The Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee was supposed to close. Years of pollution, equipment failures, and health concerns had sealed its fate — TVA planned to shutter units in 2026 and 2028. Then the Trump administration replaced four TVA board members, and suddenly the retirement plan was off. Now there’s $46 million in federal funding to extend the plant’s life.
Cumberland is one of at least three coal plants receiving Department of Energy grants that have been repeatedly cited for Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations. The others: Grand River Energy Center in Oklahoma and Roxboro Steam Electric Plant in North Carolina.
The 2011 settlement over Cumberland’s pollution control failures cost TVA billions. Regulators cited it again in 2017 and 2023. One study estimates that just one of Cumberland’s air pollutants — toxic fine particles — contributed to 1,000 deaths across New York and Massachusetts between 1999 and 2020.
“I feel like it’s a step backwards when we should be investing in clean energy,” said Angie Mummaw, who lives eight miles from the plant and organizes for Appalachian Voices. She says residents can see the pollution settling on cars and homes — sooty dust accumulating day after day.
The Energy Department didn’t address the violation history, saying only that Trump is “reversing the American war on coal” and that the investments support grid resilience. Delaney King, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, called Cumberland a symptom of a bigger problem: decades-old coal plants being dragged into a modern regulatory space they were never built for.
Courtney Bernhardt at the Environmental Integrity Project put it bluntly: “The Trump administration seems to disregard the compliance status of many of the plants they’re trying to fund, while simultaneously weakening permitting requirements.”
