President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to “reinvigorate” what he called America’s “beautiful, clean coal.” Another order targets “state overreach,” or state laws and policies he sees as hampering coal mining.

Colorado has set goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the impacts of climate change. Closing coal plants is considered crucial to meeting those goals because coal emits more carbon dioxide, the primary gas contributing to climate change, than other energy sources

Burning coal also emits mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which pose human health and environmental risks.

The state has been moving toward expanding renewable energy use since 2004 when Colorado voters became the first in the nation to require investor-owned utilities to get a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources. The momentum has picked up as the costs of wind and solar power and battery storage have decreased.

“We are committed to delivering less expensive, reliable electricity and protecting Colorado’s air, water and cherished landscapes, and supercharging our energy mix to meet our 100% clean energy goal – a goal we are on a path to reach by 2040 without this overreach of the federal government,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the legal basis for the executive orders on bolstering the coal industry “is a mystery to me.”

State Rep. Ty Winter, a Republican from Las Animas County, believes the orders are a “much-needed step toward restoring balance, bringing energy independence home and recognizing the value of Colorado’s coal communities.”

The executive orders refer to removing barriers to coal production on federal lands, including a moratorium on new leasing from the Obama administration that’s been entangled in legal disputes. An order directs the U.S. Attorney General to identify state laws on climate change, environmental justice, carbon or greenhouse gas emissions and carbon penalties or taxes and take appropriate action to stop enforcement of laws deemed to be illegal.

Weiser questioned the legality of those provisions. Under the U.S. Constitution, he said, states have full authority to protect public health, safety and welfare and to protect air and water quality.

“And the federal government doesn’t have a constitutional basis to stand on to tell us what to do when it comes to protecting the people of Colorado,” Weiser said. “And I don’t understand for the life of me what, if any, federal basis there could be to try to tell us how to manage our energy mix.”

Weiser is one of several Democratic state attorneys general who have sued over the Trump administration’s freeze on certain federal monies and other executive orders.

One of Trump’s first executive orders after taking office in January was “Unleashing American Energy,” which he said was necessary to counter the Biden administration’s focus on renewable energy. He derided the former president’s approach as pursuing “a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply.”

Coal, on the other hand, “is abundant and cost effective” and will be critical to meeting the country’s rising demand for electricity as manufacturing and construction of energy-intensive data processing centers increase, an executive order said. Another directive called for a two-year pause on more stringent limits on mercury and toxic emissions from coal plants to support the industry.

Adam Eckman, CEO and president of the Colorado Mining Association, said the effects of Trump’s executive orders on the coal industry will likely differ depending on the region.

“Colorado’s coal market has contracted significantly in recent years primarily as a result of state legislation,” Eckman said. “That’s a state-based effort less than federally driven, so that probably blunts the potential effect of the executive orders than it would in other states.”

Winter, whose House district has a long history of coal mining, would like to see state officials reconsider state carbon-emission goals to help reverse the decline of the coal industry at a time when China and India are bringing “coal-fired plants online at a rapid pace.”

In Colorado, utilities have closed coal plants earlier than planned to meet state requirements and their own goals. Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility, plans to close the last unit of the Comanche power plant near Pueblo by the end of 2030, shuttering its last coal facility in the state. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Colorado’s second-largest electric utility, has retired coal facilities ahead of schedule and will shut more by 2031.

Xcel and Tri-State said in statements Wednesday that they’re reviewing the executive orders and remain focused on providing reliable energy to their customers.

Coal provides about 16% of the nation’s energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2010, coal’s share of the energy mix was 45%.

“Coal has been on the decline for decades, not because of federal policies, but because it’s dirty and it’s increasingly unreliable as our coal fleet ages. And it can’t compete on a level playing field with renewable energy sources,” said Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for the Northern Rockies office of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

The cost of renewable energy sources continues to decrease and combined with battery storage, are more cost-effective than coal, Harbine said.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A new executive order from President Donald Trump that’s part of his effort to invigorate energy production raises the possibility that his Department of Justice will go to court against state climate change laws aimed at slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels.

Trump’s order, signed Tuesday, comes as U.S. electricity demand ramps up to meet the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing applications, as well as federal efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing. It also coincides with “climate superfund” legislation gaining traction in various states.

Trump has declared a “ national energy emergency ” and ordered his attorney general to take action against states that may be illegally overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy development.

“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” Trump said in the order.

He said the attorney general should focus on state laws targeting climate change, a broad order that unmistakably puts liberal states in the crosshairs of Trump’s Department of Justice.

Michael Gerrard, director of the Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it would be an “extraordinarily bold move” for the federal government to go to court to try to overturn a state climate law.

Gerrard said the quickest path for Trump’s Department of Justice is to try to join ongoing lawsuits where courts are deciding whether states or cities are exceeding their authority by trying to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the cost of damages from climate change.

Democrats say they won’t back down

Democratic governors vowed to keep fighting climate change.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of “turning back the clock” on the climate and said his state’s efforts to reduce pollution “won’t be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”

The group Climate Mayors, which includes the mayors of America’s biggest cities, said in a statement from its chair, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, that the federal government is overreaching its authority and ignoring the “enormous costs of continued environmental destruction and the political and social harm of retreating American leadership.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, cochairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which includes 22 governors, said they “will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis.”

Climate superfund laws are gaining traction

Vermont and New York are currently fighting challenges in federal courts to climate superfund laws passed last year. Trump suggested the laws “extort” payments from energy companies and “threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”

Both are modeled on the 45-year-old federal superfund law, which taxed petroleum and chemical companies to pay to clean up of sites polluted by toxic waste. In similar fashion, the state climate laws are designed to force major fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on their past greenhouse gas emissions.

