PUC clean heat rule sparks call for public action over rising utility costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Email the PUC about their natural gas rule this December.

I wanted to share with you another way you can speak up to the PUC re. their Clean Heat Rulemaking. In addition to speaking up at their January 14th meeting, you can also send in an email prior to their finalizing their Clean Heat Plan December 22nd.

I received the below from a reader recently. Quoted here with links intact:

“Per the Commission’s usual process, any individual, stakeholder or organization may request that the Commission reconsider its decision on these rules. Such requests are due by Dec. 22. The Commission will consider these requests and publicly deliberate at a January weekly meeting. Any one wishing to make public comment or request reconsideration of the decision, may do so at this time by emailing and include the Proceeding No. 25R-0309G in the subject line. More information on how to submit public comment can be found on the PUC website: How to Participate in a Proceeding | Public Utilities Commission(opens in new window).”

This link was also in the email:

https://puc.colorado.gov/press-release/fact-sheet-2035-clean-heat-plan-target-rulemaking-proceeding-no-25r-0309g

If you can you should send an email to [email protected] with “Proceeding No. 25R-0309G” in the subject line prior to 12/22.

If you are not able to send in an email by the 22nd, don’t worry. You can still send them your thoughts after that, and you can still attend their Jan 14th virtual meeting. If you’d like to go to the meeting and offer comments then, you’ll find info on that in my earlier newsletter linked here.

I think that I am going to try for both. I wrote an email which I sent to the email address above, and I think I will also sign up to give comment at their January meeting.

To aid you, I attached as screenshot 1 a picture of what this rulemaking would do (from the PUC site linked above) as well as an open email I sent to the commissioners.

If you find any part of my email below to be helpful to you in your own advocacy, please feel free to use it. See also “Related” content below for another letter you might find useful.

**Email Follows**

An open email to the PUC commissioners re. their Clean Heat Plan rulemaking, Proceeding No. 25R-0309G

To Commissioners Blank, Gilman, and Plant,

My name is Cory Gaines. I am a resident of Sterling, Colorado and a captive customer of Xcel Energy for my natural gas and my electricity.

I’m writing today about your recent Clean Heat Plan rulemaking, Proceeding No. 25R-0309G. You need to reconsider this ill-advised move.

I’d like to call everyone’s attention to something. This momentous decision, one which will affect millions in this state was made by three political appointees of the same governor. Three politically well-connected individuals, two of whom have roots in Boulder, a third who lives on the I-70 ski corridor just down the way from Vail. To my knowledge, none of these three has darkened a doorstep out where I and thousands of other captive customers of Xcel live out on the Eastern Plains. Likely this is the case for many places in this state.

I ask a simple question, is this how our Founders envisioned this Republic working: that three unaccountable individuals representing a narrow band of viewpoints would have this much power?

Watching your meetings on YouTube further cements the extent to which this fault of governing has gone. I have never seen such blithe discussion of saddling ratepayers with your choices before. You do understand you’re not talking so many numbers, but rather the lives and money of families around this state don’t you?

The Commissioners’ plan will raise rates on everyone in this state. They can dress it up in whatever words they like. They can use as many euphemisms as they like. There is no way to hit the targets they set without costly electrification.

The simple truth is exemplified by something Commissioner Plant said during a 11/5/25 meeting when discussing financing electrification via utility bills: paraphrasing, Plant essentially said that buying a heat pump is like buying a car.

Indeed. And when people don’t have the money to buy this device, and when we cannot hit the Commissioners’ arbitrary mandate without lots of people buying them, it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out how this story will end. Ordinary ratepayers like you and I will be subsidizing them with higher utility rates.

The same can be said for commercial properties, businesses, and multifamily dwellings. If ratepayers don’t subsidize their electrification via utility costs, we will via higher prices.

I will say it again. Commissioners Blank, Gilman, and Plant, reconsider your ill-advised rulemaking. While you do so, reconsider your participation in a system that is contrary to the basic tenets of how this country should work.

Related:

House Republicans sent a letter to the PUC recently about this same issue. Linked below as yet another aid in your advocacy.

https://www.coloradohouserepublicans.com/news/house-republicans-deliver-letter-opposing-costly-puc-heating-mandate?brid=lpMxTG3Xa2yZRje5zhNeeg

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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