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... The use of coal to generate electricity on the US grid has been plunging for nearly two decades, and the first Trump administration was unable to affect the trend. So his second administration has attempted more aggressive interventions to prop up coal use. One of its most direct means of doing so is to order coal plants that were scheduled to close to remain open, even if there is no need for them.

The administration's justification for these orders is a statute that allows the Department of Energy (DOE) to declare an emergency in the case of wartime or a sudden shortfall in generation. ...

The decision was issued by a unanimous three-judge panel from the DC Circuit's Court of Appeals. ...

The court interprets this as an indication that Congress had intended for federal intervention at the level of generation facilities to be rare and only in cases where there was an immediate shortfall that could only be addressed through federal action. And it notes that this is exactly how the authority had been used throughout its history. "Indeterminate assertions of summer electricity shortfalls are not what Congress meant by 'emergency,'" the judges conclude. ...