To:    Duane Highley, CEO, Tri-State Generation and Transmissio

Cc:    Colorado Public Utilities Commission

Date: April 22, 2025 (Earth Day)

Re:    Tri-State 2023 ERP (PUC Docket No. 23A-0585E) – No New Fossil Gas!

As we celebrate another Earth Day, we are joining with other youth across Tri-State’s service area to call for a completely carbon-free 2023 Electric Resource Plan. That means eliminating any plans to build new polluting fossil gas generating plants, as proposed by Tri-State.

Earth Day was established in 1970 to inspire youth across the country to build on emerging public concerns about air and water pollution through events and direct action. Now, 55 years later, that goal is as important as ever with the planet and people worldwide facing numerous threats from the climate crisis. Right here in the West, we see the effects every day, from more frequent and intense wildfires and worsening drought to heat waves and decreasing snowpack.

The theme of this year’s Earth Day is OUR POWER, OUR PLANET, which is a perfect backdrop for our comments on Tri-State’s resource plan. Our future is in the hands of decision-makers who have not historically placed much value on the voices of youth, but we feel it is our duty to exercise OUR POWER to make sure you hear us.

We applaud Tri-State for progress over the past five years in moving to clean energy, capped by the historic $2.5 billion in grants and loans it is supposed to receive through the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s New ERA program. This funding will accelerate Tri-State’s transition to clean energy, allowing it to retire two coal plants that combined have historically emitted around 10 million tons of CO2 a year, the equivalent of climate-warming pollution from more than 2 million cars driving for a year. We are grateful for the steps Tri-State has already taken to protect our future.

However, given the increasingly severe and widespread impacts of the climate crisis, nobody can rest on laurels alone. If Tri-State is allowed to proceed in building a new fossil-gas power plant, it will be a huge step backward for the imperative of slashing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be a corruption of both the company’s and the state’s commitments to decarbonization.

There are 1.8 billion young people worldwide between the ages of 10 and 18 – the largest generation in the history of the planet! We will inherit the benefits of work done today to mitigate climate change – or we will suffer the perils of ignoring it.

We strive every day to take steps ourselves to reduce our carbon footprint. We know that even little changes, like cycling instead of driving, can have a big impact when many people participate. As a large member-owned cooperative, Tri-State’s actions can have an even bigger impact. Finalizing a 2023 ERP that includes no new fossil gas will help protect the air, land and water we care so deeply about in the West. It will also create new economic opportunities for rural areas that will allow people who grew up in communities served by Tri-State’s member cooperatives to remain close to home and flourish. We love where we come from, and the jobs, infrastructure and revenue generated by local renewable energy and storage projects will help our rural communities thrive, supporting services like healthcare and schools.

Building a new fossil gas plant will be an obstacle to that potential, locking up transmission capacity that could otherwise go to wind, solar, geothermal and energy storage projects. It also will saddle our generation with the burden of paying off debt – likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars – for facilities that probably will be obsolete within a decade. We would much rather see a 2023 ERP that fully capitalizes on Tri-State’s growing clean energy expertise and the New ERA award to create a GOAT electric grid – moving our communities away from fossil energy, lowering costs and supporting local climate resilience. 

As the youth who will have to live with such decisions for decades to come, we support approval and implementation only of a resource plan that has Tri-State delivering 100% clean energy to the member-owners of tomorrow – us. There is no other option.

Happy Earth Day,

The Youth of Tri-State’s Colorado service areas and member cooperatives, and from across the state