Retire dirty coal

The state of Colorado and Xcel Energy on Nov. 10 filed a request with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to keep Unit 2 at the Comanche coal plant in Pueblo operating beyond its December retirement date. If the petition is granted, it could raise Colorado residents’ utility bills and worsen air pollution for surrounding communities. The filing comes as the Trump administration is reportedly considering illegal emergency orders under the Federal Power Act to keep retiring coal plants open, including in Colorado. If the PUC allows Comanche 2 to operate past its deadline, it must include operational limits and guardrails that would reduce harm to community members and ratepayers.

The filing follows a PUC decision issued last Thursday on Phase I of Xcel’s Just Transition Solicitation. That case involves the regulatory process through which Xcel proposes how it will replace coal plants with new resources while addressing the social, economic, and environmental harms on impacted communities. The PUC decision failed to acknowledge many concerns raised by the Environmental Justice Coalition, consisting of Vote Solar, Roots to Resilience, GreenLatinos, GRID Alternatives, and NAACP State Conference CO-MY-WY, Pueblo Branch, regarding equity and health impacts in Pueblo and other communities. Here is the full press release: https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/colorado-and-xcels-comanche-2-petition-throws-impacted-pueblo-community-under-the-bus

The Environmental Justice Coalition strongly supports retiring the Comanche coal plant as planned and as quickly as possible, and replacing the generation with clean, renewable resources, including a renewable energy park in Pueblo. But the PUC declined to order Xcel to begin studying this idea and also failed to prevent Xcel from accepting and favoring gas plant bids. The commission also approved Xcel’s proposal to extend the life of one of the units at the Cherokee gas plant in north Denver by a year, over the Environmental Justice Coalition’s objections.

“The State of Colorado, the PUC and Xcel Energy have an obligation to retire Comanche 2 at the end of this year, and they should move forward with this long-planned retirement,” Michael Hiatt, deputy managing attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office, said. “Continuing to operate heavily polluting and expensive coal units past their retirement deadlines is unwise and not necessary. The PUC also cannot let this petition distract it from its job of ensuring a truly just transition for the Pueblo community when this coal plant retires.”

 

– Perry Wheeler, Earthjustice