YOU DON’T SAY: Gov. Polis’ State of the State energy claims fail the smell test.

Governor Jared Polis addressed the Colorado legislature in his final State of the State address last week. Polis repeatedly invoked his efforts to build “low-cost clean energy,” but it’s the very same wind, solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles that will make higher energy prices for Coloradans his legacy.

Between January 2019, when Polis entered office, and October 2025, the latest data from the Energy Information Administration, the average residential electricity price in Colorado has risen from 11.91 to 16.26 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). That’s up 36.52 percent, compared with an increase of 30.78 percent in the wider Mountain region. Since 2004, when Colorado enacted its first renewable portfolio standard, all-sector electricity rates in Colorado have risen from an average of 6.95 to 12.80 cents per kWh in October 2025

That isn’t a coincidence. The legislature passed an aggressive bill in 2019 requiring the power sector to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2030 and, with a 2023 law, reach 100 percent renewables by 2050. Meeting those mandates will require retiring ten more major coal-fired units before 2031, or 4,200 megawatts (MW) of nameplate capacity, which planned wind and solar cannot reliably replace. It’s worth noting, too, that Colorado fell short of its first statutory requirement to reduce emissions overall by 26 percent by the end of 2025, though not for lack of trying.

The Independence Institute, in conjunction with Always On Energy Research, found that the Polis administration has underestimated the costs of getting Colorado to 100 percent zero-emissions by 2040. The true costs would add $114.3 billion compared to operating the current grid, and another $214.6 billion through 2050, while creating massive blackouts.

First, “low-cost clean energy” is two lies for the price of one. Second, I plan to be long gone from Colorado before the worst of Polis’s madness kicks in.