Several other Democratic-controlled states, including New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and California, are considering similar measures.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and natural gas industries, applauded Trump’s order that it said would “protect American energy from so-called ‘climate superfunds.’”

“Directing the Department of Justice to address this state overreach will help restore the rule of law and ensure activist-driven campaigns do not stand in the way of ensuring the nation has access to an affordable and reliable energy supply,” it said.

Court battles are already ongoing

The American Petroleum Institute, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed the lawsuit against Vermont. The lawsuit against New York was filed by West Virginia, along with several coal, gas and oil interests and 21 other mostly Republican-led states, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia.

Make Polluters Pay, a coalition of consumer and anti-fossil fuel groups, vowed to fight Trump’s order and accused fossil fuel billionaires of convincing Trump to launch an assault on states.

The order, it said, demonstrates the “corporate capture of government” and “weaponizes the Justice Department against states that dare to make polluters pay for climate damage.”

Separately, the Department of Justice could join lawsuits in defense of fossil fuel industries being sued, Gerrard said.

Those lawsuits include ones filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and dozens of cities and states seeking billions of dollars in damages from things like wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms.

In the last three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a couple climate-themed lawsuits.

One was brought by oil and gas companies asking it to block Honolulu’s lawsuit. Another was brought by Alabama and Republican attorneys general in 18 other states aimed at blocking lawsuits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states, including California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Trump’s order set off talk in state Capitols around the U.S.

That includes Pennsylvania, where Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is contesting a court challenge to a regulation that would make it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners pay for greenhouse gas emissions.

John Quigley, a former Pennsylvania environmental protection secretary and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, wondered if the Department of Justice would begin challenging all sorts of state water and air pollution laws.

“This kind of an order knows no bounds,” Quigley said. “It’s hard to say where this could end up.”

Associated Press reporter Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter

The announcement about opening federal land to private data center companies coincided Thursday with Energy Secretary Chris Wright‘s visit to NREL, where he toured research labs, gave a 10-minute talk to employees and discussed plans for the agency, including the push to provide more data storage capacity for advancing technology.

The Energy Department has identified an 11-acre site located west of the Flatirons main campus, near the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, that “would be an ideal location for a data center facility,” according to a “Request for Information on Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure on DOE Lands” posted online Thursday.

The list of locations identified as potential hosts for data centers included storied nuclear research facilities in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as well as sites in Idaho, Missouri, Washington and Illinois.

“So we’re saying we have a bunch of land. Tell us where you would like to build on these lands. Let’s make a deal. Build a data center. Build the energy that supplies that grid. Maybe share some expertise and intelligence. Maybe share some of your computing power there with our national labs,” Wright said during a news conference. “I think there’s a lot of room for things to be done here with just a more creative, common-sense framework that we’re trying to bring to this government.”

The NREL campus has enough land, power, water and broadband capability to host a 100-megawatt data center, and construction could begin as early as this year, the request-for-information document said.

“Through this project, NREL could help the U.S. establish global AI dominance and accelerate the transformation of the U.S. data center industry by dramatically reducing construction timelines, enabling the U.S. to rapidly deploy critical AI infrastructure at scale,” the document said. “NREL aims to establish a site where a developer can continue its usual business operations while using the site as a proving ground. The approach would not only allow the developer to focus on its business objectives but also provide national stakeholders with valuable insights into accelerating AI data center construction and power deployment, paving the way for future industry innovations.”

In a 20-minute news conference, Wright said the intention is to invite private companies onto federal land to do business in a public-private partnership. That could mean the federal government leases the land to a company or the data center developer reserves some of its capacity for NREL’s work, because the federal lab also relies on data centers.

“It would be a commercial arrangement using our land to get some value out of it with a private company,” Wright said.

NREL’s Flatirons Campus is a 305-acre site where more than 1,000 people research and invent ways to improve and strengthen the energy grid. It has enough space to add several hundred thousand square feet of additional buildings.

The Trump administration’s move follows an executive order signed in January by outgoing President Joe Biden that sought to remove hurdles for AI data center expansion in the U.S. while also encouraging those data centers, which require large amounts of electricity, to be powered with renewable energy.

While President Donald Trump has since sought to erase most of Biden’s signature AI policies, he made clear after returning to the White House that he had no interest in rescinding Biden’s data center order.

“I’d like to see federal lands opened up for data centers,” Trump said in January. “I think they’re going to be very important.”

While the tech industry has long relied on data centers to run online services, from email and social media to financial transactions, new AI technology behind popular chatbots and generative tools requires even more powerful computation to build and operate.

A report released by the Department of Energy late last year estimated that the electricity needed for data centers in the U.S. tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or triple again by 2028, when it could consume up to 12% of the nation’s electricity.

The United States, under both presidents, has been speeding up efforts to license and build a new generation of nuclear reactors to supply carbon-free electricity.

While Biden’s executive order focused on powering AI infrastructure with clean energy sources such as “geothermal, solar, wind and nuclear,” Thursday’s statement from Trump’s energy department focused only on nuclear. But in a lengthy request for information sought from data center and energy developers, the agency outlines a variety of electricity sources available at each site, from solar arrays to gas turbines.

Colorado already is asking how it will be able to provide enough electricity for the surging demand for data centers as it phases out coal-burning power plants.

Data centers come with controversy, especially in the American West, where water is a valuable but vanishing resource. Data centers use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to cool their facilities. They also require an enormous amount of electricity, which often requires the burning of more fossil fuels, creating more greenhouse gas emissions that accelerate climate change.

A 100-megawatt data center would use enough electricity to power about 20,000 homes.

When asked from where NREL would draw enough water and electricity to support a 100-megawatt data center, Wright said the Energy Department would ask private developers to also build the electrical capacity to run their systems. A map included with the request for information shows nearby Xcel Energy substations as well as additional space for windmills, solar and battery storage.

