Ronald Reagan once said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Rural Colorado is learning that lesson the expensive way. One day before a 45-year-old coal plant was scheduled to close on December 31, 2024, the Trump administration’s Energy Department issued an emergency order forcing it to stay open. The plant isn’t even running—a mechanical valve failed on December 19. The coal mine that supplied it permanently closed in December. And the bill? Up to $150 million annually.
Tri-State Generation and Transmission CEO Duane Highley admitted in the cooperative’s official response that “our membership will bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs with those in the region. There is not a clear path for doing so.” Rural electric cooperative members—farmers, ranchers, residents of small Colorado towns—will pay.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act on December 31, ordering Craig Station Unit 1 to remain “available to operate” through March 30, 2026. The order can be renewed every 90 days indefinitely. Wright cited a forecast projecting 8.5% peak demand growth over the next decade and claimed wind and hydro variability threatens reliability.
Every relevant authority disputes the emergency claim. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation found no reliability risks in the Rocky Mountain region. Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission concluded “Craig Unit 1 is not required for reliability or resource adequacy purposes.” Highley himself told Big Pivots in October that Tri-State is “actually producing more than it needs.” The federal order demands Colorado ratepayers spend millions repairing a plant to address an emergency that doesn’t exist.
Craig Unit 1 came online in 1980. Grid Strategies analysis using Federal Energy Regulation Commission and Energy Information Administration data found its electricity prices ran higher than market prices 90% of the time due to high fuel costs and low efficiency. Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission Regulation No. 23 requires the plant to close. The Public Utilities Commission found replacement generation would cost less. Then the Colowyo Mine—the plant’s primary coal supplier—permanently closed in December 2025, laying off 133 workers effective January 6. The federal order acknowledges retaining Unit 1 “will likely require additional investments in operations, repairs, maintenance and, potentially, fuel supply” but provides no explanation for sourcing coal with the local mine closed.
Grid Strategies estimates annual costs between $85 million and $150 million, assuming historical output levels. Those estimates exclude repair costs to fix the December 19 breakdown. The Trump administration has deployed this playbook nationwide—Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant at $80 million for four months, similar orders in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Washington. If the pattern continues across targeted plants, ratepayer costs could reach $5.9 billion by 2028.
Tri-State operates as a not-for-profit cooperative serving 41 rural electric cooperatives across four states. In Colorado, it supplies 15 cooperatives serving rural communities. Costs go directly to member cooperatives, which pass them to ratepayers. Co-owners Xcel Energy and Platte River Power Authority will split some costs, but Tri-State’s structure means rural communities absorb the bulk. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved cost allocation pathways for Michigan and Pennsylvania plants, triggering fights over whether costs fall on utilities’ customers alone or spread across regional grids. Even if costs spread, Tri-State’s member cooperatives will still pay millions.
The irony is thick. The Trump administration is forcing rural electric cooperatives—communities that voted overwhelmingly Republican—to subsidize federal coal policy through higher electricity bills. Meanwhile, those same communities face economic devastation from the Colowyo Mine closure. Moffat County projects 437 job losses and a 43% property tax revenue decline.
The federal order compounds a crisis Colorado created through its own policy failures. The state’s 2019 laws mandate 80% greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2030 and require six remaining coal plants to close by 2031, regardless of cost or reliability impacts. Public Utilities Commission Chairperson Eric Blank projected electricity rates could rise 55% to 72% by 2029. Common Sense Institute analysis found Colorado residential consumers could pay $6,400 to $9,280 more per household through 2040. Electricity prices are “projected to grow at more than three times the rate of inflation and nearly 13 times the growth rate from 2010 to 2020.”
Wind project costs jumped 60% in two years. Solar costs rose 50%. Colorado Springs Utilities concluded it cannot meet 2030 targets affordably. For 2018 through 2022, approximately 75% of proposed renewable resources came online as scheduled. In 2023, that collapsed to 53%. Supply chain disruptions, transmission constraints, and escalating costs killed projects Colorado counted on for grid reliability.
Xcel warned state regulators in February about resource adequacy concerns: “We wrote to express our concerns about the continued skepticism around the level of resources we have identified as necessary to maintain the reliability of the current system and address the growing demand in Colorado.” Under current plans, Xcel will retire 1,650 megawatts of coal capacity and 784 megawatts of gas capacity over five years, creating a projected 850-megawatt shortfall by decade’s end. The utility noted it has relied on market purchases during recent summers but warned: “This is not an option we can continue to rely on as western power markets get tighter.”
