Vote NO on HB26-1337: No Nuclear Power-Grab

I urge you to vote NO on HB26-1337, “Facilitating Nuclear Energy Development.” This bill is not a neutral study. It declares a state policy to encourage nuclear energy, sets a goal of identifying a nuclear project site by 2035 and beginning construction by 2040, turns the Colorado Energy Office into a permitting coordinator for nuclear developers, and lets an investor-owned utility recover up to $20 million from customers for nuclear siting, design, and development studies. Coloradans should not be forced to subsidize a nuclear buildout that shifts financial risk onto the public while protecting utilities and private developers. Nuclear projects are notorious for long timelines, massive cost overruns, unresolved waste problems, and permanent environmental burdens. Colorado needs affordable, deployable, truly clean energy now — not a decades-long gamble that ratepayers may be stuck funding. This bill is especially alarming in a water-scarce state. Colorado is already facing drought, low snowpack, stressed rivers, and long-term water uncertainty. Nuclear power requires major water planning and creates long-lived radioactive waste. It also depends on uranium mining, a fuel cycle with a documented history of poisoning Indigenous and frontline communities. HB26-1337 also risks turning “energy communities” into sacrifice zones. Communities that have already lived with fossil fuel pollution should not be targeted for nuclear waste, uranium-linked harms, or rushed siting decisions in the name of “transition.” A just transition must mean local control, worker protection, public health, clean water, and real community consent — not top-down pressure to host dangerous infrastructure. Colorado should prioritize efficiency, wind, solar, storage, transmission upgrades, geothermal, demand response, and other faster, safer, lower-cost solutions. Do not lock Colorado into nuclear subsidies for data centers, utilities, or speculative developers. Please vote NO on HB26-1337. Protect Colorado ratepayers, water, frontline communities, and our clean energy future.