Two power plants and the energy record

Both plants are in the district. Port Sheldon Township, home of the Campbell plant, and Covert Township, home of Palisades, each lie entirely inside MI-4 (Census Bureau 119th Congress county subdivision relationship file). Electricity prices are a statewide figure. The Energy Information Administration doesn't publish them by congressional district.

Palisades stopped generating electricity in May 2022. Its owner, Holtec International, then set out to restart it, which DOE describes as the first attempted restart of a U.S. commercial reactor that had ceased operations (DOE text quoted in his office's Mar. 17, 2025 release). Huizenga has backed the restart since 2023. In December 2023 he led a bipartisan letter to the Energy Secretary and the NRC chair urging "swift and responsible consideration" of Holtec's federal loan application. The cosigners were four Democrats (Reps. Donald Norcross, Hillary Scholten, Haley Stevens, and Elissa Slotkin) and four Republicans (Reps. Tim Walberg, Jack Bergman, John Moolenaar, and Jeff Van Drew). The letter also asked the NRC "to utilize its full independent oversight authorities to ensure the most stringent standards of safety" (his office, Dec. 18, 2023).

The federal support has come under presidents of both parties. In March 2024, the Biden administration's Loan Programs Office offered a conditional commitment of up to $1.52 billion for a loan guarantee for the restart (American Nuclear Society, trade press, secondary), which his office says closed in September 2024. In March 2025 the Trump administration released a second disbursement of $56.8 million. In December 2025 it selected Holtec for up to $400 million in cost-shared funding toward two small modular reactors at the site (American Nuclear Society, secondary). Huizenga issued statements at each step, welcoming the 2024 commitment and thanking President Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright in 2025, and describing himself as having "led the charge in Congress" (Mar. 27, 2024; Mar. 17, 2025; Dec. 2, 2025). His office is the source for that description of his role. The record shows letters and public advocacy, not legislation. No bill he sponsored was needed for the loan or the award.

The restart hasn't happened yet. Fuel loading began Aug. 30, 2026 and was paused after a previously used fuel assembly tilted in the reactor vessel. Holtec notified the NRC and determined the incident didn't trigger safety reporting requirements. It hasn't announced a new restart date, and earlier reports said it is contracted to begin supplying power by March 2027 (American Nuclear Society, Sept. 25, 2026, secondary). In March 2025 Huizenga wrote that the plant was "on schedule to be operational later this year or early next year," citing local reports (weekly column). The sources reviewed didn't identify a statement from him on the delay.

Consumers Energy proposed retiring the coal-fired Campbell plant in its June 2021 long-term resource plan. In April 2022 it agreed in a settlement with Michigan's Attorney General, environmental groups, and the Michigan Public Service Commission's staff to retire the plant by May 31, 2025 and replace it with a gas plant, solar, and battery storage. The commission approved the settlement on June 23, 2022, and the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld that approval in March 2023 (D.C. Circuit opinion, describing the record). The regional grid operator, MISO, also reviewed the retirement and determined that, with the replacement generation, it would support reliability.

On May 23, 2025, eight days before the retirement date, the Department of Energy ordered the plant to stay available under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, an emergency power Congress gave the department. DOE has renewed the order every 90 days since. The sixth order runs through Nov. 14, 2026. DOE says the plant had been slated to close "15 years before the end of its scheduled design life" (DOE, first order; DOE, Order No. 202-26-39).

On Sept. 11, 2026, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the first order. The court held that a section 202(c) emergency means "a grid-reliability risk that calls for an immediate response by DOE in particular," and that the circumstances DOE identified didn't meet that standard. It described the states, not DOE, as responsible for long-term reliability planning (Michigan v. Department of Energy, No. 25-1159). The ruling covers only the first order, which had already expired. Challenges to the later orders are pending, and the cost-recovery case at FERC is separate.

Huizenga supports keeping the plant running. Speaking at an Oct. 7, 2026 campaign event with House Speaker Mike Johnson, he said the plant "should not have been shut down," and gave his reason: "Because 10% of Michigan's electrical production comes out of that one plant." He attributed the planned closure to Michigan's clean-energy policy and Democratic state officials, naming Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the state senator running against him (WWMT, secondary). His House website carries no release on Campbell from 2025 or 2026. His standing energy position calls for an "all-of-the-above" strategy in which the federal government doesn't "pick winners and losers" among energy sources (his Energy issue page).

Two of the statement's factual premises can be checked against the record:

• The plant's share of Michigan's electricity. EIA data put Campbell at 6.0% of the electricity generated in Michigan in 2025, and between 5.5% and 7.2% in each year from 2019 through 2025. No year reached 10%.
• Why the plant was set to close early. DOE's own description, "15 years before the end of its scheduled design life," supports his point that the retirement came well ahead of the plant's design life. The retirement date itself came from Consumers Energy's own 2021 plan and the 2022 settlement the Michigan Public Service Commission approved.

The sources reviewed didn't identify a statement from Huizenga on the D.C. Circuit's ruling, on the plant's costs to ratepayers, or on whether section 202(c) authorized the orders. The case for keeping the plant open is substantive, and it belongs here. DOE's orders state that the plant's continued operation is needed to meet an energy emergency across MISO's North and Central regions (as summarized in the CMS Energy filing above). Supporters argue that retiring controllable generation while electricity demand grows creates real reliability risk. The court didn't decide whether that risk exists in the long term. It held that a long-term risk is for states and grid operators to plan for, not a reason for DOE to use its emergency power.

These are the energy votes covered here, oldest first. H.R. 1 and the 2026 funding law meet the site's selection criteria as a reconciliation law and an appropriations law. The other two are included by editorial judgment: the 2023 bill because his own energy statements cite it repeatedly, and the Ratepayer Protection Act because of its near-unanimous bipartisan vote on a cost question tied to data-center growth. The harbor-craft emissions and diesel-engine grant votes from September 2026 are in the Voting Record.