Concerning the resiliency of the systems that provide electricity.
HB 26-1124 would create the Colorado Electric Grid Resiliency Task Force to study threats to the state’s electric grid and recommend ways to harden it against severe space weather, geomagnetically induced currents, and the late-time component of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. The task force would be an 18-member body including legislators, state officials, utility representatives, technical experts, and a federal power administration representative. It would meet monthly, receive staff support from the Department of Regulatory Agencies if requested, and sunset in 2031.
The task force would be required on a biennial basis to assess every covered transformer in Colorado, develop a prioritized statewide hardening and spare-transformer plan, estimate costs and benefits, recommend funding mechanisms, and propose rules, legislation, and cost-sharing arrangements. The bill also requires covered entities to file detailed transformer information and susceptibility findings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as critical infrastructure information, and it directs the Public Utilities Commission to summarize those filings for legislative committees. The PUC would also have to adopt rules requiring implementation of the highest-priority hardware-based mitigation measures identified by the task force unless equivalent protection is shown.
The bill would add a new article to Title 40 of the Colorado Revised Statutes governing electric grid resiliency, impose participation and reporting duties on transmission-owning entities and covered transformer owners, and authorize cost recovery for compliance through rates, member assessments, or ordinary budgeting. It would also require the Public Utilities Commission to adopt rules for entities under its jurisdiction and would create a new sunset-reviewed advisory task force that expires in 2031. In practical terms, the measure would affect investor-owned utilities, rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, wholesale generation and transmission providers, and federal power marketing administrations serving Colorado load.
The bill’s framing suggests a strong pro-resilience, infrastructure-protection sentiment, emphasizing grid vulnerability and the need for proactive, hardware-based safeguards. Its structure also reflects a bipartisan, statewide coordination approach by including multiple utility sectors, state agencies, and technical experts in the task force. However, the bill did not advance out of the House Energy & Environment Committee and was postponed indefinitely, indicating that support was not sufficient to move it forward in committee.
The main points of contention appear to be the bill’s cost, scope, and regulatory burden. It would require extensive engineering assessments, detailed reporting, and future PUC rules, while also allowing utilities to recover compliance costs through rates or assessments, which could raise concerns for ratepayers and utilities. The bill’s emphasis on mandatory hardware-based mitigation, its inclusion of entities not directly regulated by the PUC, and its reliance on technical assumptions about electromagnetic pulse and geomagnetic threats may also have been debated by utilities, policymakers, and other stakeholders, though no transcript is available to identify specific objections.