The Trump administration is badly stretching the law to keep open coal-fired power plants throughout the Midwest that otherwise would have shuttered under well-thought-out, long-term strategies.

The latest examples are in neighboring Indiana, where the Department of Energy late last month ordered utilities not to close two aging power stations that otherwise would have been taken out of service by the end of last month. The orders mean that the Schahfer station in Wheatfield, Indiana, and the F.B. Culley station in Warrick County, Indiana, will remain open for 90 days.

If DOE’s previous actions in Michigan are a guide, where DOE saved a coal-fired plant about 35 miles east of Grand Rapids from closure beginning in May, those Indiana plants will likely get another 90-day reprieve after the current one expires and likely more such orders once the next 90 days pass by.

President Donald Trump long has supported the continued burning of coal to produce electricity despite risks to human health as well the emissions’ well-established contributions to Earth’s warming climate. At the same time, Trump recently acted to kill five large-scale wind farms already under construction in the Atlantic that are slated to generate enough power to serve 2.5 million household and business customers. Trump seems to detest wind power as much as he professes to love coal power.

In the case of the Michigan and Indiana coal plants, the Energy Department is ordering them kept alive under provisions of the Federal Power Act that are meant for reliability crises, such as those caused by natural disasters.

The Schahfer plant, located about 75 miles southeast of Chicago, was slated for closure years ago under a comprehensive plan put together by Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO), which serves much of the northern third of the state. While there are legitimate concerns throughout the Midwest about future reliability due to new data centers and their substantial power consumption, there is no looming emergency that justifies the administration’s action here.

Regional power-grid managers, in concert with utilities, have the ability to order plants on the chopping block to continue running if there are threats to reliability, and they use that authority from time to time. The Energy Department doesn’t get involved in those decisions ordinarily.

That’s how such decisions should continue to be made.

Heavy-handed government involvement in energy markets is not unique to Washington. We’ve seen governments at the state level, including in Illinois, get overly involved in determining the proper mix of power generation — usually to the detriment of ratepayers. Trump’s thumb on the scale to favor coal burners will have the same effect. After all, these plants were closing in part because they’re more expensive than other available energy sources. Ratepayers will shoulder that cost at a time when inflation and affordability are top public concerns.

Slowly but surely, the U.S. is moving in the direction of clean energy. With some exceptions, the market is doing a pretty good job of making that transition as cost effectively as possible. Government has a role to play — as a setter of environmental standards, for example — but shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.

That’s true in Illinois, where we’ve seen heavy-handed moves from those opposed to fossil fuels founder on realities of supply and demand. And it’s true of the Trump administration’s market interference in Indiana and Michigan.

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