How Six Trump Executive Orders Just Obliterated the Legal Ground for PRPA’s Proposed $350M Gas Plant and Planned Coal Shutdown

Larimer County's April 21 vote to approve permits for new gas turbines could foolishly set stage for a high-stakes showdown with the federal government.

In what might seem at first glance like a routine matter of local energy planning, the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) has submitted an application under Larimer County’s 1041 regulations to construct new natural gas turbines at the Rawhide Energy Station north of Fort Collins. But far from an ordinary infrastructure upgrade, this proposal now stands at the center of a high-stakes legal, political, and policy battle with national implications. The Rawhide 1041 permit has become a proving ground for how local and state governments will respond to a radically shifting federal energy landscape—one that no longer prioritizes climate ideology, but instead centers affordability, reliability, and American energy dominance.

At the core of the controversy is the planned retirement of Rawhide Unit 1, a 280-megawatt coal-fired generator that has served Northern Colorado with high reliability and low costs for decades. PRPA's application hinges on shutting this plant down and replacing its capacity with a new natural gas facility—one that would not only be vulnerable to fuel supply interruptions and geopolitical volatility but would also come online at a time when electricity demand across the nation is exploding due to artificial intelligence data centers, re-shored manufacturing, and transportation electrification.

This local permitting decision has now collided with a seismic federal policy shift. On April 8, 2025, President Trump signed a suite of four sweeping new executive orders that collectively repudiate the decarbonization agenda of the past administration and reassert a national commitment to energy independence, grid resilience, and fossil fuel reliability. These directives—including Unleashing American Energy, Protecting American Energy from State Overreach, Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid, and Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry—form a legal and constitutional framework that fundamentally alters the rules of energy permitting and planning across the country.

What’s at stake in Larimer County is no longer just a gas plant. It is whether local bureaucracies can ignore presidential emergency declarations, bypass national energy security mandates, and approve infrastructure decisions that violate federal law. The battle over Rawhide now represents the leading edge of a broader national reckoning—one that pits pre-2025 climate planning against the imperatives of a new American energy doctrine.

This article will explore how PRPA’s permit application fails to comply with this emerging federal framework, why the Rawhide retirement plan threatens national security and economic stability, and how the April 8 Executive Orders offer not just policy guidance—but potential grounds for legal invalidation of the entire permit process.

I. A National Energy Emergency — and What It Legally Means

On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14156, formally declaring a National Energy Emergency under the National Emergencies Act. While headlines fixated on his return to the White House, this foundational policy move quietly reshaped the legal and regulatory framework for energy infrastructure across the United States. This was not merely a rhetorical gesture—it was a trigger of statutory powers that override normal permitting processes, reshape federal agency mandates, and compel rapid mobilization of energy infrastructure on both economic and national security grounds.

The legal implications of EO 14156 are vast and immediate. The order directs all federal agencies to invoke every lawful emergency authority at their disposal to fast-track the production, siting, transportation, and generation of domestic energy resources. This includes leveraging authorities under the Defense Production Act, as well as expediting infrastructure approvals through emergency permitting provisions under the Clean Water Act, Rivers and Harbors Act, and Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act. Furthermore, it activates emergency consultation rules under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—enabling agencies to bypass conventional consultation delays when energy reliability is at stake.

Of equal significance is Section 7 of the order, which mobilizes the Department of Defense to assess and remediate vulnerabilities in the nation’s energy and fuel supply chain. This includes a particular focus on grid stability and redundancy in regions like the West Coast and the Mountain West, where restrictive state policies have created dangerous capacity shortfalls. Within this context, the continued operation of secure, fuel-resilient generation facilities like Rawhide Unit 1 is not optional—it is strategically critical.

And that’s where Larimer County’s permitting process runs into legal and constitutional conflict. The 1041 permit application submitted by PRPA seeks authorization to construct new natural gas turbines, based on the planned decommissioning of Rawhide Unit 1. However, the very act of permitting infrastructure contingent on shutting down a nationally significant coal-fired generator is now fundamentally incompatible with the active national emergency declaration. EO 14156 prioritizes infrastructure that enhances energy security, not infrastructure that creates new vulnerabilities.

