Wartime Powers To Keep ACs On

Aerial view of Three Mile Island — WARTIME POWERS BOMBSHELL

When a brutal heat wave hit and air conditioners roared to life, the U.S. government quietly reached for wartime‑era powers to keep the lights on.

Story Snapshot

Department of Energy used emergency authority to push fossil fuel plants past normal limits during a major 2025 heat wave.
President Trump had already declared a national energy emergency and expanded federal power over the grid.
Emergency orders kept coal and oil units running and let utilities exceed pollution rules to avoid blackouts.
Environmental groups now claim those “emergencies” stretched the law and common sense to protect aging plants.

Heat Wave Turns Into a Federal Power Emergency

The June 2025 heat wave did more than send temperatures toward 100 degrees across the Southeast. It pushed the electric grid to a point where the Department of Energy said normal rules were no longer enough to keep power flowing.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act authorizing Duke Energy Carolinas to run specified plants at maximum output, even if that meant going over their air permit limits, for two days during peak heat.

This was not a routine step. Section 202(c) was enacted in the 1930s for wartime and national crises, yet it is now being invoked when extreme weather and high demand collide.

That Duke order was part of a larger federal response as heat domes began stressing grids across the eastern half of the country. Reporting at the time tied the move directly to fears of rolling blackouts and “shortage of electric energy” in the Southeast as temperatures topped 100 degrees and air conditioners ran flat out.

The message from the Department of Energy was blunt: Americans should not have to wonder if their grid can handle summer. When faced with a choice between temporary extra emissions and losing power during dangerous heat, the Trump administration chose reliability first.

From National Energy Emergency to Repeat Grid Interventions

The June order did not come out of thin air. On January 20, 2025, President Trump formally declared a National Energy Emergency, arguing that years of policy decisions left the United States with “insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation” and an increasingly unreliable grid.

That declaration set the stage for aggressive use of federal tools, including Section 202(c), to prevent early retirement of coal and gas plants and to shore up power supplies when demand spikes.

An April 8, 2025 executive order, “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” directed the Department of Energy to use that emergency authority to keep “critical” generators running when regions were labeled “at risk.”

By summer, this playbook was fully in motion. A Congressional Research Service report later described how the Department of Energy’s May 2025 orders involved “seemingly new interpretations” of Section 202(c), signaling a willingness to stretch that old wartime language into modern grid reliability policy.

In August 2025, the Department extended multiple emergency reliability orders to keep coal and oil‑fired units online, including plants in Puerto Rico and peaking units at Eddystone, Pennsylvania, as part of a second phase of grid interventions.

These actions underscored a core instinct: when critical infrastructure is fragile, government’s first duty is to keep it standing, even if lawyers and activists complain.

Speed to Power and the New Reliability Rulebook

The national energy emergency also launched a broader rethink of how to judge grid risk. Under the Speed to Power initiative, the Department of Energy released its report “Evaluating the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid” on July 7, 2025.

Produced under Trump’s executive orders, the report introduced a uniform national method to identify “at‑risk” regions and “critical” generation resources.

Regions such as PJM in the Mid‑Atlantic and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator were flagged as facing systemic challenges if planned fossil fuel retirements went ahead. This gave the Department of Energy numbers to cite when justifying the short‑term retention of specific plants under emergency orders.

The report, however, stopped short of granting open‑ended power. Legal analysis stressed that any Section 202(c) order must still be time‑limited, tied to a real emergency, and focused on specific units that address a quantifiable risk while serving the public interest.

Critics argue the Department of Energy is drifting from that standard; supporters counter that in a world of record heat, surging data centers, and aging wires, waiting for perfect proof means waiting until after the blackout.

Environmental Backlash and the “False Emergency” Charge

Environmental groups reacted sharply as these orders piled up. Earthjustice accused the Department of Energy in July 2025 of taking steps to “extend the lives of polluting power plants under [a] false energy emergency,” arguing that the grid did not face the kind of extraordinary threat that Section 202(c) was meant to cover.

Their concern is straightforward: every time the federal government waives pollution limits for coal and oil units in the name of reliability, it delays cleaner replacements and locks in more emissions.

From this view, their accusation rests on a weak foundation unless they can show the grid was clearly safe without those plants. Yet they highlight a real problem: the Department of Energy has not publicly released detailed technical metrics for each event, such as exact reserve margins or frequency changes during the June heat wave. Without that transparency, the public debate slides into pure politics.

Supporters of the emergency path see a federal government finally treating energy security as national security. Opponents see regulatory capture, with fossil fuel owners benefiting whenever “emergency” becomes the default label for hot weather. The truth likely depends on the data that has not yet been fully shared.