“You’re going to co-locate power,” Wright said. “You’re going to build a data center, and you’re going to build the power and resources to power it.”

He did not answer where the necessary water would come from.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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But that gasoline — intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — would also bring more toxic emissions to Adams County, which environmentalists describe as an industrial sacrifice zone because it hosts so many of the businesses that create pollution in the first place.

Now Holly Energy Partners, a subsidiary of the HF Sinclair Corporation, has taken the unusual step to request a public hearing before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission as it seeks state approval to increase the amount of gasoline and ethanol it funnels through its terminal at 8591 E. 96th Ave. in Henderson, which known locally as the Sinclair pipeline.

Typically, such public hearings are requested by environmentalists or people who live near industrial sites and who have concerns about pollution. In this case, industry observers believe Holly is trying to get in front of any opposition.

If state and federal regulators approve Holly Energy’s request, the company would increase the permitted amount of gasoline it pumps into Colorado by 82% to 13.3 million barrels per year from 7.3 million barrels, and the amount of ethanol would increase by 15% to 1.5 million barrels annually from 1.3 million barrels, Corrin Smith, a spokesperson for Holly Energy’s Dallas headquarters, wrote in an email.

Holly does not plan to add additional storage tanks at the site, although one tank would be converted to diesel storage from gasoline storage, according to a technical review document from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division.

The company has requested the change to its federal Title V air-pollution permit because of an Environmental Protection Agency requirement that drivers in metro Denver and across the northern Front Range use reformulated gasoline from June 1 to Sept. 15 to reduce ozone pollution. The company wants to bring in more of that reformulated gas to meet consumer demands, Smith said.

“We’re conscientious about the future — and about people’s real needs today. Located in an industrial area, the terminal supplies essential products to the greater Denver, Colorado, area — helping communities and businesses get to where they need to go,” Smith wrote in the email. “The increase in throughput is based on market demand for fuel.”

Cutting some emissions, increasing others

The expansion would decrease the amount of volatile organic compounds — gases that vaporize into the air and are known to cause human health problems such as cancer — to 162 tons annually, according to the permit notice filed by the Air Pollution Control Division. That 13.2-ton decrease would be attributed to the fact that reformulated gas is less volatile and would create lower emissions at the facility, Smith said.

However, the increased amount of fuel coming into Henderson would raise nitrogen oxide emissions by 9.5 tons per year to 15.5 tons annually and carbon monoxide emissions by 23.6 tons to 38.7 tons, the permit notice said. Nitrogen oxides contribute to asthma and can aggravate people who live with lung diseases, and they are considered a greenhouse gas, which forms smog and also contributes to climate change. Carbon monoxide can make people sick if they are exposed to high levels.

A Title V permit regulates the amount of pollution large industrial sites can emit, and Holly Energy is one of 349 companies in Colorado that must comply with Title V air-permitting requirements. Those permits are first approved by the state health department before going to the EPA for review. When a company wants to make a change to its permit, it must apply for approval from the state and federal governments.

Holly first proposed its plan to increase the amount of fuel it delivers to Colorado as a minor change, which would have required less scrutiny from regulators and would not be subjected to public comments. However, the Air Pollution Control Division, in a technical review of the project, determined the changes qualified as a major modification. The division gave preliminary approval to the permit modification on March 3, and public comments on the permit changes are due by Wednesday.

The division could make changes to the permit, based on comments submitted by environmentalists, other elected officials and residents, before sending it to the EPA. However, those changes would be the result of technical errors rather than public opposition to pollution that makes people sick and harms the planet. As long as a permit meets state and federal regulations, the Air Pollution Control Division and the EPA must approve it.

Environmental advocates say the proposed expansion is just one more example of how people who live in Adams County suffer from intense pollution so the rest of the state has cheaper gas. They also question whether the need for more reformulated gasoline is necessary after metro Denver and the northern Front Range appeared to have an ample supply during the summer of 2024.

“This is mainly due to handling more reformulated gasoline, but there are some issues with their numbers and my initial read of the permit is that it doesn’t have the monitoring in place to ensure compliance,” said Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.  “It’s good VOC emissions may go down, but there’s concern that the new limit is just a sham. ”

Severe violation of air-quality standards

In 2022 the EPA classified Denver and Colorado’s northern Front Range as being in severe violation of federal air quality standards and ordered the state to lower ground-level ozone pollution. That severe classification came with multiple new regulations including a requirement that drivers use reformulated gasoline during the hottest months of the year.

But critics, including Gov. Jared Polis, argue that reformulated gas is more expensive for consumers and does not bring down pollution levels enough to justify that cost. Others also have said that oil and gas company expansions to meet that demand have contributed to more pollution, negating the gains from the special blend of gas.

Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association, a group that represents gas stations, said reformulated gas is an archaic solution because it was a rule developed almost 30 years ago when automobiles were less fuel-efficient. Now it increases costs for consumers with little impact on overall ozone pollution.

But if it must be used, the market would benefit from Holly Energy delivering more gas to the region, Bailey said. Suncor Energy, which provides about 40% of the state’s fuel, is the only refinery in Colorado that produces reformulated gas, and since refineries in border states don’t make it, the rest must be piped into Colorado from Texas refiners, Bailey said.

Holly Energy supplies about 30% of the gasoline used in Colorado and more product availability would stabilize summer gas prices. In 2024, there was plenty of reformulated gas in June and July, but it was dwindling in August and early September, leading to a price increase of 40 to 50 cents per gallon at the pump, he said.

“Adams County is the most important county for fuel in Colorado,” Bailey said.

That’s the reason people who live there frequently complain they suffer a disproportionate amount from the pollution associated with the oil and gas industry.

Since the reformulated gas requirement was announced in 2022, three companies have applied for Title V permit modifications to meet consumer demands: Suncor, Magellan Pipeline Company and Holly Energy.

