"Advocacy groups said the order failed to establish an energy emergency. The Department of Energy partly attributed one to anticipated demand associated with data centers."
"The Trump administration is facing a new legal challenge over an emergency order keeping a Florida coal-fired power plant, which had been scheduled for retirement, in operation.
The motion, filed by the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Earthjustice, on behalf of Florida Rising, a grassroots group representing communities of color, asks the Department of Energy to reconsider the order, arguing it fails to show that an emergency actually exists. The groups also say the order exceeds the department’s statutory authority and violates the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Department of Energy issued the order in June. The Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) had planned to move one of two coal-fired plants at the Stanton Energy Center into a state of “extended cold shutdown” by the end of May, as part of a 2020 plan to transition to renewable energy and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. OUC said at the time of the emergency order that it would comply but declined to provide further comment for this article. It is the state’s second-largest municipal utility, serving more than 288,000 customers in Orange and Osceola counties.
“It’s a somewhat absurd idea that OUC needs to keep this plant operating,” said Bradley Marshall, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “We have some of the highest generation capacity reserves in the nation. Any kind of liability assessment generally puts Florida in the lowest category of priority, given how many power plants we already have in the state.”"
