{"id":13726,"date":"2026-01-30T14:53:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tri-state-says-no-thanks-to-federal-orders-to-keep-craig-coal-power-plant-open\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:31:54","slug":"tri-state-says-no-thanks-to-federal-orders-to-keep-craig-coal-power-plant-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tri-state-says-no-thanks-to-federal-orders-to-keep-craig-coal-power-plant-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Tri-State says no thanks to federal orders to keep Craig coal power plant open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Craig
Craig Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates Nov. 18, 2021, in Craig, Colorado. (Rick Bowmer\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Rick Bowmer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a \u201crespectful\u201d but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration ordering them to keep Craig\u2019s Unit 1 coal-fired plant open past the New Year:<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t need it, they don\u2019t want it, and their inflation-strapped consumers can\u2019t afford the higher bills. Plus, the federal order is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Tri-State, which delivers power to 42 member co-ops and utilities serving more than 1 million people in four Western states, and Platte River Power, which serves Fort Collins, Loveland and northern Colorado, detailed their objections to keeping Craig open in a 38-page petition Thursday to the U.S. Department of Energy. They joined the Colorado attorney general<\/a> and a coalition of environmental groups opposing the order at a deadline for the government to consider extending the emergency past March 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u202fdo not take this request for a rehearing lightly, but as not-for-profit entities, we face issues that other utilities do not, because\u202fit is our members that\u202fultimately are going to pay for the cost of this order,\u201d Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said.<\/p>\n

Earthjustice, part of the nonprofit coalition that wants to make sure Craig 1 stays closed as planned as a key part of Colorado\u2019s transition to renewable energy, called the owners\u2019 petition the first such objection after a host of Trump administration emergency orders to reopen coal plants around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cCraig\u2019s operator and two of its co-owners make plain what everyone sees and the Trump administration fails to acknowledge: the unlawful order is counterproductive and unreasoned,\u201d said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney with Earthjustice\u2019s Clean Energy Program. \u201cCraig Unit 1\u2019s retirement has been carefully planned by the folks responsible for keeping the lights on. Replacement resources have been acquired. The order throws a wrench into utilities\u2019 operations and plans, imposing financial costs and pollution on Coloradans and others, to serve the Trump\u2019s administration policy of rescuing the dying coal industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

An analysis by Grid Strategies based on federal data<\/a> estimates keeping Craig Unit 1 running would cost at least $85 million a year, two-thirds of which would come from fuel.<\/p>\n

Coal is the most polluting fuel for electric power plants. Craig Unit 1 alone emitted more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, with Colorado\u2019s six remaining coal plants overall contributing a significant portion of the state\u2019s overall output of about 115 million metric tons of carbon. Craig Unit 1 also emitted hundreds of tons of local health-harming pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.<\/p>\n

Tri-State, which operates the 45-year-old Craig Unit 1 and co-owns it with Platte River and others, had planned since 2016 to retire the unit by the end of 2025, the owners\u2019 petition says. Co-ops and utilities carefully planned for, built or acquired a host of other clean resources like solar or wind farms to make up for the power when plants retired.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the owners note, they let important maintenance go knowing they didn\u2019t need to extend the plant past 2025, and fixing those issues will be even more costly for co-op members who pay the bills through their electric rates. In fact, Craig Unit 1 was out of service until this week despite the federal order, as it shut down for repairs in mid-December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Craig owners also note the double-whammy they face with the unit\u2019s coal energy: There\u2019s only so much transmission capacity in northwestern Colorado, and if they have to force coal power out onto the lines, they won\u2019t be able to use solar electricity generated by the newly added 145MW Axial Basin solar farm in Moffat County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Treading carefully, apparently, with the Trump administration\u2019s stated disdain for green energy, the petition doesn\u2019t mention that the Axial Basis \u201cgenerating facility\u201d is solar.<\/p>\n

The owners\u2019 petition asks DOE to reconsider its emergency order on two legal fronts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, the order, as drafted, effectuates a taking of petitioners\u2019 property under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution without an adequate process to obtain constitutionally required compensation,\u201d they argue. \u201cSecond, the order does not meet Section 202(c)\u2019s requirement for a reasoned finding that compels operation of Craig Unit 1 as the \u2018best\u2019 solution to the identified emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The utilities have set themselves up for growing energy demand in coming years, and the order unnecessarily disrupts many of those plans, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have planned for the retirement of this resource for over a decade and have proactively replaced the capacity and energy from new\u202fsources,\u201d\u202fJason Frisbie, general manager and CEO of Platte River, said in a statement accompanying the petition. \u201cWhile Platte River will continue to comply with federal law, we disagree with the need to keep the plant open.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

co\u2011op and a partner say Craig 1 station disrupts power deliveries from a nearby solar farm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[489,1424,1098,1427,28,315,1426,1425],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alternative-energy","tag-coal","tag-energy","tag-energy-general","tag-headlines","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar-energy"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19128,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726\/revisions\/19128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13726"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}