Coal Plant In Colorado Gets A Surprise Extension From The Feds

The Trump administration has ordered another coal-fired power plant to stay online, this time intervening just south of the Wyoming border at a northwest Colorado facility that supplies electricity to parts of the Mountain West, including Wyoming.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order directing the owners of the Craig Station power plant to keep one of its coal-fired units operating beyond its planned retirement this week. The 446-megawatt unit, known as Unit 1, had been scheduled to close at the end of 2025 after decades of operation.

The order will require Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association — a major power supplier for rural electric cooperatives in Wyoming — and the plant’s other owners to make repairs to a broken valve that shut the unit down Dec. 19. Tri-State said the costs of complying with the order will ultimately be borne by its member cooperatives unless the utility can find a way to spread the expense across the region.

“As a not-for-profit cooperative, our membership will bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in a statement.

Craig Station, located near the Wyoming-Colorado line, has long been part of the regional coal economy. Its fuel comes from the nearby Trapper Mine, which is also slated for closure. The plant’s two other generating units are scheduled to retire in 2028.

Wright said the emergency order is necessary to prevent electricity shortages in the northwestern United States, a region that includes Wyoming. “The Trump Administration is committed to lowering energy costs and keeping American families safe,” he said.

The move mirrors recent federal actions to keep coal plants operating in Indiana, Michigan and Washington state, even as utilities nationwide move toward other power sources such as natural gas and renewables. President Donald Trump has made reviving the coal industry a central part of his energy agenda and has taken steps to block renewable energy development, including wind power.

Tri-State officials said the utility had been planning since 2016 to shut down Unit 1 for economic reasons and to meet state and federal requirements.

Workers and residents in Craig, a city of about 9,000, said the federal order does little to change the long-term outlook for coal communities in the region.

“What does this administration get to do? What does the next administration get to do?” employee Wade Gerber told an Associated Press reporter. “Is it going to make coal a long-term thing? No, probably not.”

Colorado officials criticized the decision, saying it unfairly shifts costs onto electricity customers.

“It is unacceptable to burden ratepayers with these unnecessary costs,” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, said in a statement.

For Wyoming, the order underscores how federal energy policy decisions — even those affecting facilities across state lines — can have ripple effects for electric cooperatives, coal supply chains and ratepayers throughout the region.