Energy Policy - Rocky Mountain Voice

Going nuclear: Local support grows for Colorado’s next energy chapter

5Aug

By Shaina ColeNo Comments

Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, State, Top Stories

Going nuclear: Local support grows for Colorado’s next energy chapter

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice As Colorado pursues its climate goals, communities in the northwestern energy corridor are beginning to take a different approach. Instead of relying only on wind, solar, or state mandates, local leaders are turning their attention to nuclear energy as a viable solution. A new report from the Northwest Colorado Energy Initiative (NCEI), released in June 2025, documents months of public engagement across Moffat, Rio Blanco, Routt, Mesa, and Montrose counties. The report explores whether these communities would be willing to consider participation in the federal government’s consent-based siting (CBS) program for spent nuclear fuel storage or reprocessing. The report does not make any commitments. Instead, it poses foundatio...

Xcel’s costly coal exit: Public interest group warns plan could stick consumers with the tab

31Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

Westword, Approved, State

Xcel’s costly coal exit: Public interest group warns plan could stick consumers with the tab

By Catie Cheshire | Westword One consumer protection group is calling for the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to shrink Xce's giant proposal. As Xcel Energy works to decommission coal plants across Colorado, one proposal is catching heat. Watchdog organization Colorado Public Interest Research Group believes Xcel’s proposal to replace the Comanche 3 coal plant in Pueblo will result in unnecessary costs to customers. The group's executive director Danny Katz, says the proposal is too big for southern Colorado as his organization calls on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to pare back the proposal. According to Xcel’s filings with the PUC, the utility wants to replace energy production from Comanche 3’s coal units with a mix of wind, solar and natu...

Federal Climate Authority Faces Reckoning in EPA Overhaul

30Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

National, Approved, The Epoch Times

Federal Climate Authority Faces Reckoning in EPA Overhaul

By T.J. Muscaro and Jackson Richman | The Epoch Times According to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, repealing these findings would be ’the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.’ The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 29 proposed a repeal of its long-standing “endangerment findings” of a connection between individual motor vehicle emissions and changes in the climate, according to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. It would repeal $1 trillion in regulations, saving $54 billion per year, according to the EPA. The repeal would “end 16 years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” Zeldin said at an auto dealership in Indiana. “In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent...

Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series

28Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

The Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series

By Vince Bzdek | The Gazette How bad is the rural/urban divide in Colorado? That’s what a team of reporters at Colorado Politics and The Colorado Network, our statewide collective of freelancers, set out to measure and understand. Through extensive interviews, data analysis and community voices, our journalists have documented the yawning gap between what rural areas contribute to the state through agriculture, energy production, tourism and outdoor recreation, and the attention, money and support they receive in the halls of the Capitol and the governor’s mansion. That gap has resulted in a host of unaddressed problems unique to rural Colorado. Our reporters also have found that culturally, the polarization between rural and urban has deepened so much that when it comes to pol...

Franz: Climate hawks are facing extinction—realism is taking flight

27Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

Real Clear Energy, Approved, National

Franz: Climate hawks are facing extinction—realism is taking flight

By Danielle Franz | Real Clear Energy Once perched atop the climate movement’s moral high ground, the self-anointed “climate hawks” are now watching their influence dwindle, and nowhere is that retreat more visible than in California. Long the epicenter of progressive climate ambition, the Golden State is now backpedaling. Democrats who once championed aggressive environmental mandates are hitting pause, reworking regulations, and distancing themselves from policies that have driven up energy and housing costs. A post-2024 reality check has swept the party: climate may still poll well in theory, but not when it collides with affordability. This shift isn’t isolated. It’s emblematic of the climate hawks’ broader failure — a movement that moralized, catastrophized, and sacrificed w...

Permits denied, leases lost: Inside the MOU reshaping oil and gas production in Colorado

25Jul

By Jen SchumannNo Comments

Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, State, Top Stories

Permits denied, leases lost: Inside the MOU reshaping oil and gas production in Colorado

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s 2024 MOU with BLM is being used to block drilling on federal land, reroute energy dollars and shift authority from Washington to regulators aligned with the Polis anti-fossil fuels agenda. In September 2024, a document quietly signed by BLM Colorado Director Doug Vilsack just eight weeks before the Presidential election may have done more than establish interagency cooperation. Critics say it handed away federal power. The document—a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC)—opened the door for Colorado to impose sweeping restrictions on oil and gas production. Those restrictions now apply even to federally controlled minera...