Suncor spent $45 million to upgrade its Commerce City refinery to refine the gasoline.

But Magellan in September withdrew its application to expand a storage facility outside Commerce City amid intense public opposition.

Magellan’s parent company, Oneok Inc., said it was canceling plans because a customer pulled out of a contract. However, the proposed expansion was in a residential neighborhood and across the street from Dupont Elementary School. The expansion was opposed by the Adams 14 School District, the Adams County Public Health Department, the Adams County commissioners and multiple environmental and community health groups.

Some advocates believe Holly Energy requested a public hearing in anticipation of a similar protest.

Nichols, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said reformulated gas might be good for the regional ozone problem, but it comes at a price for people who live in Adams County.

“Trying to deal with these air quality challenges is inevitably sacrificing people in these areas,” Nichols said. “They do deserve to be given a break if environmental justice means anything.”

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

To submit comments:

Be sure to write that you are commenting on Holly Energy Partners’ permit modification.

Online: tinyurl.com/3nu2uyxc

Email: cdphe_apcd_airpermitcomments@state.co.us

Mail: Title V Operating Permits Unit, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South, Denver, CO, 80246-1530

To attend the public hearing:

The hearing before the Air Quality Control Commission is scheduled for 6 p.m. April 24 via Zoom. Register at cdphe.colorado.gov/aqcc.

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For Bob Bamber, the connection goes back to his great-great-grandfather, who homesteaded north of Pritchett, a tiny Baca County town of barely 100 people not far from the Oklahoma state line.

So the 44-year-old rancher took notice when he found out that a portion of the 10,000 acres of ranchland he and his father own and lease in neighboring Prowers County had been placed in a zone designated by the U.S. Department of Energy as a potential high-voltage electric transmission corridor.

And he got agitated.

“It’s an emotional reaction because of that family connection,” said Bamber, bouncing in his truck along dirt roads that slice through prairie dotted with cedar trees, yucca and prickly pear cactus. “It sounds cliche, but you are part of the land out here.”

His worry echoes that of his over-the-fence neighbor. Val Emick fears that a transmission corridor, with towering pylons marching from New Mexico into three rural Colorado counties — Baca, Prowers and Kiowa — could disturb a fragile short-grass prairie landscape in the state’s far-southeast corner, lowering land values and disrupting ranching and farming operations that span generations.

“You go out seven days a week, and you build it and want to pass it down to your kids and your grandkids — it seems unfair,” said Emick, who has lived in the same house south of Lamar for 35 years and runs a cow-calf operation on some 5,000 acres. “And they come in with that threat.”

That threat is eminent domain — the power the government has to condemn and take land for public uses, like the construction of highways and other infrastructure. It must pay fair market value to the property owner for the land.

No determination has been made about the use of eminent domain to accommodate electric transmission lines as part of the Energy Department’s National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors initiative, or NIETC. But people in this part of the state have fresh and raw memories of the specter of condemnation that hung over the U.S. Army’s plan to expand its Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, northeast of Trinidad, nearly 20 years ago.

After both of Colorado’s U.S. senators expressed opposition to involuntary land sales for the expansion, the idea was scuttled in 2013.

“The biggest concern we have is eminent domain,” Prowers County Commissioner Ron Cook recently told The Denver Post inside the county courthouse in Lamar. “We’ve got third- and fourth-generation farmers and ranchers running these properties, and we sure don’t want them run off their land.”

The concern over the NIETC proposal brought a crowd out to the same courthouse last month. Some in the room, including Cook, said they had only recently learned of the project. They were frustrated by a lack of communication from the federal government.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert joined the meeting via video link and told the attendees she would push back hard on the corridor designation.

In an email to the Post this month, the Republican congresswoman said she reached out to newly confirmed Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a fellow Coloradan, and got the public input period for the project extended from mid-February to April 15. In a Feb. 10 letter to Wright, Boebert said what was started under the Biden administration should be looked at again, with an option for the agency under President Donald Trump’s new administration to “shut this project down.”

“We can all agree that access to reliable energy is important for the health and prosperity of rural Coloradans, but that doesn’t mean we need to be forced into a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by D.C. bureaucrats who have failed to include community leaders in this process,” she said.

“Very important corridor” for grid

The NIETC program, which Congress authorized in 2005, tasks the Department of Energy with identifying areas of the country where transmission is lacking. It’s charged with determining where infrastructure is “urgently needed to advance important national interests, such as increased electric reliability and reduced consumer costs,” according to the program’s website.

Impacts from a compromised electric grid include more frequent and longer power outages and higher prices for energy due to a lack of capacity to move lower-cost electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed, the website says.

So far, no NIETC corridors have been established in the United States.

The Post asked the Department of Energy for comment via multiple phone and email requests but received no response. The department’s latest designation effort began last May with the release of a list of 10 possible transmission corridors, based on a National Transmission Needs Study that was completed in 2023.

That list was winnowed in December to three corridors, including what is known as the Southwestern Grid Connector — which would run up the eastern edge of New Mexico, scrape the western edge of the Oklahoma panhandle and pierce the southeast corner of Colorado.

The other two NIETC corridors being considered are in the Lake Erie portion of Pennsylvania and across parts of the Dakotas and Nebraska.

The Department of Energy says the Southwest Grid Connector could be anywhere from three miles to 15 miles wide, though the ultimate transmission line built would cover far less land. The corridor, the government says, is designed to follow existing transmission line rights-of-way for parts of its path.

“It’s a very important corridor,” said Adam Kurland, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund who specializes in federal energy policy. “It’s probably the one that adds the most value to the grid.”

