Sierra Club Responds to Attorney General Rokita’s Lawsuit to Block the Rockport Coal Plant Retirement

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed an intervention in a long-dormant case to block the retirement of the Rockport coal plant in Spencer County, which is planned to close by the end of 2028. Sierra Club's Hoosier Chapter Director Robyn Skuya-Boss responded that the move is too late and that extending the plant's life would harm the environment and public health while risking Hoosier ratepayers' money. The lawsuit follows Governor Braun's executive order and Trump Administration orders to keep other coal plants open, citing AI data centers as justification.

Sierra Club Responds to Attorney General Rokita’s Lawsuit to Block the Rockport Coal Plant Retirement Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe , on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cleantechnica , or on Stripe https://cleantechnica.fundjournalism.org/contribute/ . Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/14/10/ despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. INDIANA — Attorney General Rokita has filed an intervention https://image.subscription.in.gov/lib/fe2e11747364047b721071/m/1/1a639d3e-5022-4495-bea5-e23034496a91.pdf in a long-dormant case in an attempt to block the retirement of the Rockport coal plant in Spencer County, which is planned to close by the end of 2028. AEP Indiana Michigan Power I&M , owner of the Rockport plant, is already in the process of building replacement generation. This is yet another move by the Indiana state government to shield the highly-polluting and uneconomic coal industry, seizing on data centers as the justification, following Governor Braun’s executive order https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/07/gov-braun-s-executive-order-moves-throw-lifeline-coal-plants-power-data to look into extending coal plants to power AI data centers. Additionally, the Trump Administration recently renewed its orders to keep the Culley and Schahfer coal plants open https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2026/06/trump-administration-illegally-extends-operations-culley-and-schahfer-coal , despite both of the Schahfer coal units being broken and CenterPoint, owner of the Culley coal plant, asking the U.S. Department of Energy not to reissue the emergency order https://www.citact.org/news/centerpoint-urged-federal-government-not-reissue-emergency-order-costly-coal-plant-letter-shows , stating that maintaining the coal plant “will require substantial investment to support an inefficient and increasingly unreliable asset.” In response, Robyn Skuya-Boss, Hoosier Chapter Director, released the following statement: “We’re still reviewing what has been filed, but our stance on the dangers and high costs of coal remains the same. Extending the life of the Rockport plant, by any measure, is not only dangerous for the environment and public health, but puts Hoosiers at risk for footing the bill to fix and maintain it. Time and again, our state government has shown that their priority isn’t affordability for Hoosier families and small businesses, but that they’ll cut corners however they can to encourage Big Tech to build massive AI data centers in our communities. The American Electric Power Clean Air Act case was filed in the 1990s and has been resolved for many years. The Indiana Attorney General is far too late to engage now. We intend to vigorously defend Rockport’s retirement obligation, which the owner of the plant freely agreed to.” Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe , sign up for our daily newsletter https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter , and follow us on Google News https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLQgKIidDQklTRndnTWFoTUtFV05zWldGdWRHVmphRzVwWTJFdVkyOXRLQUFQAQ Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here https://cleantechnica.com/contact/ . Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter . Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/weekly-newsletter if daily is too frequent. CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-editorial-ethics/ . CleanTechnica's Comment Policy https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-comment-policy/