Larimer County is a subdivision of the State of Colorado—not an island unto itself. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2), federal emergency declarations, especially those implemented under statutory authorities like the National Emergencies Act and the Clean Water Act, preempt contradictory local or state actions. A local permit that facilitates the decommissioning of a critical energy asset, in direct contradiction to federal emergency priorities, is not just poor policy—it is potentially unlawful.

PRPA’s permit application was developed in 2023 and early 2024, based on assumptions rooted in a climate-centric federal framework that no longer exists. That framework has been formally repealed through EO 14156 and its companion directives. Any permit that proceeds forward now without fully accounting for the legal and procedural ramifications of the national energy emergency risks being vacated in court or challenged under the Federal Power Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, or the Supremacy Clause.

The federal government has spoken: We are in a state of energy emergency, and every relevant agency is under direct instruction to secure fuel-diverse, resilient, domestically controlled power generation. Rawhide Unit 1 fits that description. New gas turbines that rely on pipeline-delivered methane during a time of rising cyber and geopolitical risk do not.

The burden now falls on Larimer County to explain how it can approve a permit that—by design—undermines a federally declared emergency. And unless it can, the permit must be denied.

II: The Six Executive Orders That Changed Everything

On January 20 and April 8, 2025, President Trump signed a coordinated series of executive orders that collectively represent the most sweeping transformation of American energy policy in a generation. While each order carries distinct mandates, together they form a unified legal and policy architecture with one clear directive: restore American energy dominance, prioritize grid reliability, and dismantle the ideological regulatory framework that has weakened our infrastructure and national security. These six orders must be understood not in isolation, but as an integrated blueprint that redefines the national energy landscape—and renders the assumptions behind PRPA’s gas plant permit application obsolete.

1. Unleashing American Energy
This foundational EO reestablishes domestic energy production—across coal, gas, oil, nuclear, and critical minerals—as a national strategic priority. It revokes the entire edifice of Biden-era climate executive orders, including EO 14008 (Tackling the Climate Crisis), EO 14096 (Environmental Justice), and EO 14057 (Federal Sustainability). It ends the so-called “EV mandate,” terminates the American Climate Corps, and eliminates the use of the Social Cost of Carbon in regulatory analysis. Critically, it instructs all agencies to revise or rescind any action that imposes an undue burden on energy development, including rules based on environmental modeling that no longer reflect federal law. PRPA’s IRP and permitting assumptions were built on precisely those rescinded models.

2. Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy
This presidential proclamation extends a two-year exemption for designated coal-fired power plants from compliance with the EPA’s 2024 MATS rule. The proclamation states unequivocally that the technology to comply with the new rule does not exist in viable commercial form, and that premature coal retirements would “undermine national security.” If Rawhide Unit 1 is among the exempted facilities (as is likely, given its profile), then any local permit that accelerates its decommissioning not only ignores federal protection but may actively violate the President’s national security determination.

3. Protecting American Energy from State Overreach
This executive order is a direct challenge to states like California, Vermont, and New York that have attempted to impose extraterritorial climate policies on out-of-state energy producers. It orders the Attorney General to identify and halt enforcement of any state or local laws that interfere with federally protected energy development, especially those invoking greenhouse gas regulation or carbon pricing. By implication, it also casts serious doubt on Colorado’s statewide GHG-based permitting frameworks. If PRPA’s permit was evaluated through a lens of GHG reduction instead of reliability, the entire process may now be legally vulnerable under this order.

4. Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid
This EO elevates grid reliability to a national defense imperative. It orders the Department of Energy to identify “critical generation resources” in regions with reliability risks, and to prevent those resources from retiring or switching fuels if it would reduce accredited generating capacity. Coal plants with on-site fuel like Rawhide are likely to meet that definition—especially in a high-growth, high-demand region like Northern Colorado. Under this order, PRPA’s permit, which hinges on the shutdown of Rawhide Unit 1, becomes a direct threat to grid stability and may violate DOE’s emerging reliability designations under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act.

5. Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry
Perhaps the most philosophically direct order of the group, this EO makes it national policy to treat coal as an essential component of energy security, economic growth, and AI-era electricity demand. It reclassifies coal as a “critical mineral” under the National Energy Dominance Council, accelerates coal leasing on federal lands, and requires all agencies to rescind rules or guidance that discriminate against coal-fired generation. It also directs agencies to identify locations for coal-powered AI data centers and explore coal’s role in manufacturing and national defense. In this context, Rawhide is not a relic to be retired—it is a strategic asset to be optimized.

6. Declaring a National Energy Emergency
This is the legal foundation for all the rest. EO 14156 activates emergency permitting provisions under the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, mobilizes the Department of Defense to address energy infrastructure vulnerabilities, and invokes the Defense Production Act and federal eminent domain authority to expedite energy development. Any state or local permitting action that undermines the federal emergency response now risks preemption or legal invalidation. The 1041 permit application submitted by PRPA—predicated on retiring a federally critical asset and replacing it with methane-based combustion—directly contradicts the emergency mandates now in effect.

Together, these six orders form a new legal baseline. They mark the end of an era where “decarbonization” was the primary driver of energy policy and inaugurate a return to reliability-first, America-first planning. They do not merely reflect political preference—they redefine the rules under which federal and local agencies must now operate. PRPA’s permit application, written before these orders were signed, is a relic of a rescinded regime. It relies on assumptions, regulatory frameworks, and strategic priorities that have been overtaken by binding executive action. And unless PRPA formally withdraws and rewrites its proposal to comply with this new federal reality, Larimer County has both the duty and the legal necessity to reject the permit.

III: Legal Preemption and the Supremacy Clause

In the American constitutional system, there is no ambiguity about the hierarchy of laws. When state or local rules conflict with federal authority, the Constitution is clear: federal law prevails. Article VI, Clause 2—commonly known as the Supremacy Clause—establishes that the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land… anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” This principle is not theoretical. It has been tested, litigated, and reaffirmed in countless energy infrastructure cases where federal priorities clashed with state or local attempts to obstruct national policy. And today, that clause is more relevant than ever in the case of Platte River Power Authority’s 1041 permit application.

In a post–April 8, 2025 world, the federal government’s energy priorities are no longer speculative—they are codified in law through a coordinated battery of six executive orders including a national emergency declaration. These orders are not vague policy statements; they invoke statutory authority under the Federal Power Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Mineral Leasing Acts, and the Defense Production Act. They define energy reliability and domestic fuel security as urgent national defense imperatives. They direct agencies to preempt obstructive state-level frameworks. And they make clear that permitting regimes rooted in greenhouse gas reduction or fossil fuel “transition” no longer reflect federal law.

This creates a fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction. Colorado’s HB19-1261 and associated GHG-based planning mandates underpin many aspects of PRPA’s Integrated Resource Plan and its permit rationale. The portfolio modeling, emissions accounting, and fuel-switch justifications advanced by PRPA rely on regulatory assumptions that are no longer legally controlling. The Unleashing American Energy order explicitly revokes the Social Cost of Carbon and mandates regulatory realignment with cost-efficiency and fuel neutrality. The Protecting American Energy from State Overreach order goes further, ordering the Attorney General to intervene against state or local laws that unduly burden energy production or project GHG restrictions across state lines. In this new legal context, any permit derived from outdated or preempted state statutes is not just questionable—it is likely unlawful.

The threat of legal challenge is not hypothetical. Courts have consistently held that when state or local governments attempt to block or burden federally authorized energy infrastructure—particularly under the guise of environmental or land use policy—those efforts can and do fall to preemption. In National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. v. Schneiderman, the Second Circuit affirmed that federal law preempted a New York agency’s denial of a pipeline permit under the Natural Gas Act. In City of Tacoma v. FERC, the Ninth Circuit struck down local opposition to a federally licensed hydroelectric project. Even the Supreme Court, in Northwest Central Pipeline v. State Corp. Commission, upheld federal primacy over state interference in pipeline markets. The pattern is clear: when federal energy policy is active, cohesive, and codified, local discretion yields.

The April 8 orders are nothing if not cohesive. They do not leave gaps or ambiguity. They are explicit in revoking the old regime and replacing it with a federal priority matrix centered on grid reliability, fuel diversity, energy independence, and resilience to geopolitical and cyber threats. Coal, far from being a legacy liability, is reclassified as a strategic national asset. And Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act now looms large as the Department of Energy accelerates identification of critical grid resources—an action that could place Rawhide Unit 1 under federal protection from retirement.

