Trump’s Energy Emergency & Electricity Export Boondoggle
Trump still can't resolve conflict between 202c and 202e of the Federal Power Act
By Tyson Slocum
In early 2025, as Trump’s Department of Energy laid out plans to use emergency Federal Power Act 202c authorities for their political campaign to force consumers to bailout soon-to-be-retiring fossil fuel power plants, their in-house lawyers flagged a problem: if they declare continuous emergencies that claim shortages, that would ensnare routine filings to export electricity to Canada and Mexico – as export applications require a formal determination that domestic electricity supplies are abundant.
On April 8, 2025, Trump issued an executive order to “streamline, systemize, and expedite the Department of Energy’s processes for issuing orders under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act“.
A month later, they were ready to issue their first emergency order for the Campbell coal facility in Michigan on May 23.
But there was a problem.
FPA Section 202a declares its purpose as “assuring an abundant supply of electric energy throughout the United States with the greatest possible economy”. FPA Section 202e mandates that “no person shall transmit any electric energy from the United States to a foreign country without first having secured an order of the Commission authorizing it to do so. The Commission shall issue such order upon application unless, after opportunity for hearing, it finds that the proposed transmission would impair the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States or would impede or tend to impede the coordination in the public interest of facilities subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission.”
So DOE in-house lawyers recognized the problem: they can’t issue sweeping 202c orders declaring widespread power shortages at the same time that their corporate friends wanted to export electricity, which requires a determination of abundant domestic supply.
So days before they were ready to unveil their first 202c emergency order, on May 16 DOE issued a proposed rulemaking that proposed administratively removing statutory reviews of electricity exports.
I was one of the few to see this and aggressively intervened. I pointed out that DOE’s notice of proposed rulemaking proposed the replacement of the current standard of review with whatever energy companies suggest: the proposed rule “will simply allow applicants to include information the applicant deems relevant to such an authorization for consideration by the DOE under the Federal Power Act”. DOE justifies the proposed rule by claiming its objective is to bolster “American energy dominance by increasing exports and subsequently the reliance of foreign nations on American energy.” But, as I wrote in my July 15 protest, the Federal Power Act’s regulation of electricity exports contains no mention that Congress sought a purpose of “increasing exports”; rather, the Congressional mandate in subjecting electricity exports to review was to ensure “the sufficiency of electric supply within the United States”. My opposition to DOE’s attempt to administratively eviscerate Section 202e of the Federal Power Act apparently was successful, because DOE hasn’t done a thing with the rulemaking since.
In the Summer of 2025, DOE approved two export authorizations that certified that America has surplus energy, including an export authorization for Macquarie, the financial firm that owns Puget Sound Energy in Washington State, which DOE approved over our objections. DOE also approved an export authorization for Constellation Energy’s Calpine unit, again over our objections.
So fast forward to now. Public Citizen has formally challenged the six DOE orders to keep five coal and one natural gas power plant operating beyond their scheduled retirements – at a cost of $230 million to ratepayers. At the same time, we challenged Morgan Stanley’s application to export power, where the Wall Street bank holds contractual rights to a major export transmission line in Montana – in the same market where DOE on Dec 16 determined that an energy emergency exists.
So we have a two-pronged approach to force a legal review of the conflict between Trump’s continued abuse of 202c emergency authorities while simultaneously approving exports under 202e.