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Questions Grow Over Weiser’s Role in Boulder Climate Lawsuit
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Questions Grow Over Weiser’s Role in Boulder Climate Lawsuit

By Kyle Kohli | Complete Colorado For years, City and County of Boulder officials have defended their ongoing climate lawsuit against energy companies by pointing to its outside counsel arrangement, where lawyers work on a contingency fee agreement along with repeated assurances that local taxpayers would not be paying for the arrangement. However, new comments from Boulder District Attorney and Democrat state attorney general candidate Michael Dougherty raise serious questions about whether Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser – and potentially Colorado taxpayers – helped support that legal operation from behind the scenes. If so, it would represent a clear flip flop from Weiser, who has long voiced skepticism about the legal merits o...
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GOP Divided As Wyoming Weighs Coal Future And Data Center Growth
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Cowboy State Daily, Approved, National

GOP Divided As Wyoming Weighs Coal Future And Data Center Growth

By: Clair McFarland | Cowboy State Daily Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican candidates who oppose data centers. Industry leaders say the revival of coal is driven by demand for energy from data centers. "It's frustrating," said Travis Deti, of the Wyoming Mining Association. Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican political candidates who oppose the data center buildout. Data centers are large warehouses full of servers that power parts of the internet and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI). Wyoming has between 20 and 30 operational data centers. President Donald Trump has touted the sector’s expansion as part of a coal industry revival, and part of beating China in a technology advancement race. Many Wyoming Republica...
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Longmont Approves Data Center Restrictions to Safeguard Power and Water
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DENVER7, Approved, Local

Longmont Approves Data Center Restrictions to Safeguard Power and Water

By: Maggie Bryan | Denver7 Longmont City Council voted 6–1 Tuesday night to ban hyperscale data centers, capping facilities at 5% of regional grid capacity or 100 megawatts, whichever is lower. LONGMONT, Colo. — Longmont is drawing a line against hyperscale data centers, passing an ordinance Tuesday night that sets limits on facility energy consumption to protect the city's power grid, water supply, and neighborhoods from impacts seen elsewhere across the country. In a 6-1 vote, Longmont City Council passed a city ordinance capping data center energy usage at either 5% of the region's grid capacity or 100 megawatts, whichever is lower. City staff said 100 megawatts is enough to power between 10,000 to 30,000 homes on a hot summer day. Longmont joins a growing ...
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Colorado Consumers Push Back Against Xcel Rate Hike Proposal
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CPR News, Approved, State

Colorado Consumers Push Back Against Xcel Rate Hike Proposal

By: Ishan Thakore | CPR News Xcel Energy’s proposed deal to raise average residential energy bills by nearly 6% is running into a wall of opposition from Colorado consumer and environmental groups.  The proposed residential rate increase would be among the largest ever in the state, according to the Colorado Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate (UCA), which advocates for customers and is opposed to the deal. In November, the state’s largest utility petitioned state regulators at the Public Utilities Commission to let it increase how much it charges for electricity. Xcel hadn’t requested a major price hike to its customer base rates since 2022. Last year, the company said it needed to recoup around $356 million it spent to build new renewab...
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Colorado Responds To Federal Coal Extension Orders With New Emissions Requirements
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Responds To Federal Coal Extension Orders With New Emissions Requirements

By Scott Weiser | The Denver Gazette Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill in reaction to orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to keep older coal units online. The federal government’s instructions applied to Craig Unit 1 in Colorado, one of five coal units affected nationwide. The state legislation requires installation of modern pollution controls and cost reporting for any Colorado coal-fired power plants that continue operating beyond planned retirement dates. The measure, House Bill 26-1226, also directs the Public Utilities Commission to support resource planning consistent with state clean energy goals. The legislation signed June 4 targets qualifying coal units that emitted significant nitrogen oxides or sulfur dioxide in 2024. It...
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Lawmakers Put Reliability And Energy Costs Ahead Of New Climate Mandates In 2026
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The Sum & Substance, Approved, Commentary, State

