after the government agents in Minnesota took a legally-carried gun away from the guy and THEN shot him to death, with two guys shooting him 15 times. Add in some of the right wing talking heads like Megan Kelly attacking the victim for bringing a gun (legally, again) to a protest, and this morning Trump’s Judge Pirro in D.C. threatening to arrest anyone who (legally, keep remembering) brings a gun to the District of Columbia.
I’m opposed to open carry and don’t think it solves more issues than it creates, but where it’s the law, it’s the law. And in this case, Team Trump has, in just the last month or two, angered coal plant owners by supposedly rewarding them, and are now starting to anger the gun rights folks who probably voted in large part for Trump but now realize a control-freak President is a threat to rights even to those who aren’t Woke Urban Libs.
Overreach, sloppiness, paranoia and power grabs – they all put sand in the gears and lets say the wheels on this Administration are starting to build heat at the axles.
This is the government version of “rolling coal.”
The owners of coal plants are suing to slow down and stop, while the government is stomping on the accelerator in order to noisily blast smoke into the air.