The Southwestern Grid Connector would help link the nation’s eastern and western interconnections, Kurland said, and would provide the ability “to exchange more power and serve a national grid.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the eastern interconnection operates in states east of the Rocky Mountains while the western interconnection covers states west of the Rockies.

“There’s very limited transfer between these two interconnects,” Kurland said. “There’s a lot of value for doing that, for reliability of the grid and for resilience against weather systems. You could more easily move power and supply power where it’s needed.”

More data centers, fewer coal plants

Grid Strategies, a consultant for the power sector, said in a December report that demand for electricity nationwide is forecast to rise by nearly 16% by 2029. Among the main drivers, according to the company, are power-hungry data centers and manufacturing facilities.

A study that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden participated in last fall concluded that the U.S. transmission system — consisting of a half-million miles of power lines — will need to at least double in size by 2050 to remain reliable at the lowest cost to ratepayers.

And a 2024 report by the nonprofit North American Electric Corp. determined that about half the continent was at elevated or high risk of energy shortfalls over the next five to 10 years. That risk comes as power plants are retired and the pressure for more electricity increases.

In Colorado, coal plants across the state have been shut down in recent years as worries about their climate-warming emissions escalate. All are expected to close by the end of 2030.

“The more transmission we build, the more flexibility and resilience we create,” said Mark Gabriel, the president and CEO of the Brighton-based electric cooperative United Power.

For eight years, Gabriel headed the Western Area Power Administration, a federal agency that sells and conveys electricity across 17,000 miles of transmission lines to 15 western and central states.

“As coal goes away, we still need to move electrons,” he said. “How do we meet a growing demand at the same time we’re closing down generator resources?”

The state’s future demands on electric power are ambitious. While campaigning for his first term in office, Gov. Jared Polis said he wanted all of the power on Colorado’s electric grid to come from renewable energy sources by 2040. Rules adopted by Denver and the state aim to eventually make buildings all-electric.

And Colorado, with its goal of getting nearly 1 million electric vehicles on the roads by 2030, recently moved ahead of California for the nation’s top spot in market share of electric vehicles sold.

“You want to have a diverse portfolio of generation resources, and that portfolio is helped by more transmission,” Gabriel said. “And we can’t (achieve that) unless we have projects like this, and others, constructed.”

Farmers lament lack of “bargaining power”

But it’s how projects are constructed that matters to Steve Shelton, a sixth-generation farmer and rancher who lives about 10 miles south of Lamar. He grows wheat, corn and sorghum on 20,000 acres.

Shelton, 69, was on the other side of the transmission debate about 15 years ago, when he joined neighboring ranchers in exploring deals with a wind farm near Kit Carson to string electric wires across land in the state’s southeast corner.

“We had some farmers who said ‘No,’ and we’d have to find another path or sweeten the pot,” he said of the effort, which eventually fizzled out.

With the shadow of eminent domain in the mix this time, Shelton said, “you have no bargaining power.”

“They would get the development rights or the easement, and the farmer and rancher would have no income off of that,” he said.

The county’s fiscal health would also be impacted by a condemnation action by the government, said Prowers County Commissioner Roger Stagner, who served as mayor of Lamar for a decade. Taking land off the tax rolls would not only hit the county’s $41 million annual budget but would also have a ripple effect on the local economy, he said.

Boebert, in her Feb. 10 letter to the energy secretary, said the contemplated Southwestern Grid Connector would “affect approximately 325,000 acres of private land in Baca, Prowers and Kiowa counties in Colorado.” There are fewer than 20,000 residents combined in the three counties.

“Everything revolves around agriculture. If you’re going to take out that much land, it can affect the entire county,” Stagner said. “If there’s no alfalfa grown on that ground, that farmer doesn’t spend as much in town. That’s a big concern for us.”

Bamber, the Prowers County rancher, says he has no issue with the deployment of energy infrastructure across his property, so long as it’s done with full disclosure and landowner input. In fact, he and Emick, his neighbor, host dozens of wind turbines on their acreage that power the Twin Buttes wind farm.

“We’ve been able to live with the wind farm because they’ve compensated us,” Bamber said. “We’ve made the tradeoff for the money.”

Lease agreements they hammered out with the wind energy company to use their land made the deal palatable, Emick said.

“There was no hiding anything,” she said.

Broken trust, uncertain future

With the NIETC process already in the third of four phases, Cook is frustrated and befuddled that he and his fellow commissioners didn’t catch wind of the project before late January. That uncertainty has been a driving force behind much of the resistance to it among his constituents.

“That is what we’re struggling with — we have no idea how this is going to end up and what they’re going to do with it,” he said.

The Department of Energy describes the third phase of the designation process as the “public and governmental engagement phase.” During this period, the agency will decide the level of environmental review that applies to each NIETC project. It will conduct any required reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The agency conducted a webinar on the latest developments with the Southwestern Grid Connector in mid-January. And it issued a news release about the latest phase in December. But many in southeast Colorado think the federal government could have done a better job of outreach to local officials and property owners.

Some take hope in the success of opponents in Kansas last year who eliminated the Midwest-Plains and Plains-Southwest NIETC corridors that were part of the original 10 first proposed in the spring. U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, who represents that state’s 1st Congressional District, issued a statement in December after the Kansas transmission corridors were dropped.

“Kansans made it clear from the very beginning that we were not interested in the federal government seizing our private land,” Mann said, adding: “I’m glad our voices were heard in stopping this federal overreach.”

Boebert, in her letter to the energy secretary last month, cited Kansas’ resistance and urged the agency to “reconsider and halt further actions on current NIETC designations in Colorado initiated by the previous administration.”

That’s the right call, Bamber said.

“I’d like to see it just stopped — the trust is broken,” he said. “We’re an afterthought and we should have been partners in this.”

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The utility has proposed raising the price for gas and electric service. Higher natural gas prices affect the price of electricity because gas is one of the fuels Xcel used to produce electricity.

