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Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on Friday filed a legal challenge to a 7-year-old court order that will soon require one of the state’s largest coal units to retire.
A 2019 modification to a consent decree approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio set emissions limits on both units of the Rockport Generating Station near Evansville and required Unit 1 at the plant to be retired, refueled or retrofitted by the end of 2028.
The plant is operated by Fort Wayne-based Indiana Michigan Power, which chose retirement for Unit 1. It also agreed to close Unit 2 as well in a 2021 agreement approved by state regulators. Both units produce about 1,300 megawatts of electricity.
In a press release soon after the utility signed the consent decree in 2019, it said the decision saved it $1 billion in additional investments that would have been needed to upgrade environmental controls at the plant.
The 2019 order was the fifth modification of a consent decree originally reached in 2007 involving air pollution issues at multiple Midwest power plants owned by AEP, which is I&M’s Columbus, Ohio-based parent company.
The degree was the result of lawsuits brought by eight northeastern states, environmental groups and the Environmental Protection Agency. The allegations that AEP broke environmental laws were never settled due to the consent decree.
In 2019, the EPA was controlled by the pro-coal Trump administration, which at the time noted that it did not seek the closure obligation that ended up in the amended consent decree.
Past modifications of the consent decree had already required that I&M install various pollution controls at Rockport, which Rokita said were funded by Indiana ratepayers.
“If Unit 1 is retired, those ratepayer-funded investments become stranded,” the filings said.
Rokita’s filings said the state is also taking other actions to keep Unit 2 running.
The attorney general said his office has been in contact with I&M about the filings.
“We certainly did talk with them and there were no objections,” he said at a press conference near Rockport.
I&M said in a statement that it “appreciates Attorney General Rokita’s focus on ensuring Indiana has the energy resources needed to support customers and economic growth.”
“We share that commitment and remain focused on providing safe, reliable, and affordable service while meeting all applicable legal, regulatory, and environmental requirements,” the statement said. “We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders as these discussions move forward.”
The utility recently announced plans to build a 1,520-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant at the Rockport site and is seeking approval to purchase a 918-megawatt natural gas plant under development in Sullivan County. I&M is also seeking a $50 million grant from the federal Energy Department to help it evaluate the potential of building a nuclear power plant at the Rockport site.
At the press conference, Rokita said he did not oppose I&M’s plans for additional generation at Rockport, but he argued that coal-fired power is still needed.
Rokita’s move comes following an executive order earlier this week from Gov. Mike Braun that directs state officials to reexamine environmental consent decrees that required coal plants to shut down.
Rokita said the legal action was contemplated before the governor’s executive order, but it does reflect the issues that Braun was addressing — particularly in relation to the regional transmission group that I&M participates in. Nonprofit organization PJM oversees parts of the electric grid in about a dozen states in Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions, including a small part of Indiana, and has been beset by concerns that its power supply is not meeting demand, especially as new power-hungry data centers come online.
“PJM’s Independent Market Monitor has warned that up to 58 [gigawatts] of generation could retire by 2030 without adequate replacement. … None of these conditions existed in 2019,” the filing said. “Indiana and PJM are facing a reliability and cost-crisis.”
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