By Mark Jaffe | The Colorado Sun
Big economic impacts are on the line as Xcel Energy transitions from generating power at the expensive Comanche Station. The county wonders if its citizens are being punished for twice voting for Donald Trump.
Pueblo County is asking the Trump administration to issue an emergency order to keep Xcel Energy’s troubled, coal-fired Comanche power station open indefinitely.
Comanche’s Unit 1 was closed in 2022. Unit 2 is set to close this year and Unit 3 by 2031. By that time all of Colorado’s six remaining coal-fired plants are scheduled to be closed to meet state emissions standards.
But Pueblo County, in a filing to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, said it will seek relief from President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
“Pueblo is in the process of requesting that President Trump and Secretary Wright order that Comanche 2 remain in operation beyond its closure date …” the county said, “and that he orders that Comanche 3 and 2 remain open until replacement generation is constructed in Pueblo.”
In May, the Trump administration issued emergency orders to keep two, 60-year-old fossil fuel power plants open — the Eddystone oil- and gas-fired power plant, near Philadelphia, and the J.H. Campbell coal-fired plant in West Olive, Michigan.
In both cases, the DOE said it was concerned that there wasn’t adequate generation to meet demand. In April, President Trump also signed an executive order to reinvigorate “America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.”
The move by Pueblo County to extend the life of the coal-fired power station, which is the county’s largest taxpayer, is part of an ongoing battle over what is adequate compensation to the community for the loss of taxes and high-paying jobs.
In 2019, the legislature passed a law to ensure a “just transition” from a coal-based economy for communities losing mines and coal-fired power plants.
Xcel Energy, in its “Just Transition Solicitation” plan, included in lieu of tax payments, development credits and a commitment to avoid layoffs and try to locate new facilities in Pueblo County. The PUC approved the plan in August.
Pueblo officials, however, say that the plan is inadequate. A citizen’s advisory committee, supported by Xcel Energy, concluded in a January 2024 report that only a capital-intensive project like a small nuclear reactor could “make Pueblo whole.”
The shutdown of the first two Comanche units will lead to a 21% drop in tax payments to the county and when Comanche 3 is shuttered, tax payments will drop another 69% to $7.1 million.
Xcel Energy will pay $15.9 million annually in lieu of lost taxes through 2040, but in its filing the county said that sum was a “pittance” of the plant’s $200 million in annual direct and indirect economic benefits.
At a minimum the county wanted a new gas-fired turbine located at the Comanche plant site, but neither a reactor nor a gas-fired plant are part of the plan.
“Our goal was to make Pueblo whole from the economic disaster it is facing with the early closure of Comanche 3,” Jeffrey Shaw, president of the Pueblo Economic Development Corp., said in a PUC filing.
“At some point just transition has to be ‘just’ for the Pueblo community. To date it has been anything but just,” Shaw said.
Is the PUC retaliating because Pueblo County voted to elect Donald Trump?
During the PUC review of Xcel Energy’s plan neither the commission nor the company showed much enthusiasm for the county’s arguments.
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