If state regulators agree, the increases would take effect April 1 and remain in place for three months.

For gas service, Xcel residential customers’ monthly costs would increase an average of $2.64, or 6.5%, boosting the bill from $40.60 to $43.24.

The average small business would see its monthly gas rate rise $14.07, or 7.81%. The bill would rise from $180.24 to $194.31.

Residential customers’ electric rates would rise $2.56 a month, or 2.78%, increasing the average monthly bill from $92.34 to $94.90. Rates would go up $5.15, or 4.25%, a month for small businesses. The average monthly bill would increase from $121.3 to $126.38.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will consider the increases as part of quarterly commodity price adjustments.

Xcel Energy passes on increases in wholesale prices directly to customers. The company said in a statement that fuel costs are recovered from customers on a dollar-for-dollar basis and Xcel does not profit from the price hike.

Xcel is Colorado’s largest electric utility. It provides electricity to 1.6 million customers and natural gas to 1.5 million customers, with overlaps between the two groups.

In November, the PUC approved a revenue increase of $130.76 million for Xcel Energy. The company proposed a rate increase that would have generated about $171 million.

The $16 million project is scheduled to start later this year, pending approval from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The work would dismantle the 100-foot-tall flare stack, often called a smoke stack by the general public, built in 1950 as part of what is now called Plant 1. The gases that are burned by that flare will be rerouted to the refinery’s taller gasoline benzene reduction flare, which was built in 2012, said April Maestas, engineering director at the Commerce City refinery.

Suncor filed its construction permit application for the project in October, and it’s under review by the state’s Air Pollution Control Division. Last week, Suncor held two online meetings to explain the project and answer questions from the community — a result of Colorado’s 2021 Environmental Justice Act, which requires more communication between polluters and the communities in which they operate.

The refinery has multiple flares, which are notable, especially at night, when people see flames jumping from the tall pipes. Those flames can be seen from Interstates 70 and 270 and around Commerce City and Denver’s Elyria-Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods.

“Seeing a flame on the flare tip is not bad,” Maestas said during a March 5 public meeting. “It indicates the excess refinery gas is properly controlled and properly combusted through an engineered system.”

The flares burn off excess gas to avoid explosions and are a necessary part of oil refining. The project should improve emissions and safety at the refinery, she said.

“We recover as much excess gas as possible and recycle it back to the refinery to use as fuel gas for furnace operation,” Maestas said.

The gasoline benzene reduction flare is 250 feet tall, which 1.5 times higher than the 75-year-old one that will be taken down. That means pollution including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter will be dispersed further from surrounding neighborhoods, she said. That should decrease some impacts from emissions.

Suncor also expects the conversion to reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides because there will be one less flare burning gases and sending byproducts into the air, said Bernd Haneke, the refinery’s environmental and regulatory manager. The taller, newer flare is more efficient.

However, in its construction permit application filed with the Air Pollution Control Division, Suncor said it “is not requesting any new or revised emissions limitations in conjunction with this construction permit application.”

The refinery is a frequent target of criticism because it is one of the largest polluters in the state, and people who live in Commerce City and north Denver suffer from that pollution more than other Colorado residents. They complain of asthma, nosebleeds, cancer and other health problems. They also say the refinery often stinks, making it unpleasant to spend time outside.

Suncor agreed to pay a $10.5 million penalty in February 2024 to settle air permit violations for belching toxic chemicals over a three-year period. In July, the company was notified that it was under investigation by the state and the Environmental Protection Agency for repeated Clean Air Act violations.

A big portion of the work will happen in March 2026, when Suncor is scheduled to shutter Plant 1 for routine maintenance. During that period, the refinery also will refurbish pumps, compressors and electrical systems, and construction workers will use that period to tie gas lines from the old flare into the newer one, Maestas said.

The switch between flares will happen in 2027 if all goes according to the plan, she said.

Suncor has invested “hundreds of millions” in the Commerce City refinery in recent years to improve its equipment and reduce air and water pollution, Maestas said. The company also upgraded its refinery over the past two years to produce reformulated gasoline, which is required in metro Denver and along the northern Front Range during the summer months to reduce ozone pollution.

Suncor operates the only refinery in Colorado, processing about 98,000 barrels of crude oil per day. That oil comes primarily from Canada, but also from the Denver-Julesberg basin.

The refinery employs more than 500 people.

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The Colorado Energy Office was awarded more than $500 million in grants under legislation approved during the Biden administration. Colorado farmers, ranchers and businesses were awarded funds geared specifically to rural areas.

Some funds blocked by the Trump administration have been released, but court battles over the widescale stoppage are ongoing. And the fate of the money is uncertain as the administration continues to cut federal spending and roll back Biden-era policies that promoted renewable energy and addressed climate change.

Colorado is among 22 states suing to make federal agencies release funds that were withheld based on executive orders issued by President Donald Trump and instructions from the Office of Management and Budget.

“The administration is really pulling the rug out from underneath individuals and communities across the state,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office. “There’s a wide range of different programs affected by the funding freeze, many of which are providing direct services to communities across the state and many of which are already underway.”

After being stopped, the funds for the Colorado Solar for All program, which is aimed at lower-income residents, are currently flowing again.

“So that’s a positive sign. It’s a step in the right direction,” said Stephen Irvin, president and CEO of Colorado-based Amicus Solar Cooperative.

But other commitments of federal money are still in limbo. Irvin said he’s especially concerned about the freeze on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP. Recipients receive the funds only after paying for work and meeting all the requirements.

“As you can imagine this is a big deal because a lot of these projects have actually started construction,” Irvin said. “It’s pretty painful right now.”

Westminster-based Tri State Generation and Transmission Association, a wholesale power provider that serves electric cooperatives in Colorado and three other states, was awarded $2.5 billion in low-cost financing and grants from the USDA’s Empowering Rural America program.