DOE report warns of blackout risk soaring amid push to shut conventional power

9Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

Power Engineering, Approved, National

DOE report warns of blackout risk soaring amid push to shut conventional power

By Paul Gerke, Kevin Clark | Power Engineering The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began the week following Independence Day with a bang, releasing a report that the status quo is unsustainable for the U.S. electric grid. According to DOE, blackout risks in 2030 could be 100 times higher if the U.S. keeps shutting down conventional power plants. According to DOE’s analysis, the grid will not be able to sustain an estimated 104 gigawatts (GW) of baseload generation retirements by 2030 and isn’t prepared to meet the growth in electricity demand driven by data centers and artificial intelligence (AI). The DOE expects an additional 100 GW of new peak-hour supply to be needed by then; half of that growth is directly attributable to data centers. The United States has more tha...

Independence Day victory: Trump signs ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’—slashes taxes and boosts oil, gas and defense

4Jul

By External OutletNo Comments

THE HILL, Approved, National

Independence Day victory: Trump signs ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’—slashes taxes and boosts oil, gas and defense

By Brett Samuels | The Hill President Trump on Friday signed a massive reconciliation package that will extend tax cuts and phase-in cuts to Medicaid, finalizing a significant legislative victory for his administration after months of difficult negotiations with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Trump signed the one big, beautiful bill into law at a military family picnic at the White House for the Fourth of July. Trump and his aides had long pegged Independence Day as a deadline for when they hoped to see the legislation on his desk, a timeline that appeared in peril just days ago. “We made promises, and it’s really promises made, promises kept, and we’ve kept them,” Trump said from the balcony overlooking the South Lawn of the White House. “This is a triumph of democracy on the birth...

Walcher: Supreme Court ruling is a first step in restoring balance to NEPA

18Jun

By External OutletNo Comments

GregWalcher.com, Commentary, National

Walcher: Supreme Court ruling is a first step in restoring balance to NEPA

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com Supreme Court decisions occasionally have far-reaching impacts, but the recent ruling in Utah’s Uintah Basin Railway case was a Doozy, in which the Justices unanimously hinted that Eagle County, Colorado should mind its own business. County Commissioners there had challenged the Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the 88-mile rail line, proposed by seven Utah counties as a vital transportation connection from the oil-rich region to the national rail network. Eagle County joined several environmental industry groups fighting the rail line, marginally suggesting it could impact traffic in Eagle County, which the oil trains might pass through on their way to Denver. But the real objection, highlighted in all the opponents’ legal filin...

Barstnar and Milo: Energy mandates are making Colorado unaffordable

17Jun

By External OutletNo Comments

denvergazette.com, State

Barstnar and Milo: Energy mandates are making Colorado unaffordable

By Kathie Barstnar and Tony Milo | Commentary, Denver Gazette Progress should not come at the expense of affordability. As Colorado moves toward a lower-carbon future, families and businesses deserve energy options that are reliable, cost-effective, and reflect their needs, not a one-size-fits-all approach. Choice and balance should guide this transition, not rising bills and reduced options. As organizations working to meet Colorado’s growing housing and economic development needs, we see firsthand how rising construction costs and added building requirements are making it harder to deliver buildings and homes that small businesses and working families can afford. The housing affordability crisis is getting worse, and we must implement policies that support Coloradans working to mak...

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Tag: Energy Policy

Xcel’s costly coal exit: Public interest group warns plan could stick consumers with the tab

Federal Climate Authority Faces Reckoning in EPA Overhaul

Colorado’s rural-urban divide revealed: 10 takeaways from the Rural Reckoning series

Franz: Climate hawks are facing extinction—realism is taking flight

Permits denied, leases lost: Inside the MOU reshaping oil and gas production in Colorado

DOE report warns of blackout risk soaring amid push to shut conventional power

Independence Day victory: Trump signs ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’—slashes taxes and boosts oil, gas and defense

Walcher: Supreme Court ruling is a first step in restoring balance to NEPA

Barstnar and Milo: Energy mandates are making Colorado unaffordable

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