Lawmakers Put Reliability And Energy Costs Ahead Of New Climate Mandates In 2026

By: Ed Sealover | Commentary, The Sum & Substance This legislative session was supposed to be a defining one for the utility and energy sectors — one in which legislators would debate and pass a long-discussed plan to move up the net-zero emissions deadline by 10 years and also remake the Public Utilities Commission. But the story of the 2026 session for energy advocates instead turned out to be all about what didn’t happen. No 2040 net-zero plan got introduced. No radical changes came through the extension of the PUC. And for the first time in over a decade, no existential threats to the oil and gas sector received debate in the 75th General Assembly. The topics that took center stage instead were reliability and affordability of energy sources. Legislators h...
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Turn down the noise: Why Steve Pearce’s BLM confirmation isn’t the crisis critics claim
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Turn down the noise: Why Steve Pearce’s BLM confirmation isn’t the crisis critics claim

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com This week the Senate finally confirmed the new Director of the Bureau of Land Management, former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce. The firestorm surrounding his nomination a few weeks earlier has not yet cooled and probably won’t. The volume is louder than the situation justifies, though, and the vast western sky above BLM land is not falling. I met Steve Pearce several times when he was a congressman and always found him to be well informed, reasonable, and friendly – nothing like the demon portrayed by political opponents. He has deep roots in southeast New Mexico, where he grew up surrounded by BLM land, so he knows the agency well. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam, built an oilfield services business, and served 18 years in the sta...
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Northern Colorado Leaders Warn Power Shortage Could Slow Growth
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CBS Colorado, Approved, Local

Northern Colorado Leaders Warn Power Shortage Could Slow Growth

By: Dillon Thomas | CBS Colorado Rapid growth across parts of Northern Colorado is colliding with a growing challenge — being able to access enough electricity to support new homes and businesses. Local leaders in Greeley say demand for power has increased significantly in recent decades. This is as technology becomes more integrated into everyday life, and it creates pressure on an electric grid that is struggling to keep pace with population growth and development. "We are growing pretty rapidly," said Don Threewitt, interim community and economic developer for the city of Greeley. Threewitt said the state's electric demand has shifted dramatically in the last decade, as residents rely more heavily on technology. From smartphones and electric vehicles to incre...
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Dozens Of Amicus Briefs Challenge Boulder Climate Case Before SCOTUS
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Dozens Of Amicus Briefs Challenge Boulder Climate Case Before SCOTUS

By: Kyle Kohli | Complete Colorado As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in the now 8-year old Boulder climate lawsuit, more than three dozen amicus briefs submitted in the case have made the same essential point: Boulder’s lawsuit against oil and gas companies is an unconstitutional attempt to use state courts to dictate national energy and climate policy, and the high court should put a stop to it.   The briefs represent one of the broadest coalitions to weigh in on climate litigation in years, spanning the U.S. Department of Justice, 78 members of Congress, 27 state attorneys general, energy-producing Colorado counties, former senior national security officials and major business, legal and policy organizations.  Ahead of oral arg...
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UN Retreats From Extreme Climate Forecast Sparking Policy Debate
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Approved, National, TownHall.com

UN Retreats From Extreme Climate Forecast Sparking Policy Debate

By Dmitri Bolt | Townhall The United Nations-backed climate panel over the weekend walked back one of its “worst-case scenario” greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, as a new report found that those projections “have become implausible.” The scenario predicted that humanity would double down on fossil fuels and take no action to mitigate climate change, and used it to make predictions about what the future may hold. Those scenarios included massive sea-level rise, global crop failures, and the rapid melting of polar ice. Democrats used the fearmongering to push Americans to pay billions of dollars to pursue mitigation efforts, while Europe practically castrated its own economy to do the same. And yet the scenario has been walked back, although climate scientists argue that it is due to...
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