Colorado’s ‘Oil and Gas Wars’ Back with a Vengeance
On March 20, CPR News reported that Conservation Colorado filed four ballot measures targeting the oil and gas industry. The group calls them a direct response to Advance Colorado’s Initiative 177, which would enshrine in the state constitution a right for consumers to buy natural gas and for utilities to sell it. That framing doesn’t […]
Colorado Sun’s ‘Nonpartisan’ Case Against Natural Gas is Misleading
The Colorado Sun recently published an opinion article that diagnoses a real problem — rising energy costs — but misdiagnoses the cause. Policies forcing wind, solar, and batteries onto the grid and mandating electrification are raising costs for Colorado consumers, not natural gas. Set aside that the authors, Silvio Marcacci and Dan Esposito, work for […]
Energy & Environmental Policy Center’s Testimony on Bill to Exempt Residential Customers from Clean Heat Plan Emissions Standards
On Thursday, February 19, 2026, Independence Institute Energy Policy Analyst Sarah Montalbano testified in the Colorado House Energy & Environment Committee. The bill would have exempted residential natural gas customers from the emissions calculations in gas utility Clean Heat Plans filed with the Public Utilities Commission. It would have been welcome relief for natural gas […]
How Colorado’s Grid Fared During Winter Storm Fern
By Sarah Montalbano Winter Storm Fern brought more than snow and ice to Colorado last month. It brought data that state policymakers should find uncomfortable: thermal resources provided 85 percent of Xcel Energy’s electricity when residents needed it most. Energy Information Administration data shows that on January 24, 2026, Xcel Energy in Colorado generated 66 percent of its […]
Jake Fogleman Discusses the PUC’s Plan to Phase Out Natural Gas on Free State Colorado
Independence Institute Director of Policy Jake Fogleman appeared on the Free State Colorado podcast this week to talk about the Public Utilities Commission’s recent decision aimed at phasing out natural gas use in homes and commercial buildings. He discussed what the PUC’s new “clean heat” targets will mean in practice for gas utilities and ratepayers, […]
PUC Establishes New ‘Clean Heat’ Targets Designed to Crack Down on Natural Gas
The regulatory noose around Colorado’s natural gas utilities just got a whole lot tighter, and captive ratepayers stand to bear the brunt of the economic pain. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on Monday issued a formal decision updating the state’s emissions targets under its first-in-the-nation “clean heat plan” law. The decision established by rule […]
Jake Fogleman Talks Rising Energy Bills, the Role of State Energy Policy on Free State Colorado
Independence Institute Director of Policy Jake Fogleman appeared on Free State Colorado this week to talk about the forces currently driving increasing energy costs for Colorado households and businesses. He also discussed the role state lawmakers have played in imposing those costs in pursuit of a clean energy transition and what energy policy trends Colorado […]
Colorado’s Green Hydrogen Boondoggle
In 2024, the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) commissioned a report from Ascend Analytics, entitled Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in Colorado’s Electric Sector by 2040, to evaluate the potential to achieve near-zero and zero greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector by 2040. The study examined a business-as-usual—or Economic Deployment—scenario and six other scenarios that achieve […]
Independence Institute Tells the Public Utilities Commission to Reconsider Forced Electrification Rulemaking
In the 2021 legislative session, the Colorado General Assembly passed SB21-264, a first-in-the-nation law requiring the state’s gas distribution utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 4% by 2025 and by 22% by 2030, from a 2015 baseline, by filing “Clean Heat Plans” with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Since then, Colorado gas utilities like […]
Colorado Lawmakers Reignite the State’s ‘Oil and Gas Wars’
Upon signing legislation to usher in a new regulatory paradigm for the industry, Governor Jared Polis famously declared an end to Colorado’s oil and gas wars in 2019. The state’s saber-rattling legislature has other ideas in mind for 2024. Emboldened by historic majorities in the legislature, Colorado Democrats have introduced Senate Bill 159, a measure to […]
Pricey Electrification Gets a Boost from Local Media
Many Democratic lawmakers, climate activists, and progressive academics see so-called beneficial electrification as the wave of the future for climate action. As such, there has been a growing chorus among this community in recent years calling for the end of natural gas heating systems and appliances and propping up their electric alternatives as superior options. Occasionally, […]
Colorado PUC Trims Xcel’s Unprecedented Renewables Plan
Ratepayer interests received a small win from Colorado regulators overseeing Xcel Energy’s latest resource plan. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) pared back Xcel’s $15 billion request to build wind, solar, batteries, and new transmission lines by around $3 billion last week. The PUC’s trimming of Xcel’s request came as it approved an alternative resource […]
