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Politics100 outlets ran this3 min read

Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant

Federal appeals court rules Energy Department overstepped authority in keeping the JH Campbell plant open.

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published
Consumers Energy’s JH Campbell power plant was originally scheduled to close at the end of May 2025. (Courtesy of Consumers Energy)

What this story says

  • A federal appeals court has overturned a Trump administration order that kept the JH Campbell coal plant in Michigan open.
  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the Energy Department exceeded its legal authority.
  • The ruling applies to one of six emergency orders issued to keep the plant operating past its May 2025 retirement date.
  • Keeping the plant open has cost approximately $259 million so far.

Who covered it

Left 45%(39)Centre 40%(36)Right 15%(12)

Percentages are shares of the 87 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 13 of the 100 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

50/100

Craft

65/100

Hype

40/100

100 sources · methodology

Missing from the right

Only 12 of the 87 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.

A reader who follows the right would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

A federal appeals court has thrown out a Trump administration order that kept Michigan’s JH Campbell coal plant open. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Energy Department had overstepped its legal authority by invoking emergency powers. Environmental groups and three states, Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota, had sued the administration over the orders.

The ruling applies to one of six emergency orders issued by Energy Secretary Chris Wright since May 2025 to keep the plant open in 90-day increments. Consumers Energy, the plant's operator, stated it would continue to comply with the current order while reviewing the court's decision. Keeping the plant open beyond its scheduled May 2025 retirement has incurred costs of approximately $259 million to date.

Disagreement on the nature of the emergency

Bridge Michigan reported that Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote that the administration failed to justify the use of emergency intervention, stating that "the mere possibility of an electricity supply shortfall, with no specifics about its potential severity, timing, location, or likelihood, does not warrant an emergency federal response." Washington Top News quoted Pillard stating there was "no ‘emergency’ within the meaning" of the statute and that reversing the plant's retirement "are disruptive."

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated reports mention the cost estimate of $259 million that keeping the plant open has incurred so far. None of the right-rated reports mention the specific states, Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota, that sued the Trump administration.

Tags:#EnergyPolicy#CoalPlants#TrumpAdministration#EnvironmentalLaw#CourtRuling

Coverage settled. We checked this 46 times and stopped on 17 Sept 2026, 06:00. The figures above are what it finished at.

How other outlets pictured it

Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.

Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant
Washington Top NewsCentre
Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant
POWER MagazineCentre

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

39 rated outlets

  • Reports from the left led with the court's rejection of the Trump administration's order. Electrek's headline stated the court "blocks Trump from forcing open a dead coal plant that no one wants open." Alternet reported that "Trump loses bid to keep old coal plant open." Bridge Michigan highlighted that the ruling "strikes Trump order that forced Michigan coal plant to stay open" and noted that keeping the plant open had cost $259 million, contrasting with expected savings from its closure. The left-rated reports quoted environmental groups, including Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund, who said the Department of Energy's "unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago."

Centre

36 rated outlets

  • The centre-rated reports focused on the federal court's rejection of the Energy Department's authority. Washington Top News reported that a "Federal court rejects Trump order keeping Michigan coal plant open." The Economic Times and POWER Magazine also used similar headlines. These reports noted that Energy Secretary Chris Wright had used emergency powers to keep the 64-year-old JH Campbell Generating Plant operating, citing the need for reliable electricity. They also mentioned the cost of keeping the plant open, stating it was about $259 million so far and likely to be paid by families and businesses.

Right

12 rated outlets

  • The right-rated reports focused on the court's rejection of the Energy Department's claim of "emergency" authority. Reason's headline stated the "DC Circuit Rejects Energy Department's Claim of 'Emergency' Authority to Order Coal Plant to Remain Open." The Times of India and The Herald Palladium reported that a "US federal court rejects Trump order keeping Michigan coal plant open," with The Herald Palladium including that Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the 64-year-old JH Campbell plant was needed.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant?
Of the 87 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 45% are rated left, 40% are rated centre, 15% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 100. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 87 rated outlets on this story, 45% are rated left, 40% are rated centre, 15% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant biased?
Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant is one event reported by 100 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Court Overturns Trump Order on Michigan Coal Plant?
100 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
What did the court rule regarding the Michigan coal plant?
A federal appeals court ruled that the Energy Department exceeded its legal authority when it issued an order to keep the JH Campbell coal plant in Michigan open past its scheduled retirement date. The court found that the administration had overstepped its powers by invoking emergency provisions.
How much has keeping the coal plant open cost?
Keeping the JH Campbell coal plant open beyond its planned May 2025 retirement date has cost approximately $259 million so far. This figure was reported by outlets that covered the court's decision.
Who sued the Trump administration over the order?
Environmental groups and three states, Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota, filed lawsuits against the Trump administration challenging the orders to keep the JH Campbell coal plant operational. They argued the administration had no legal basis for these emergency directives.

Read it at the source

100 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

39
Show 31 more

Centre

36
Show 28 more

Right

12
Show 4 more

Not rated

13
Show 5 more

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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