Photo by Josh Doke
By Tennessee Member and Beyond Coal Organizer Bonnie Swinford
This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee ruled that the Tennessee Valley Authority’s decision to build the Kingston Gas Plant had “fundamental" errors that violated federal law. The effect of the court’s ruling, which currently remains sealed, is that TVA does not have the legal basis to build the methane gas plant.
The ruling comes after the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, and the Center for Biological Diversity, sued TVA over the unlawful decisions in 2024. The lawsuit argued that TVA failed to evaluate cleaner and cheaper alternatives to the gas plant and that the federal utility had improperly committed to spending ratepayer dollars on fossil fuel infrastructure before analyzing, under the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), alternatives to building the facility. The court ruled that these unlawful actions violated NEPA.
TVA has filed a motion to stay the ruling, asking for permission to ignore the court’s ruling and to continue building its illegal gas plant. However, the court’s order is clear, and TVA is not above the law.
In 2024, after years of dedicated community advocacy, TVA finalized its plan to retire the 1,700-megawatt Kingston coal plant by 2027 and recommended replacing the coal plant with a large methane gas plant with a small solar farm and battery energy storage. The project would include the associated Ridgeline pipeline, spanning 122 miles across the Tennessee Valley and threatening hundreds of waterways in the region to deliver methane gas to the Kingston Gas Plant.
In an extremely disappointing reversal in 2026, TVA announced its plans to keep its Kingston coal plant operating for the foreseeable future, canceled its small renewable energy project at Kingston, and blew by its upcoming deadlines to close the polluting facilities.
As you may know, the Kingston coal plant was the cause of one of the largest environmental disasters in American history, spilling 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash into the Emory River, Clinch River, and nearby communities like Swan Pond in 2008. Over 40 cleanup workers are dead, and at least 400 are experiencing illness.
“People in Kingston and across East Tennessee deserve clean air, affordable energy, and a TVA that is accountable to the public—not a utility that makes backroom decisions and expects working families to pay the price. TVA is not above the law and can’t steamroll forward with an expensive and dirty gas plant and pipeline without a full analysis of how much damage the massive Kingston gas plant will do to communities and the environment,” said Bonnie Swinford, Sierra Club’s campaign organizing strategist.
News Hits
https://www.wate.com/news/roane-county-news/kingston-tva-plant-lawsuit-ruling/
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/sep/08/tva-plans-to-appeal-disastrous-court-order/
https://3bmedianews.com/court-halts-tvas-kingston-gas-plant-project-following-environmental-lawsuit/