Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Wednesday petitioned the U.S. Department of Energy to rescind its “emergency” order keeping the coal-fired Craig Unit 1 open past Tri-State Generation and Transmission’s long-planned Dec. 31 closing date for the aging power plant.
A coalition of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club on Wednesday also formally challenged the Trump administration’s order for Craig, which is part of a multiagency effort to support the fossil fuel industry by extending the life of coal plants and coal mines, and expand coal leasing on public land. Thursday is the deadline for petitions for DOE to reconsider its Dec. 30 announcement.
“There is no evidence of an emergency that would require keeping Craig Unit 1 open,” Weiser said, in a statement accompanying the petition filing at DOE. “The Energy Department’s 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.”
With its December emergency order, the Department of Energy said the life of coal-fired 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-volume users.
The Colorado environmental coalition’s petition responds: “Whatever 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.”
A Department of Energy spokesperson said in an emailed statement late Wednesday, “Under 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 ‘elevated risk’ of blackouts under extreme conditions, which (the North American Electric Reliability Corp.) declared a ‘five alarm fire’ 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.”
Colorado laws and long-term plans for cuts to greenhouse gases require the closure of all of Colorado’s six remaining coal units by 2031, as part of a requirement to cut 80% of power generation emissions by 2030, from a 2005 benchmark.
The Trump administration and other grid circumstances are directly challenging 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. And Xcel Energy has successfully petitioned to keep burning coal at its Pueblo Comanche 2 unit past the closing date at the end of 2025 in order to replace power lost during ongoing repairs to the adjacent Comanche 3 unit.
Weiser has argued that multiple Trump administration orders and budget rescissions are unconstitutional encroachments on state power. The emergency order on Craig “is a federal intrusion into the state’s authority to design and manage energy policy within our borders,” Weiser said Wednesday.
Tri-State has been complying with the order, but first must finish repairs that shut down the unit Dec. 19, a spokesperson has said. The generating co-op, which supplies power to 42 electric co-ops that serve more than a million customers in four states, has said it has not received any information from DOE about who is supposed to pay to keep Craig Unit 1 open into 2026. Advocacy groups estimate the cost to run the Craig Unit at between $85 million and $150 million a year, depending on how many hours it is ordered to operate. Fuel accounts for about two-thirds of that cost, according to an analysis by Grid Strategies based on federal data.
A Tri-State spokesperson said Wednesday the co-op was reviewing the filings and did not yet have a comment.
The Trump administration has made similar orders for aging coal plants in Michigan, Indiana and Washington state, the Sierra Club noted.
“Across the country, this administration is sacrificing our communities’ health and economic well-being to do the bidding of the coal industry. Coloradans should not have to pay that price,” said Leslie Coleman, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain office.