Demand growth isn’t speculative. After two decades of flat consumption, U.S. electricity demand is rising sharply. Data centers supporting artificial intelligence and high-performance computing drive the surge. The International Energy Agency projects data centers will account for nearly half of U.S. electricity demand growth through 2030. Xcel estimates data centers could require 8.5 gigawatts by 2040 in Colorado—equivalent to adding another Denver metro area to the grid. Annual demand growth in Xcel’s territory jumped from 0.7% historically to a projected 4% compounded rate from 2023 through 2031.
The Comanche 3 situation illustrates the absurdity. Colorado’s newest coal plant, commissioned in 2010, has been offline over 138 days since August 2023 due to chronic mechanical failures. A Public Utilities Commissioner stated: “We are in a real reliability pickle because once again Unit 3 has broken in a catastrophic way.” The PUC investigation found Unit 3 produces the most expensive electricity on Xcel’s system despite being the youngest facility. Because Unit 3 keeps breaking, the state approved keeping older Unit 2—scheduled to close December 31, 2025—operational for another year.
Tricia Curtis, CEO of Petro Nerds and co-author of the Common Sense Institute analysis, argued renewable advocates systematically undercount costs: “The numbers usually cited by renewable energy supporters do not take into account the cost of the intermittent, unpredictable nature of wind and solar energy, or the cost of building new high-voltage transmission lines.” She pointed to JP Morgan analysis showing “adding wind and solar into a grid increases cost because it is an intermittent form of energy. It is not dispatchable base load power generation.” Colorado mandated an energy transition without ensuring replacement capacity could be built affordably or reliably.
Colorado created its crisis through aggressive mandates that ignored economic and engineering realities. The state required utilities to retire coal plants by dates certain regardless of whether replacement generation existed. When wind and solar projects came in 60% over budget or failed to materialize, the state offered no flexibility.
The federal response compounds the problem rather than solving it. The Trump administration’s emergency orders don’t make wind projects cheaper, don’t resolve transmission constraints killing renewable projects, and don’t provide stable long-term policy. Instead, federal orders force operation of plants that state law requires to close, that state regulators found unnecessary, and that utility operators don’t need. The orders mandate spending millions on repairs to restart broken units using coal sourced from distant mines at higher cost—all under 90-day renewable terms creating ongoing uncertainty rather than stable generation planning.
Section 202(c) authority was designed for genuine emergencies—hurricanes, heat waves, wars. Historically, emergency orders lasted hours or days. The Trump administration has weaponized this authority for industrial policy, blocking coal plant retirements nationwide regardless of local grid conditions. Environmental groups’ legal challenge argues this exceeds statutory authority.
What’s certain is that rural Colorado ratepayers will pay the price while legal battles proceed. They’ll pay for repairs to a plant that broke down. They’ll pay for fuel from distant sources to replace the closed local mine. They’ll pay for operating a unit that produces electricity at prices 90% higher than market alternatives. And they’ll do this to comply with a federal order addressing an “emergency” that the grid operator, regional reliability coordinator, state regulators, and the utility itself all say doesn’t exist.
The obvious solutions remain politically unacceptable. Natural gas generation could provide dispatchable baseload power at reasonable cost, but Colorado policies discourage it. Small modular nuclear reactors could provide firm, zero-carbon baseload power satisfying both reliability needs and emissions targets. State Senator Dennis Hisey has advocated for nuclear to “replace good paying jobs with good paying jobs” in coal-dependent communities. Colorado hasn’t seriously pursued it.
State mandates drive up costs and threaten reliability by forcing premature closure of baseload generation without adequate replacement. Federal intervention layers additional costs and uncertainty through orders that address symptoms rather than causes. Rural ratepayers pay for both—the state’s failed renewable transition and the federal government’s broken-plant subsidy program.
The Reagan quote that opened this article was a warning about the consequences when government—at any level, of any ideology—pursues policy divorced from reality. Colorado pursued renewable energy targets without ensuring resources could be built affordably or reliably. The federal government is pursuing coal preservation without addressing whether specific plants serve grid needs. Both governments claim to help. Both are sending Coloradans the bill.
A 45-year-old plant that doesn’t work. A coal mine that’s permanently closed. State law requiring closure. State regulators finding it unnecessary. A utility operator that doesn’t need the power. A federal emergency order claiming crisis. And $85 million to $150 million annually billed to rural Colorado families. Reagan was right. The most terrifying words are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
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