Business and labor leaders came together Friday and called for state leaders to focus more on energy affordability and job creation as they consider ramping up regulations on the utility sector again in an effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The rare joint effort between the factions — factions that fought tooth-and-nail during the 2025 legislative session over labor’s attempt to make it easier for Colorado workers to unionize and take union negotiating fees directly from paychecks — was meant to call attention to the range of leaders concerned about this issue. In six panel discussions at the north Denver headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, speakers detailed rising costs linked to environmental restrictions, lost job opportunities and a declining business atmosphere in the state.

If Black Hills Energy were forced to implement Colorado’s newly approved Clean Heat Plan immediately, it would increase customers’ bills by $215 per month, said Maria Garduna, sustainability and climate senior manager for the utility. Meanwhile, the state’s focus on boosting renewable energy sources is limiting job opportunities and making it harder to attract jobs in fields like manufacturing, said Gary Arnold, business manager for the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

“We came together out of a simple idea — Colorado can meet the state’s climate and energy goals while balancing that with affordability. Our mission is to bring practical, real-world solutions to those goals,” said Ray Rivera, coalition director for the newly formed Colorado Energy Crossroads. “The challenges we’re facing aren’t theoretical. They’re here now. They’re real. This is happening.”

State has passed numerous laws to cut emissions

Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic legislators have worked since 2019 to reduce emissions through new mandates, pointing repeatedly to the northern Front Range’s noncompliance with federal ozone standards. Air pollution leads to increased respiratory and cardiovascular afflictions and has left leaders in some communities near industrial sites complaining they are subject to constant dirty air that triggers asthma attacks and forces residents to stay inside.

Since the Democratic governor took office six years ago, the state has enacted emissions-reduction rules on the oil-and-gas industry, manufacturing sites, large commercial buildings and even users of gas-powered lawn-and-garden equipment. Several representatives of environmental groups and Polis’ administration, as well as legislators who supported the new laws, attended Friday’s event but did not speak on any panels.

Over that time, however, it also has gotten prohibitively expensive to live and do business in Colorado and has led to the loss of numerous job-expansion opportunities that the state used to win, several business leaders on the panels said. Colorado Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Loren Furman noted Colorado has the third-highest housing costs, the fifth-highest cost of living and the 13^th-highest cost of doing business. according to sources like CNBC and U.S. News & World Report — in no small part due to it having the 6^th-most regulations nationally.

Union leader Gary Arnold speaks to business leader Loren Furman on a panel at Friday’s Colorado Energy Crossroads Summit.

Limiting sources of energy a shared problem for groups

The Clean Heat Plan, a proposal approved last week by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission that calls for a 41% reduction in home-heating emissions in 10 years and 100% electrification of homes by 2050, took significant criticism from panel participants. Garduna noted natural gas cost four times less in 2024 than a similar amount of electricity, and Sara Espinoza Blackhurst, president/CEO of the Action 22 group representing union-heavy southeast Colorado, said the decision shows a “disregard for labor.”

Melissa Shatler — assistant director of labor outreach and workforce equity for Climate Jobs, an organization trying to bridge the gap between unions and environmental activists — said such decisions show the need for labor representatives on deliberative panels. Dan Hendricks, apprenticeship training director for the Joint Electrical Apprenticeship and Training Committee, decried the state’s focus on getting people trained to install solar panels or build windmills and said it should adopt an “all-of-the-above” approach to preparing Coloradans to work in fields using both traditional and renewable energy.

“If you’re going to train a wind tech, shame on you. If you’re going to train a solar tech, shame on you. We need to train electricians,” said Hendricks, a longtime labor leader. “You need an agile, well-trained workforce that can work anywhere, not just one pigeonholed job that you believe you need right now.”

Further emissions-reduction mandates under consideration

Dan Hendricks, a union apprenticeship-training leaders, speaks on a panel at Friday’s Colorado Energy Crossroads Summit.

Friday’s event came two days after Polis released a report arguing that the state needs to streamline its workforce-development programs under one new state agency, in order to give students and employers easier access to a wide range of job-training programs.

And the event comes as some Democratic legislators have discussed running a bill in 2026 that would speed up by 10 years, to 2040, the deadline for utilities to get to net-zero carbon emissions. The status of the bill is uncertain, as it’s received significant pushback from utility, business and labor leaders — largely the same coalition that came together at IBEW HQ — because of its costs and potential impacts on jobs of gasline-maintenance workers and others.

A survey commissioned by the coalition and done by Searchlight Research and Impact Research, found that state residents generally backed the current goals but pulled back on support when asked about speeding up the deadline and potentially increasing utility costs. The same poll found that two-thirds of respondents support a mix of energy that involves natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal and nascent nuclear resources rather than a renewable-energy-only approach and that 54% of likely voters said they would be less likely to support a candidate wanting to speed up the 2050 deadline.

Coalition to keep raising voices on energy issues

“The primacy of economic concerns, the affordability concerns … was one of my most important takeaways,” Impact Research partner Jeff Liszt said.

Coalition members didn’t announce a next step following the Friday summit but said they are planning to continue to press the message that Colorado needs to consider affordability, as well as resiliency of its electric grid, as it considers climate actions. And they hope that by bringing together partners who don’t always see eye to eye, Polis and other leaders will consider the message as one that comes from a wide swath of people.

“What we heard today is that Coloradans have a deep focus and a bent to doing the right thing environmentally — but at the same time, a big focus on affordability,” said Dave Davia, president/CEO of business group Colorado Concern.