The Trump administration is still “in the midst of its 90-day review period” of federally financed energy projects, Tri-State spokesman Lee Boughey said in an email. “We regularly engage with our Congressional delegations and we work together to ensure reliable and affordable power for the rural communities our members serve.”

Mark Gabriel, president and CEO of the Brighton-based United Power, said the electric association is “working through the critical details and following the processes necessary to assure the funds are available.”

United Power signed a letter of commitment with USDA in December for about $262 million in grants to offset the cost of clean-energy projects that will help it meet state goals for renewable energy and reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions as well as meet the growing demand for service.

“The good news for us is we were doing these projects anyway,” Gabriel said. “When we get the funding, that will help us lower and manage rates for our members.”

The Grand Valley Power electric cooperative in Grand Junction was ready to pull the trigger on spending money for work to reduce wildfire risk when it got word at the end of January to hold off.

“At that point, the information we received was we would not be reimbursed for any of the expenses going toward these projects at this time,” said Joseph Michalewicz, Grand Valley Power’s chief financial officer. “They requested we put a halt on any potential construction and purchases for a 90-day period.”

Grand Valley Power had been approved for grants of $200,000 through the Colorado Energy Office and $2 million as part of a consortium led by Holy Cross Energy, an electric cooperative in Glenwood Springs, for wildfire mitigation. Grand Valley planned to bury a total of 5 miles of power lines.

The work would not only reduce the risk of fires started by downed power lines or other electrical equipment, Michalewicz said, but it would also be a boost to the area economy and jobs.

Some of the electric association’s members were affected by the 2020 Pine Gulch fire, which was ignited by lightning and burned 139,007 acres. The association had to rebuild some of its power lines.

Grand Valley Power also won approval for a $13 million grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be part of a solar project in Delta County.

“That would power about 6,600 homes per year in our service territory. About a third of our members would be getting locally sourced, Western Slope renewable energy,” Michalewicz said.

So far, Grand Valley Power hasn’t heard any updates about the funding. However, Michalewicz  remains optimistic that the projects will get the green light because of the good they will do.

Fallout from frozen federal funds

Jeff Vierling of Durango doesn’t know when he will receive his funding from USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program. In his case, the work is finished. The fallout for his business could be significant if he doesn’t receive the $95,000 reimbursement he was counting on to help pay for construction.

“Let’s just say we wouldn’t be in business if we treated customers like this,” said Vierling, who founded Tailwind Nutrition with his wife, Jenny.

The company, which makes nutrition drinks, contracted with Shaw Solar to install an array on its manufacturing site for a total of $192,000. Tailwind wanted to use solar power to help offset the electric costs and meet its environmental goals.

“The building is a bigger facility that allows us to continue manufacturing products here in Durango and to keep the jobs here,” Vierling said.

Tailwind Nutrition, started in 2012, has customers across the country and in about 40 countries, Vierling said. The company has 36 employees and expects to keep growing

But Tailwind’s plans might change if it doesn’t receive the federal grant as expected. Last week, Vierling had to pass up someone he wanted to hire because he didn’t have the money. Higher tariffs on goods from China and Mexico are adding another layer of worry because one of Tailwind’s key ingredients comes from those countries and isn’t readily available in the U.S.

Vierling said he has reached out to his federal representatives for help to find about the grant, but he hasn’t heard anything. “I feel like we’re trying to do right by our community, right by our customers. It just feels like that’s lost in what’s going on.”

Mike Ellis, business manager for Shaw Solar in Durango, said USDA’s Rural Energy for America has been good not only for solar companies but for small businesses in southwest Colorado. Shaw Solar has worked with local USDA employees and applicants for about 15 years.

“We’re just trying to remain calm and steady through all of this because we know it’s going to change 10 more times before they find any clarity,” Ellis said.

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Judge Andrew Luxen ruled against Denver-based K.P. Kauffman Co. Inc., which sued the Energy and Carbon Management Commission over its decision to terminate an agreement with the company.

The ECMC said K.P. Kauffman, or KPK, hadn’t complied with an agreement to clean up well sites and spills cited in multiple state complaints. The state moved forward with plans to fine the company and restrict its ability to transport and sell its product.

The family-owned KPK, which has about 1,200 wells in northeastern Colorado, filed a lawsuit accusing state regulators of breach of contract for ending an agreement that required the company to comply with state regulations. In 2023, the ECMC terminated the agreement after finding KPK had failed to “substantially comply” with its provisions and that a pattern of violations by the company threatened public health, safety and environment.

The state agency said KPK could lose its license to operate in Colorado if it didn’t comply with regulations within a certain time frame. A court put the penalties on hold after KPK sued.

But that court is the same one that last week rejected KPK’s claim that the ECMC broke a contract when it ended the agreement with the company. Luxen’s ruling found that the agreement was a regulatory agency’s action rather than a separate, negotiated contract.

Luxen also rejected KPK’s claim that the ECMC’s decision was arbitrary and that the commission abused its discretion. The judge said the commission’s decision to end the agreement with KPK “is supported by substantial evidence in the record.” He dismissed the company’s argument that the state’s action was drastic, saying the record shows that KPK missed 68 “milestone dates” of the agreement and failed to carry out plans to address alleged violations.

Although the state’s order was upheld, its ongoing dispute with KPK isn’t over. Another legal claim by the company is still pending.

And John Jacus, an attorney representing KPK, said the company intends “to vigorously appeal the orders.” He said in a statement that ECMC ended the agreement with KPK just 14 months into its five-year term. The court rulings “affirm the imposition of millions in civil penalties and other business-ending sanctions after a series of administrative hearings in which the Company was denied due process at every turn,” he added.

