Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is asking a federal judge to block a plan to retire one of two coal-burning units at the Rockport power plant in southern Indiana.
Rokita’s filing came as Gov. Mike Braun directed state agencies to review opportunities to increase energy production from coal plants in Indiana.
The Rockport-based power plant is owned by Indiana Michigan Power Company and AEP Enterprises. The plant produces 1,750.2 megawatts of electricity, making it the second-largest in the state and one of 10 generating stations in Indiana that together produce more than 9,700 megawatts of electricity by burning coal. An additional three coal stations in neighboring states supply Indiana with more than 500 additional megawatts.
As part of a court-approved agreement in 2019, I&M would retire one of the units. The company will also stop using the second coal unit as part of a different agreement. Both are planned to end in 2028.
Rokita announced that he filed to intervene in the case governing the first unit on July 31 with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. He said Indiana faces an energy crisis and the state should produce as much energy as it can to meet the demands of manufacturing, data centers and population growth.
“We love all God’s children: nuclear, gas, but certainly coal. At a time when our state’s power demand is growing, we need all the power we can get — not a replacement strategy, an all-of-the-above strategy," Rokita said at a press conference in Rockport Friday, pointing to increasing energy demand and developments like data centers.
Others joined Rokita, including Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Cory Voight, who is in charge of the effort, Rockport Mayor Cathy Kirkpatrick and coal producers Terry Marsh of Alliance Coal and Alex Kerr of Gibson County Coal.
Rokita said he wants to keep jobs at the power plant. Due to new federal environmental regulations under the Trump administration, he said the circumstances have changed and wants the judge to grant his motion to intervene and modify the court-approved agreement to remove the requirement to close the coal unit.
The court hasn’t approved the office’s motion to intervene in the case yet.
The original consent decree was decided in 2007 and has been modified five times since then, most recently in 2019. That version mandated the unit’s closure.
Parties to the case include multiple states in the Northeast, several power companies and the Sierra Club. Indiana was not a party to the original case or the agreement and would have to be approved to enter.
Sierra Club attorney Tony Mendoza said the 1999 case concerned pollution from power facilities impacting other states’ residents and lack of air pollution controls on the coal unit. The legal settlement approved by a federal judge is made up of complex agreements among multiple parties negotiated over the course of years.
“What Indiana is trying to do is come in at the very end of the day, after the day is over, frankly, and upset a key aspect of the bargain,” Mendoza told WFYI, “and that’s just inappropriate.”
Mendoza said the company’s wind-down of the second coal unit at Rockport was the result of a decision by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, which the company is also bound by.
I&M has plans to create a natural gas facility at the Rockport site in 2030, which it has filed with the IURC for approval, and to convert the location into an “energy center.”
Mendoza said the natural gas filing indicates the company is moving on.
“We will certainly oppose the request to modify the consent decree,” he said.
In a statement to WFYI, I&M said it “appreciates” Rokita’s focus on the state’s energy resources, customers and economic growth.
“We share that commitment and remain focused on providing safe, reliable, and affordable service while meeting all applicable legal, regulatory, and environmental requirements. We look forward to continuing to work with policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders as these discussions move forward,” it said.
In an executive order signed July 24, Braun ordered Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski to look for “opportunities to reopen or revisit consent decrees or settlements that closed or threaten to close coal-based electric generation power plants in Indiana.”
It specifically directed Jaworowski to identify agreements in which the state was not a party, that included coal units scheduled to close before 50 years of operation and those with “no allegation or finding of wrongdoing” by the unit.
Voight, the attorney in charge of Rokita’s effort to block the Rockport unit’s closure, said at the July 31 press conference that the office wants the filing to send a message.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is to tell the court ‘you need to change your consent decree because the circumstances have changed’ — not only with our energy future and what’s going on now, but also the EPA and those regulations have changed," he said.
In the attorney general’s proposed order, the office said it will file a memorandum of support on Aug. 10.
Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org
