Ohio GOP Circulates Bill That Would Stymie Coal Plant Closures
November 13, 2026 - Republican lawmakers in Ohio are circulating a plan to keep coal plants open, even if an owner has a contractual obligation to close a facility. And they hope to pass it fast, before the new Democratic governor-elect, Amy Acton, takes office.
A draft bill obtained by Canary Media would block coal-fired power plants from closing when the shutdown is required by a settlement agreement. It would apply to both past and future contracts between plant owners and private parties to resolve issues in a state court or regulatory proceeding.
“My first thought was, ‘Why is there a piece of legislation trying to go against the Ohio Constitution’” said Neil Waggoner, Midwest coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, referring to a prohibition against retroactive laws. “This breaks not just any contract moving forward but also breaks any previous contract.”
The proposal would directly affect the 620-megawatt coal unit at the Cardinal power plant in eastern Ohio, which is slated to close by the end of 2028. In 2015, the Sierra Club and American Electric Power’s Ohio utility, which owned part of the plant at the time, reached a settlement in a regulatory case that included a commitment for the closure and other measures.
Under the draft bill, Buckeye Power, which took on AEP’s obligations for the Cardinal power plant following a 2022 sale, could ignore the terms of the settlement and keep the facility online if requested or ordered by various people or agencies.
In a statement sent to Canary Media, Buckeye Power said that it “supports the draft legislation and intends to file testimony in its favor after it is introduced.”
The company added that it views the proposal as “a balanced and narrowly tailored solution that helps keep electricity reliable and affordable for Ohio consumers by allowing critical generation resources to remain available until the reliability crisis has passed.”
For years, Ohio lawmakers have made it harder and harder to build renewable energy projects that would bring down electricity costs in the state while reining in greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Now, instead of reducing those barriers with a genuine all-of-the-above strategy, “they’re extending the life of these dirty, expensive coal plants,” said Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, who is the ranking minority member on the House Energy Committee and opposes the plan. Rader said it’s unclear whether the draft bill will be considered on its own or tacked onto other legislation that is further along so it could pass in the lame-duck session. The session ends on Dec. 31. In January, Acton will move into the governor’s mansion, and Republicans will no longer have a supermajority in the House.
The draft legislation cites grid reliability as justification for the proposal, echoing the Trump administration’s assertions that aging coal plants are needed to prevent power outages. The administration has repeatedly ordered coal plants to stay open past their planned closure dates because of alleged reliability concerns. Critics say those orders are unfounded and unlawful.
Waggoner said the bill’s language seems directly aimed at nullifying Buckeye Power’s obligation under the settlement agreement. Plus, he said, if the concern is about reliability, mechanisms are already in place to determine whether any specific facility must keep operating as a technical matter.
Assessment by the regional grid operator PJM Interconnection is one such mechanism. PJM’s website shows its analysis is still underway for the scheduled deactivation of the 620-megawatt Cardinal unit by Jan. 1, 2029.
But the grid operator has signaled a desire to keep the power plant online due to the Trump administration’s declaration of a grid emergency. On March 6, Michael Bryson, PJM’s senior vice president of operations, wrote to Buckeye Power, urging it to get a voluntary waiver from the Sierra Club or a court declaration that the settlement agreement is invalid.
“As your company is aware,” the letter said, “the President and the Secretary of Energy have declared that an emergency exists that poses a threat to the reliability and the ability to serve load, including emergent data centers needed to help fuel the United States’ advancements in artificial intelligence.”
Two weeks later, on March 19, Sarah Parrot, the federal energy advocate at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, told Buckeye Power that the commission wouldn’t enforce the agreement, claiming that regulators hadn’t approved the deal. In fact, PUCO greenlit the settlement agreement in March 2016.
How the draft bill would impact future settlements is unclear. On one hand, it could limit community groups’ or environmental organizations’ tools for bargaining with coal plant owners in cases involving claims about nuisance problems or violations of regulatory permits. However, many of those claims would be in federal court, Waggoner noted, and the bill language only applies to state court and regulatory settlements.
