EDDYSTONE, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A Delaware County power plant is at the center of a lawsuit against the Trump administration, focused on the administration’s push to keep the plant open.
The Eddystone generating station, which opened in 1960, was scheduled to shut down this past May.
“That was a plan that had been approved by the regional transmission organization at the end of 2023,” said Caroline Reiser, with the Natural Resources Defense Council. However, she said the Trump administration has issued 90-day emergency extensions to keep it open.
“The Department of Energy used a very narrow emergency authority that is meant to be a wartime authority or to be used in very imminent unexpected emergencies,” she said. “That mandates the old plant, that the owner had decided was uneconomic and not worth maintaining online, would have to stay online.”
The administration, she said, has justified its actions with unsubstantiated claims there will not be enough energy in the region in the near future.
Reiser likened the plant to an old car whose maintenance was delayed because it was headed to the dump, but now has to keep driving. She said the NRDC is taking the administration to court in the hopes a judge will let the plant close.
“All of the costs to keep this plant open will get passed on to Pennsylvania families,” she said. The NRDC, she explained, has advocated for a clean energy grid to replace what is currently in use.
Calls to the Department of Energy were not immediately returned.