Climate Changed

Trump Administration Is Weighing Emergency Aid for Some Coal Plants

Perry could use emergency authority to aid FirstEnergy plants
He’s used such orders to keep other power plants online

Steam billows out of the stacks at the FirstEnergy Corp. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017. Across America, few places are as dominated by big, centralized power plants as Shippingport. It was here, in the 1950s, that the federal government teamed up with private industry to build the country's first nuclear power plant.Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg

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By Catherine Traywick, Jennifer A Dlouhy, and Ari Natter

February 9, 2018 at 1:34 AM UTC

Updated on

February 9, 2018 at 6:11 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

After failing to win a bailout for cash-strapped coal plants, some Trump administration officials are considering emergency orders that could keep at least some coal generators online, people familiar with the discussions said.

The approach would require Rick Perry to use his authority as U.S. energy secretary to spur emergency compensation for coal plants run by FirstEnergy Solutions that may be at risk of shutting, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Some Energy Department officials are weighing this option after federal regulators rejected a proposal by Perry last month to pay coal plants more for their “resilience,” they said. FirstEnergy hasn’t formally requested the aid, one of the people said.