April 22, 2026 - U.S. lawmakers criticized Energy Secretary Chris Wright in hearings last week for ordering aging coal plants to stay open, saying the action stands to raise already-high ?power bills for consumers and steelmakers.

Wright's department in December ordered two Indiana coal plants, ‌that had been planning to shut permanently, to remain open, saying they would lower the risk of blackouts and ensure access to affordable power. The CenterPoint Energy (CNP.N) and Northern Indiana Public Service Company coal plants had planned to ?be replaced by natural gas and other power sources.

NIPSCO estimates it will cost $100 million to ?keep its plant open. Representative Frank Mrvan, a Democrat of Indiana, said keeping ?them open risks raising power rates because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized the regional ?grid operator to recover the costs of compliance.

"Northwest Indiana is the top steel producing region in the ?country, those utility rates go into the cost of steel, which go into the cost of everything we produce," Mrvan told Wright on Wednesday. "Please explain why that forced emergency order is benefiting the people who are getting ?crushed by those policies."

Wright said the goal is to ultimately drive prices down and protect the ?grid from blackouts in a region where power-hungry data centers are mushrooming. Wright agreed to reassess his orders to ‌keep ?the plants open across Indiana and Washington state.

CenterPoint wrote a letter dated Feb 17 to Wright, asking him to drop the order keeping its F.B. Culley 2 coal plant operating, saying it is costly to support the "inefficient and increasingly unreliable asset."

The letter, published on Thursday, was obtained by public ?interest group the Citizens Action ?Coalition.

Instead, Wright's department ?issued another order in March directing CenterPoint to run the plant until at least June 21.

Ben Inskeep, director of the coalition, said the orders are ?an "outrageous abuse of power that will cause Americans' energy bills to continue ?to increase."

When Republican Tom Barrett launched his bid to represent Michigan's 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2023,

Wright ?has also ordered TransAlta, opens new tab to keep a coal unit open at its Centralia plant in Washington state that had been planning to retire at the end of 2025. On Thursday, Representative Kim Schrier, said ?consumers are ?paying the costs of keeping the unit on standby even ?though it is not generating power and that hydropower and natural gas are replacing. The order was due to the ?administration's "obsession with coal," she said.