The Trump Administration has responded to continued retirements of coal and nuclear units by proposing policies intended to prevent any further retirements of the traditional “baseload” fleet, under the premise that such retirements impair grid reliability, “resilience” and, more recently, national security. The first attempt at imposing a policy designed to deter retirements occurred when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposed a rule for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) consideration in October 2017.
