The battle over just how just a proposed “just transition” for coal communities facing the loss of power plants and mines is being fought out before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
Colorado’s push to close all its coal-fired power plants by 2031 — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — is creating a major economic threat to communities that have relied on jobs and taxes from those plants and the mines that feed them.
The fight at the PUC focuses on four coal-fired plants — located in Pueblo, Routt, Moffat and Morgan counties — operated or owned in part by Xcel Energy’s subsidiary, Public Service Company of Colorado.
There are two other coal-fired plants that are not under PUC jurisdiction: the Rawhide Generating Station, operated by the Platte River Power Authority, and Colorado Springs Utilities’ Ray D. Nixon Power Plant.
Both are slated to close by 2030, although Colorado Springs is considering extending the Nixon unit’s life.
Shutting the Xcel Energy units will put a 10% to 50% hole in the tax base of these communities along with the loss of hundreds of jobs, according to PUC filings by the impacted counties and municipalities.
In November, the commission issued its decision on what Xcel Energy owed the coal communities, including $203 million dollars in payments to make up for lost property taxes. The communities, however, were left unhappy and dissatisfied.
Pueblo city and county, Routt County and the town of Hayden, and Moffat County and the city of Craig are pressing the commission to reconsider its decision. Each is hoping to improve the terms of its just transition package.