Tri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration ordering them to keep Craig’s Unit 1 coal-fired plant open past the New Year:
They don’t need it, they don’t want it, and their inflation-strapped consumers can’t afford the higher bills. Plus, the federal order is unconstitutional.
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 and a coalition of environmental groups opposing the order at a deadline for the government to consider extending the emergency past March 30.
“We do not take this request for a rehearing lightly, but as not-for-profit entities, we face issues that other utilities do not, because it is our members that ultimately are going to pay for the cost of this order,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said.
Earthjustice, part of the nonprofit coalition that wants to make sure Craig 1 stays closed as planned as a key part of Colorado’s transition to renewable energy, called the owners’ petition the first such objection after a host of Trump administration emergency orders to reopen coal plants around the country.
“Craig’s 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,” said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Clean Energy Program. “Craig Unit 1’s 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’ operations and plans, imposing financial costs and pollution on Coloradans and others, to serve the Trump’s administration policy of rescuing the dying coal industry.”
An analysis by Grid Strategies based on federal data estimates keeping Craig Unit 1 running would cost at least $85 million a year, two-thirds of which would come from fuel.
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’s six remaining coal plants overall contributing a significant portion of the state’s 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.
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’ 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.
Moreover, the owners note, they let important maintenance go knowing they didn’t 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.
The Craig owners also note the double-whammy they face with the unit’s coal energy: There’s only so much transmission capacity in northwestern Colorado, and if they have to force coal power out onto the lines, they won’t be able to use solar electricity generated by the newly added 145MW Axial Basin solar farm in Moffat County.
Treading carefully, apparently, with the Trump administration’s stated disdain for green energy, the petition doesn’t mention that the Axial Basis “generating facility” is solar.
The owners’ petition asks DOE to reconsider its emergency order on two legal fronts.
“First, the order, as drafted, effectuates a taking of petitioners’ property under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution without an adequate process to obtain constitutionally required compensation,” they argue. “Second, the order does not meet Section 202(c)’s requirement for a reasoned finding that compels operation of Craig Unit 1 as the ‘best’ solution to the identified emergency.”
The utilities have set themselves up for growing energy demand in coming years, and the order unnecessarily disrupts many of those plans, they said.
“We have planned for the retirement of this resource for over a decade and have proactively replaced the capacity and energy from new sources,” Jason Frisbie, general manager and CEO of Platte River, said in a statement accompanying the petition. “While Platte River will continue to comply with federal law, we disagree with the need to keep the plant open.”