The Sum & Substance’s Ed Sealover writes that Colorado’s 2026 legislative session was supposed to be a defining energy-policy showdown. Lawmakers were expected to debate moving the utility net-zero deadline up by 10 years, remaking the Public Utilities Commission, and taking another swing at the oil and gas sector. Instead, the biggest story was the dog that did not bark: the major energy fights mostly never happened.
That silence matters. Colorado has been making energy more expensive, more fragile, and more political for years, then the adults in the Capitol somehow avoided the hard conversation like it was a dental bill. Reliability, affordability, permitting, generation, transmission, mandates: these are not bumper stickers. They are the difference between keeping the lights on and congratulating ourselves in the dark.
The Bullet Point Brief
- The big 2040 net-zero mandate did not get introduced, the PUC was not radically remade, and The Sum & Substance reports that, for the first time in more than a decade, no existential threats to oil and gas received debate. Apparently someone in Denver briefly remembered voters still need heat, fuel, jobs, and functioning appliances.
- Reliability and affordability took center stage instead. Lawmakers held a hearing on Xcel Energy power shutoffs during dangerously windy days and backed away from a late-session bill that could have raised natural gas costs. Amazing what happens when ratepayers start noticing the invoice attached to the virtue signal.
- The Colorado Energy Crossroads summit appears to have mattered. Energy, utility, business, and labor groups warned that an unbridled rush to net-zero could mean lost trades jobs, skyrocketing utility bills, and a grid unprepared for a massive increase in electric devices and heat pumps. Translation: math entered the chat and the room got quiet.
- The Polis administration reportedly watered down its plans, dropping the 2040 net-zero mandate idea, shrinking a proposed 40-page bill to a five-page proposal, and eventually realizing no bill would pass this year. That is not exactly Profiles in Courage. It is more like “we counted votes and located gravity.”
- Some energy bills still moved, including House Bill 1226 on coal plants forced to stay open past 2034, Senate Bill 182 giving some municipal utilities more time to meet emissions goals, and a moderate PUC sunset bill. Meanwhile, nuclear workforce and small reactor bills died late. Colorado can call nuclear clean energy, but apparently saying the word “reactor” still makes the fainting couch busy.
My Bottom Line
The quiet session is not proof Colorado energy policy is fixed. It is proof the political class finally felt enough heat from families, workers, businesses, and ratepayers to stop sprinting toward the next slogan. That is progress, but let’s not throw a parade for someone briefly taking their hand off the stove.
For years, Colorado energy debates have been run like a graduate seminar sponsored by people who do not open utility bills. Mandates first. Tradeoffs later. Costs buried in the fine print. Reliability treated like a cranky old uncle at Thanksgiving. Then when bills spike, leaders look around like the laws of physics were filed by the oil lobby.
The real debate still needs to happen. What power are we building? What are we shutting down? Who pays? How fast? What happens on the cold, still night when the spreadsheet meets January? How much transmission is needed, who permits it, and how many years will activists spend suing the solution they demanded last week?
Voters and ratepayers are tired of paying for decisions made in slogans. Reliable power costs money. Unreliable power costs more. Colorado needs energy policy built for working families, farms, small businesses, and actual weather, not just press conferences where everyone claps because the word “transition” appeared six times.
Source: The Sum & Substance
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