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Tag: Colorado Energy Policy

From coal transition to data centers: JOLT summit heads to Grand Junction
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From coal transition to data centers: JOLT summit heads to Grand Junction

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Before JOLT became an annual summit, local leaders across Northwest Colorado were wrestling with a difficult question: What comes after coal? Now they’re holding their fourth summit, and this year’s program includes discussions on geothermal energy, data centers, critical minerals, electric cooperative power supplies, workforce development and Colorado River issues. "I don't think that with JOLT, the mission has changed," said Ray Beck, chairman of JOLT — Joint Organizations Leading Transition. "We're still trying to educate people on different sources of energy." Founded by local officials, educators and industry leaders, JOLT was created as Northwest Colorado communities searched for answers about economic transition and long-term op...
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Manny Rutinel wants to represent Colorado’s oil country. His law is bearing down on its only refinery.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Manny Rutinel wants to represent Colorado’s oil country. His law is bearing down on its only refinery.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice State Rep. Manny Rutinel is asking voters in the heart of Colorado’s oil country to send him to Congress. Seven weeks from now, a law Rutinel helped write could reshape how Colorado’s only petroleum refinery operates. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment published a refinery assessment on May 1 after HB24-1338—the 2024 bill Rutinel co-sponsored—required the state to conduct it. The state hired Eastern Research Group to do the work. ERG compared Suncor's Commerce City refinery—in Rutinel's own state House district—against standards in California, Texas and Indiana and found multiple areas where Colorado's current permits fall short. A public meeting on the assessment is May 13. If CDPHE acts on the findings, a new refine...
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House Bill 26-1246: Protecting Colorado’s citizens, landscape, and economy
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

House Bill 26-1246: Protecting Colorado’s citizens, landscape, and economy

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Editor’s update: House Bill 26-1246 was heard in the House Energy & Environment Committee on Thursday, March 12, 2026, and laid over for further consideration. The bill is expected to return to committee within approximately two weeks. Coloradans who want to weigh in before the next hearing can track the bill’s status and find contact information for committee members at leg.colorado.gov/committees/2026A/house/EnergyEnvironment. Colorado is at an energy crossroads. Decisions being made today about how electricity is generated, transmitted, and paid for will shape our state’s economy, landscape, and cost of living for decades to come. House Bill 26-1246 is a response to a simple but increasingly urgent problem: th...
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U.S. Energy Secretary Warns Colorado Energy Policies Could Raise Prices Drive Jobs Away
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

U.S. Energy Secretary Warns Colorado Energy Policies Could Raise Prices Drive Jobs Away

By Scott Weiser | The Denver Gazette U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Monday warned that Colorado’s energy policies could lead to higher electricity prices and deter businesses, such as data centers, from locating in the state. Wright, a former executive of a Colorado-based energy company tapped by the Trump White House to lead the energy department, urged state policymakers to focus on natural gas and nuclear power during a news conference with U.S. Rep. Gab Evans at Xcel Energy’s Fort St. Vrain Generating Station on Monday. State policymakers have maintained that Colorado’s energy policy is balanced, taking into accounts the needs of consumers in their push for “net zero” carbon in just a few decades. Democrats have also argued that Colorado should take advantag...
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GriftoPolis’s Green Mandate Mirage: Sacrificing Jobs and Reliability for a Fraction of a Degree
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

GriftoPolis’s Green Mandate Mirage: Sacrificing Jobs and Reliability for a Fraction of a Degree

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Coloradans, let's cut through the fog of feel-good policies and face the harsh reality of our state's energy "transition." We're being sold a bill of goods on decarbonization, where the costs pile up on families and communities while the benefits are so minuscule they're practically imaginary.  Take HB26-1081, the so-called "Colorado Grid Optimization Act." It sounds innocuous—optimizing transmission with fancy tech to squeeze more out of our existing lines. But dig deeper, and it's just another layer of mandates that funnels your hard-earned money into utility coffers and Wall Street pockets, all under the guise of climate heroism. Xcel Energy, our investor-owned behemoth, loves this stuff. Why? Because...
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Colorado’s proposed habitat map update could reshape oil and gas development
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s proposed habitat map update could reshape oil and gas development

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project ECMC’s 2026 High Priority Habitat Maps I recently got an email update from the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) about how they are going to update their High Priority Habitat Maps.The first link below is to their webpage on this update, but let's go back a bit and firm up some context on this issue before diving in to more details.A quote from the rulemaking notice gives plenty of detail for what we'll discuss. It's lengthy, so I attached a picture of it as screenshot 1. In brief, high priority habitat maps help dictate where in this state oil and gas development can occur and under what kinds of rules.CPW (per their explainer page linked second below) has no role in regulating ...
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How PSPS coverage steers public blame
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

How PSPS coverage steers public blame

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project How the media will drive coverage of PSPS I wrote a bit back about how the media polarize coverage of ICE and efforts to enforce immigration law. As part of that I pointed to being aware of media narratives, of the paradigms they have which guide their coverage and, in a feedback loop, how their readers see their reality. That newsletter is linked first below if you're wanting the context.I thought of that dynamic when I read a recent CPR article on businesses impacted by Xcel's Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). That article is second below, but the pertinent bit for me is the following quote (copied here with links intact):"Xcel’s “Public Safety Power Shutoffs” may become more common, as Colorado co...
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Watch closely: The PUC sunset hearing could reshape Colorado energy policy
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Watch closely: The PUC sunset hearing could reshape Colorado energy policy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Watch for the PUC sunset hearing. Not only will it be a chance to weaken local control, DORA wants less transparency for them.I will be watching and posting (from what my state senator B Pelton said, it should be late February or early March), but I wanted to put a bug in your ear to watch for the Public Utilities Commission's sunset hearing in front of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee.As I wrote [last week], there are rumblings about changing the mission of the PUC to perhaps grease the skids for state-level siting of renewables.The PUC sunset hearing will be the time that they do this, but there are other things I've heard. I wrote back last year about a CFOIC article showing the Department o...
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EPA Says Colorado Overstepped Law By Using Haze Rules To Close Coal Plants
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

EPA Says Colorado Overstepped Law By Using Haze Rules To Close Coal Plants

By Michael Booth | The Colorado Sun The federal government said the coal plants were needed for “grid reliability” and a regional haze-fighting plan violated the Clean Air Act. The Trump administration Friday further eroded Colorado’s longstanding mandate to close coal-fired power plants by 2031, saying the state’s required regional haze-fighting plan goes too far and violates the Clean Air Act. But the regional haze plan covers everything from emissions at the Suncor refinery and Colorado’s three major cement kilns to natural gas power and other pollution sources. In rejecting the entire plan, the EPA may throw many of Colorado’s pollution fighting plans into regulatory purgatory for years. Colorado’s coal plants are needed for “grid reliability,” the federal g...
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Who decides where power lines go in Colorado? Meet CETA, the unelected authority
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Who decides where power lines go in Colorado? Meet CETA, the unelected authority

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Worried about land use for energy infrastructure? Save some time to watch CETA. There has been a lot of attention paid to Xcel Energy and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) over where and how electric infrastructure will run in this state.See, for example, Polis encouraging his cronies at the PUC to take up the appeal over Xcel's Power Pathway through Elbert and El Paso in an October 2025 newsletter linked first below for an example.There is another unelected board in this state that does similar work with far less news coverage, however.The second link below is to a 2021 bill (SB21-072) that does a whole lot of things.Screenshot 1 (from the bill's fiscal note) shows you what this bill does with regard to...
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