In Illinois Office of Attorney General v. U.S. DOE, 25-1193 (D.C. Cir.), public interest organizations and consumer advocates are challenging the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) repeated orders delaying retirement of the Eddystone power plant in Pennsylvania. This amicus brief, filed by energy law scholars, argues that DOE misused its narrow “emergency” authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act. The brief explains that electric grid reliability is normally maintained through coordinated, forward-looking planning and stable energy markets—not through ad hoc federal orders keeping individual aging power plants running. While long-term resource adequacy is a genuine issue in the PJM Interconnection (“PJM”), in which the Eddystone Units are located, such a concerns should be addressed through the established reliability framework. By substituting rolling, plant-specific emergency mandates for stable, forward-looking planning, DOE’s approach undermines that framework—distorting energy markets, degrading reliability planning, and propping up aging power plants outside the system Congress created. DOE’s use of this emergency power to address long-term resource adequacy concerns, rather than discrete crises as historically intended, breaks with nearly a century of precedent and undermines the electricity market mechanisms designed to ensure reliability.
This resource was commissioned by or produced by staff of the Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy before the organization rebranded as Ridgeline Center for Law and Policy in 2026.