In a series of hearings before the ECMC over the past few years, attorneys for KPK have accused the state of selective enforcement of its rules. State officials have cited a number of alleged violations by KPK, including spills at well sites, leaks in lines at well sites, contaminated soil and the failure to turn in timely and accurate reports.

When it ended the cleanup agreement with KPK, the ECMC said the company had failed to “substantially comply” with it. ECMC staffers testified that only three of 58 projects identified had been completed.

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The companies’ attorneys will argue that greenhouse gas emissions released by oil and gas production from within the United States and countries around the world do not fall to individual states to regulate. Instead, they contend, it’s up to the federal government, through the Clean Air Act, to decide how to regulate emissions from oil and gas operators.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing the city of Boulder and Boulder County — the plaintiffs in the lawsuit — will argue that Colorado law allow local governments to pursue claims against Suncor and ExxonMobil because the municipalities are not trying to regulate emissions but, rather, want to receive compensation for the damage caused by the companies’ pollution.

Daniela Colaiacovo, a spokeswoman for EarthRights International, which is representing Boulder County, said attorneys were not available to talk about the case prior to Tuesday’s arguments before the state Supreme Court.

But Sean Powers, an EarthRights senior attorney, addressed the matter a statement after a Boulder District Court judge refused in June to dismiss the case.

“Since the beginning, defendants have been arguing against a case we did not plead,” Powers said. “Plaintiffs are not trying to litigate a solution to the climate crisis, they are seeking redress for harms they have suffered and will continue to suffer. The only conduct at issue is defendants’ own: what they knew, when they knew it and what they did with that knowledge.”

The state Supreme Court’s decision will be pivotal.

If the justices decide the case belongs in state courts, it will continue a lengthy legal battle that eventually could cost Suncor and Exxon millions of dollars in a settlement or judgment. If the court determines the matter isn’t a state issue, the municipalities could find it hard to bring the case in federal court since the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it belongs in state court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case when petitioned by the petroleum companies.

Tuesday’s hearing comes as courts in New Jersey, New York and Maryland already have dismissed similar lawsuits.

However, one state-level case, filed by the city of Honolulu against oil companies operating in Hawaii, was allowed to stand after making it to that state’s Supreme Court. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take that case, paving the way for it to continue in Hawaii’s state courts.

The city of Boulder along with Boulder and San Miguel counties originally filed the climate-change lawsuit in Boulder District Court in 2018 against Suncor, which operates the state’s only petroleum refinery in Commerce City, and Exxon, one of the largest oil producers and refiners in the United States.

The lawsuit argued that the two oil companies were public nuisances, that their pollution was trespassing into the counties and that it violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. The plaintiffs alleged the petroleum companies also had participated in a conspiracy to deny climate change is happening and to convince the public to keep using fossil fuels.

The municipalities demanded the oil companies pay for the impacts of global warming, which includes recovery from increasingly severe weather that causes wildfires, droughts and alters the snowfall that mountain towns such as Telluride, in San Miguel County, depend on.

Since the original lawsuit was filed in Boulder District Court, the cases have been separated. San Miguel County’s separate lawsuit is now pending in Denver District Court. The case to be argued before the state Supreme Court this week only involves the city and county of Boulder.

Since 1983, average temperatures in Colorado have risen 2 degrees and are projected to rise another 2.5 to 5 degrees by 2050, according to documents filed in the case.

“The altered climate is affecting communities, ecosystems and public health, including prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, increase in wildfires and more severe droughts; resulting in loss of snowpack, precipitation changes, worsened air quality, and insect and disease outbreaks,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys argue in a brief filed with the state Supreme Court.

Boulder County and the city of Boulder say climate change is costing local governments millions of dollars as they address the problems it creates.

Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said the warming climate is resulting in all sorts of expenses, such as adding air conditioning to buildings that once did not need cooling to the costly recovery from disasters such as the 2021 Marshall fire.

“This is about holding Exxon and Suncor financially responsible for the harm climate change is causing our community,” Brockett said. “They have been aware of that effect and now the city is facing who knows how many millions in costs because of it.”

Environmental groups supporting the lawsuit agree the case belongs in state court.

The Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in an amicus brief that the Clean Air Act did not carve out exclusive jurisdiction over interstate emissions.

“NRDC takes no position on the merits of these claims,” the brief stated. “But NRDC strongly objects to defendants’ misconstruction of federal law, which would seemingly provide blanket immunity for deceptive business conduct of the sort alleged here. That is nonsense, as the Clean Air Act does not address such activity.”

When the lawsuit was filed, it was the first of its kind in a non-coastal state, with other cases mostly originating on the East Coast.

Suncor, Exxon and the state’s oil and gas industry immediately fought back, saying Boulder was trying to financially break them and the result would be increased costs for fuels and other petroleum products for consumers.

The costs for consumers remain an argument for the industry in fighting the lawsuit.

Phil Goldberg, special counsel to the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, which tracks climate litigation on behalf of industry, said environmentalists don’t care if the lawsuits would make gasoline unaffordable, he said.

“If this kind of litigation becomes successful, then it’s going to increase the cost of all the energy sources,” Goldberg said.

Manufacturers acknowledge climate change is a real concern, he said, but suing oil companies is not the way to solve the problem. Instead, the companies need to find innovative technology that will reduce harmful emissions while still providing the fuels that power modern life. That also includes producing more energy-efficient products such as refrigerators and other household products, fuel-efficient automobiles and buildings that don’t leak energy.

“It’s all of the above approach to figuring out how we’re going to create a new system to fuel the world,” Goldberg said.

It typically takes several months for the Colorado Supreme Court to issue an opinion after oral arguments are held.

This story was updated at 9:30 a.m., Feb. 10, 2025 to reflect the correct amount of time since the original lawsuit was filed.

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