{"id":13730,"date":"2026-01-30T00:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-ag-asks-trump-administration-to-let-craigs-coal-plant-close-as-planned\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:40:13","slug":"colorado-ag-asks-trump-administration-to-let-craigs-coal-plant-close-as-planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-ag-asks-trump-administration-to-let-craigs-coal-plant-close-as-planned\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado AG asks Trump administration to let Craig\u2019s coal plant close as planned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Craig Station Unit 1 coal-burning power plant in Moffat County, here on Feb. 14 was meant to close in December 2025 before a Trump administration emergency order to keep it open. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Wednesday petitioned the U.S. Department of Energy to rescind its \u201cemergency\u201d order keeping the coal\u2011fired Craig Unit 1 open past Tri\u2011State Generation and Transmission\u2019s long\u2011planned Dec. 31 closing date for the aging power plant.<\/p>\n

A coalition of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club on Wednesday also formally challenged the Trump administration\u2019s order for Craig, which is part of a multiagency effort to support the fossil fuel industry by extending the life of coal plants and mines and expanding coal leasing on public land. Thursday was the deadline for petitions for DOE to reconsider its Dec. 30 announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no evidence of an emergency that would require keeping Craig Unit 1 open,\u201d Weiser said in a statement accompanying the petition filing at DOE. \u201cThe Energy Department\u2019s illegal order will result in millions of dollars of unnecessary costs that could be passed on to rural households and businesses already struggling with high electricity bills. The continued operation of Craig Unit 1 would also increase pollution in Colorado, harming the environment and public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its December emergency order, the Department of Energy said the life of coal\u2011fired units in various parts of the country should be extended to stabilize the electric grid and help meet growing demand from data centers and other high\u2011volume users.<\/p>\n

The Colorado environmental coalition\u2019s petition responds: \u201cWhatever needs our modern energy system has, Craig is not the answer. The plant is an old, dirty, expensive generator that is required to retire under Colorado law.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Department of Energy spokesperson said in an emailed statement late Wednesday, \u201cUnder the disastrous energy subtraction policies of the previous administration, the U.S. was on track to lose 100 GW of reliable generation capacity by 2030. Much of the U.S. is now at \u2018elevated risk\u2019 of blackouts under extreme conditions, which (the North American Electric Reliability Corp.) declared a \u2018five alarm fire\u2019 for grid reliability. At the same time, the U.S. may need to build 100 GW of new reliable capacity to win the AI race and onshore manufacturing. The Trump Administration is committed to preventing the premature retirement of baseload power plants and building as much reliable, dispatchable generation as possible to achieve energy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado laws and long\u2011term plans to cut greenhouse gases require the closure of all six remaining coal units by 2031, as part of a mandate to cut power\u2011generation emissions 80% by 2030 from a 2005 benchmark.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration and other grid circumstances directly challenge those plans. The Trump EPA is supporting requests by Colorado Springs Utilities to keep burning coal at its Ray D. Nixon plant in Fountain past a previously scheduled 2029 closing date. Xcel Energy has also successfully petitioned to keep burning coal at its Pueblo Comanche 2 unit past the closing date at the end of 2025 to replace power lost during ongoing repairs to the adjacent Comanche 3 unit.<\/p>\n

Weiser has argued that multiple Trump administration orders and budget rescissions are unconstitutional encroachments on state power. The emergency order on Craig \u201cis a federal intrusion into the state\u2019s authority to design and manage energy policy within our borders,\u201d Weiser said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Tri\u2011State has been complying with the order but must first finish repairs that shut down the unit Dec. 19, a spokesperson said. The generating co\u2011op, which supplies power to 42 electric co\u2011ops serving more than 1 million customers in four states, has said it has not received information from DOE about who is supposed to pay to keep Craig Unit 1 open into 2026. Advocacy groups estimate the cost to run Craig Unit 1 at $85 million to $150 million a year, depending on operating hours. Fuel accounts for about two\u2011thirds of that cost, according to an analysis by Grid Strategies based on federal data.<\/p>\n

A Tri\u2011State spokesperson said Wednesday the co\u2011op was reviewing the filings and did not yet have a comment.<\/p>\n

The Sierra Club noted the Trump administration has made similar orders for aging coal plants in Michigan, Indiana and Washington state.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the country, this administration is sacrificing our communities\u2019 health and economic well\u2011being to do the bidding of the coal industry. Coloradans should not have to pay that price,\u201d said Leslie Coleman, senior attorney with Earthjustice\u2019s Rocky Mountain office.<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

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

A coalition led by the Sierra Club challenges the Trump administration\u2019s order for Craig <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13730","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=13730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19130,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13730\/revisions\/19130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13730"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}