Washington state’s attorney general is asking the courts to reject an order from the federal government to keep the last coal-burning generator at TransAlta Centralia operating.
Attorney General Nick Brown filed a petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District on Tuesday morning on behalf of Washington state against an order from the federal government. The 90-day order filed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in the final weeks of December, 2025, called on TransAlta Centralia to keep its last coal fired generation unit, often known as unit 2, operating through the winter.
According to a news release from the attorney general’s office, Brown is now taking legal action by petitioning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after an earlier request to the federal government for a rehearing on the order was denied. He also filed a lawsuit against DOE alleging the agency violated the Freedom of Information Act by not disclosing public records related to the order to keep TransAlta Centralia burning coal.
In the news release, Brown refers to the federal order as illegal and states that the order was justified by an unlikely energy emergency. He added that the order also caused problems for the state and TransAlta as they prepared for a transition to natural gas generation.
“Trying to force Washington to restart a defunct power plant is not only illegal, but would also jeopardize public health,” Brown said. “Washington state will not be bullied.”
A number of environmental groups are also parties to the petition, joining Brown and Washington state in opposition to the federal order from the DOE. In a news release from Earthjustice, the nonprofit environmental law group supports Brown’s position, alleging that the Trump administration used an emergency statute to keep the TransAlta plant burning coal despite a lack of an emergency.
The original order from DOE cited a study from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) that predicted the northwestern part of the U.S. is at increased risk of power outages in extreme weather events as legacy power generation facilities are decommissioned.
The order to keep unit 2 operational came roughly two weeks ahead of a state deadline that required the facility shut down the same coal-fired generator for good as part of a 2011 piece of state legislation that mandated steps away from coal-generating facilities. The same facility decommissioned the first of its two coal-fired generation units in 2020 as part of the same legislation.
Just a week before the DOE issued the order, TransAlta Centralia had also announced plans to convert unit 2 to natural-gas fueled power generation. With the announcement of the conversion, the company also detailed an agreement with Puget Sound Energy for the regional power company to purchase the energy produced by the natural gas generator. PSE plans to purchase the power beginning as soon as the facility begins generating electricity and extending through the year 2044.
A conversion for the facility to natural gas had long been desired, but was never delivered until recently.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle on the federal order and Washington state’s opposition, visit https://tinyurl.com/497b2tr5.
