More than a century ago, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU) was created to give collective voice to farmers and ranchers and rural communities across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. These people were left behind by rapid changes brought on by the industrial revolution. RMFU became a champion of the farmer-based rural electric associations (REA) that brought electrification to farm and ranch operations and rural communities.

Fast forward to today, when some of the same dynamics have returned during the transformation of our electrical energy generation systems. RMFU again is striving to help ensure the farmers, ranchers, small businesses and families that make rural communities economically and socially viable are again able to participate in a changing generation and distribution system.

One of the most important venues where this transition is unfolding is before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which is overseeing proceedings to determine how rural Colorado will get its electricity in the coming years. On behalf of our 15,000 member families, RMFU is encouraging the PUC to approve a bold plan by Tri-State Generation and Transmission (Tri-State) to invest in and modernize the power sector for farmers, ranchers and rural communities.

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Tri-State is the wholesale electricity provider for 16 rural electric cooperative ventures in Colorado, stretching from the eastern plains to the western slope — plus another 25 in New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska — and the PUC is responsible for signing off on its plans for building new energy generation and transmission facilities and for replacing older, uneconomic resources with cleaner, more affordable alternatives.

Tri-State filed an ambitious draft plan with the PUC last December, and last month 16 organizations, government agencies and rural electric cooperatives signed off on a settlement agreement that makes the plan even stronger. This action will foster progress in moving rural communities into a brighter energy future and for the support it provides in closing a chapter of the energy past.

On the generation side, Tri-State’s plan is ambitious. It includes adding 1,250 megawatts of renewable energy and energy storage investments during the next seven years through a combination of new wind power, solar and battery storage projects. Tri-State will build some of these projects itself and contract with developers on others. Either way, the settlement agreement commits to spreading these projects across Tri-State’s service territory. This will be noticeably beneficial to the various rural communities where projects are situated by providing jobs, providing farmers and ranchers with lease and royalty payments, and providing revenue for local governments.

Some projects will depend on federal grants and loans that Tri-State was invited to apply for through the Inflation Reduction Act’s New ERA (Empower Rural America) program. RMFU encouraged Rural Utilities Service Administrator Andrew Berke in a letter sent last year to fully fund Tri-State’s “wish list” for clean energy transition. Because of the huge economic upside for farmers, ranchers and rural communities, we urge the PUC to be as aggressive as possible in requiring Tri-State to expand its clean energy footprint across Colorado regardless of the final federal investment.

One of the boldest parts of the settlement agreement addresses the past. As part of its resource plan, Tri-State has determined the most economic path forward is for it to accelerate the closure date for its coal plant in Craig to the end of 2027. However, early retirement comes with a downside. The closure of the Craig plant and nearby coal mine will result in hundreds of lost jobs and a significant decline in property tax revenue that funds everything from emergency services to schools.

To its credit, Tri-State has agreed to provide Craig and Moffat County with $70 million for economic redevelopment activities and lost property taxes to cushion the economic blow and RMFU strongly supports the transition funding provisions of the settlement.

The only real concern we have about the Tri-State resource plan is the potential to construct a new 290-megawatt methane gas generating unit in 2028. If this plan is approved and the generating unit is built, we would like to see a requirement to utilize captured methane to fuel the generation.

The PUC has an opportunity to move rural communities in Colorado alongside our more urban neighbors in the energy transition, and RMFU stands ready to help make that happen so the next generation is positioned to participate in contributing to, and benefiting from, embracing clean, viable, renewable energy.

Chad Franke is president of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU).