Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has done it again — proving when regulators get together, they can create a fantasyland so detached from reality it makes Disneyland look like a documentary.

The PUC just adopted a new rule ordering power utilities to slash greenhouse emissions 41% by 2035, a big jump from the legislature’s original “let’s try not to panic anyone” target of 22% by 2030. And they tied the whole package to Colorado’s statewide goal of eliminating greenhouse gases by 2050.

Eliminating — as in zero. As in, “Natural gas and coal, thanks for your service, appreciate you heating our homes and powering two-thirds of our electricity. Now pack your things.”

Back in 2021, lawmakers required utilities to file “clean heat plans.” The idea was simple: reduce emissions a little, tinker around the system, maybe switch a few customers to electric heat pumps. In politician-speak, this is called incremental change. In real life, it’s called fine, whatever.

But this is no longer a clean heat plan, instead it’s a Dear John letter to your furnace. You see, “eliminating greenhouse gases” means eliminating all coal and natural gas, and therefore most all our electricity too.

Detached from reality

No plan survives first contact with reality — or with Gov. Polis’ Colorado Energy Office, which in July suggested the PUC (also appointed by Polis) raise the target to 41%. Utilities fought the idea. Consumer advocates fought it. Even the unions said, “Um, guys?”

The PUC responded, “Great feedback, everyone. We’re doing it anyway.”

Here’s the little inconvenience we call reality: You cannot cut emissions 41%, let alone 100%, without removing vast numbers of customers (like you) from the gas system.

You can patch leaks, tighten pipes, harvest bunny flatulence — it won’t matter. The only way to hit these numbers is to rip out stoves, water heaters, furnaces, clothes dryers, and shutter factories that use gas in production.

Love art? Colorado is home to one of the world’s finest foundries where artists like Loveland’s famed Lundeen family create bronze statues. Not after 2050.

Even if you shove heat pumps everywhere, there’ll be no way to power them. Colorado’s electric grid is already at a failure point with only one-third of our juice coming from renewables.

Just to get to the original 22% reduction Black Hills Energy estimates $397 million per year in compliance expenses. Xcel estimated it at $1 billion in five years. A typical home retrofit away from natural gas can run more than $20,000.

But don’t worry — the PUC assures us these changes will be “cost-effective.” Which is adorable.

Math doesn’t add up

Some of us dinosaurs foolishly believe math still exists (I know, crazy as thinking there are only two sexes).

In 2024, Colorado households paid about four times more for electricity than for natural gas when you compare actual energy output. Math.

According to the National Renewable Energy Lab (or whatever Trump is going to re-name it), only a tiny fraction of gas-heated homes in Colorado would save money by switching to heat pumps. The math doesn’t work. Not to mention heat pumps don’t work in really cold climates, so we’ll have to move our ski towns to the plains.

This insane directive cements a major shift from the PUC’s original mandate — to guarantee power reliability at least cost to us captive customers. Today, that mandate seems like a quaint relic from a simpler time — like a rotary phone or an affordable house.

We are watching an entire tyrannical regulatory system rely on magical thinking, where apparently physics no longer exists. Colorado’s environmental dictators have been watching too many “multi-verse” Marvel movies. “If we mandate it, reality will eventually fall in line!”

Utilities now must file beefed-up clean heat plans showing how they’ll meet the new rules. So, expect incentives to rip out functioning appliances, restrictions on new gas hookups, even higher rates and more hearings where the public screams into the void.

Meanwhile, lawmakers and regulators will keep insisting none of this is a “ban on natural gas.” No, no — they’re just making it so expensive and impractical you’d have to be insane to keep using it.

If Colorado’s leaders want to outlaw natural gas, they should have the political courage to say so.

If they want to quadruple your energy costs, they should at least buy you dinner first.

Colorado deserves transparent, realistic, adult conversations about energy — not regulatory cosplay.

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.