WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Friday ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to halt the shutdown of ailing coal and nuclear power plants that he said were needed to maintain the nation's energy mix, grid resilience and national security.

"Unfortunately, impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading to a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation's energy mix, and impacting the resilience of our power grid," the White House said in a statement.

The Trump administration has been preparing to invoke emergency powers granted under Cold War-era legislation to order regional grid operators to buy electricity from ailing coal and nuclear power plants. There have been meetings this week at the cabinet deputies' level and at the National Security Council.

One likely plan, laid out in a 41-page draft memorandum posted online by Bloomberg News and Utility Dive, would favor certain power plants in the name of national security. Those plants are owned by some of the president's political allies in the coal industry.

According to the draft memo, the Energy Department would exercise its emergency authority to order grid operators to give preference to plants "that have a secure on-site fuel supply" and which "are essential to support the Nation's defense facilities, critical energy infrastructure, and other critical infrastructure." Only coal and nuclear plants regularly keep fuel on site.

The Energy Department would also establish a "Strategic Electric Generation Reserve." The memo added that "federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity." The emergency rules would be a "prudent stopgap measure" that would last two years while the Energy Department did further study.

"President Trump believes in total energy independence and dominance, and that keeping America's energy grid and infrastructure strong and secure protects our national security, public safety and economy from intentional attacks and natural disasters," the White House said.

Under a state law passed in 2016, utilities in Oregon are not allowed to bring coal-fired power into their customers' energy mix past 2035. Under a 2010 agreement, Portland General Electric plans to shut Oregon's only coal-fired power plant in Boardman in 2020. PacifiCorp also has plans to shutter a number of its coal-fired units over the next 15 years.

"There has been no change in our plan to cease coal-fired operations in 2020," PGE spokesman Steve Corson said Friday afternoon.

The idea of declaring an emergency under the Defense Production Act of 1950 (used by President Harry Truman for the steel industry) and section 202 of the Federal Power Act has been promoted by the chief executives of the coal mining firm Murray Energy and Ohio utility First Energy, both of whom have contributed heavily to President Trump's political activities.

Robert Murray presented a proposal to Perry in March 2017, the month Perry took office. And on April 2, 2018, First Energy appealed for emergency help after a subsidiary containing ailing power plants filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent agency, unanimously rejected an earlier proposal by the Energy Department that would have favored coal and nuclear plants.

In a recent appearance at a Washington Post event, FERC chairman Kevin McIntyre said that using the emergency powers was "perhaps not the most obvious fit."

He said using that section of the Federal Power Act "tees off the concept of continuance of a war in which the United States is involved as being kind of the baseline circumstance that would justify a DOE order to certain types of facilities to either begin operating or continue operation."

Environmental groups, natural gas producers and Republicans and Democrats who have pushed for greater competition in electricity markets all condemned the latest signal that the administration might be moving closer to imposing the Energy Department's plan.

They noted that the coal and nuclear power plants that would benefit have failed to compete against natural gas, solar and wind. Many of the plants have operated far longer than anticipated when they were built.

"Uneconomic, dirty coal plants retiring does not represent a national security risk," Environmental Defense Fund director of federal energy policy and senior attorney Michael Panfil wrote on his blog. "If Trump chooses to bail out these failing coal plants, he'll be forcing Americans to pay for dirty energy that pollutes our environment and makes people sick."

"If DOE proceeds as the memo suggests, a selection of coal and nuclear plants, ostensibly those at risk of retirement, would receive subsidized payments ... under a stitched-together 'Frankenstein's monster' of federal authorities," said a commentary by Height Analytics, a consulting firm. "Above all, the subsidy would be a major victory for First Energy as it negotiates with bondholders over the value of coal and nuclear plants owned by its bankrupt First Energy Solutions subsidiary."

First Energy's top lobbyist last year was Jeff Miller, who was campaign manager for the presidential campaign of Perry, now energy secretary. Trump attended a private dinner with Miller and a handful of political advisers in early April.

Ted Sickinger of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- The Washington Post