By granting PRPA’s permit to build new gas-fired combustion turbines at Rawhide while decommissioning an existing coal plant that may soon be federally designated as critical, Larimer County would not just be acting imprudently—it may be violating federal law. If DOE or FERC intervenes after the fact, the county could be forced to revoke or unwind the permit, entangling all parties in costly litigation. Worse, the county might become the test case for the first major Supremacy Clause lawsuit of the new energy era.

A more prudent course is clear: pause, reassess, and require PRPA to resubmit under the post-April 8 framework. The legal terrain has shifted. The constitutional hierarchy is not optional. And no permit can stand that openly contradicts the supreme law of the land.

IV: Rawhide Unit 1 as Critical Infrastructure

In an era increasingly defined by supply chain fragility, cyber threats, and geopolitical instability, the Rawhide Energy Station—specifically Rawhide Unit 1—must be re-evaluated not as a “legacy liability,” but as a strategic national energy asset. Far from being obsolete, coal-fired facilities like Rawhide are among the last remaining pillars of America’s secure and fuel-independent grid infrastructure. With on-site fuel storage, autonomous operational capability, and blackstart readiness, Rawhide represents exactly the kind of hardened, redundant energy generation the federal government now deems essential under the 2025 executive orders and the emergency framework of the Federal Power Act (FPA).

Executive Order 14156, Declaring a National Energy Emergency, explicitly warns against the growing vulnerabilities in America’s grid—particularly in the West Coast and Interior West—where reliance on intermittent renewables, fragile gas pipeline networks, and global LNG markets has created unacceptable risk. It identifies the urgent need for energy infrastructure that can operate independent of just-in-time fuel logistics or weather-contingent capacity. Coal plants like Rawhide meet these needs precisely. Their ability to maintain weeks to months of on-site fuel supply is unmatched by natural gas peaker plants or solar and wind installations, which depend on either fragile pipelines or favorable weather. This logistical independence is not merely a convenience—it is a national security imperative.

Even more critically, Rawhide’s blackstart capabilities allow it to restart itself and the grid in the event of a total system collapse. As more baseload coal and nuclear plants are prematurely retired across the country, the North American grid loses its ability to recover from major disruptions—be they from cyberattacks, wildfires, earthquakes, or coordinated infrastructure sabotage. In the face of escalating cyber threats to gas pipelines (as demonstrated by the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack), the Department of Energy and Department of Defense have turned their attention to energy facilities that can operate in isolation, defend against cyber penetration, and serve as resilient regional anchors. EO Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid mandates the identification and retention of exactly these kinds of resources.

Moreover, Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act empowers the Secretary of Energy to order generation facilities to continue operating if they are deemed critical to grid reliability or national defense. The April 8 order Strengthening the Grid explicitly directs the DOE to develop and publish a national reserve margin methodology and use it to identify and retain critical generation assets. Once identified, these resources—particularly those over 50 MW in nameplate capacity—cannot be retired or converted without federal approval if doing so would lower accredited generation capacity in an at-risk region. Rawhide Unit 1, at 280 MW, is squarely within this scope.

PRPA’s plan to retire Rawhide by 2030 was developed before the issuance of these Executive Orders, under a decarbonization-first policy regime that no longer governs federal energy law. The “Optimal New Carbon” portfolio on which the permit application relies modeled fuel switching assumptions based on GHG targets and now-revoked federal subsidies—not on national security, cost realism, or grid resilience. In failing to even consider minimum-load or strategic reserve operation scenarios for Rawhide, PRPA has submitted an application that is not only incomplete, but now incompatible with federal policy.

To proceed with decommissioning without DOE review or FERC guidance under Section 202(c) could place PRPA, Larimer County, and participating municipalities in direct conflict with federal authority. Such action could trigger an emergency retention order from the Department of Energy, forcing an operational reversal and exposing the permit to legal nullification. The reputational and financial damage would be significant—not just to PRPA, but to the cities of Longmont, Fort Collins, Loveland, and Estes Park that rely on it.

Rawhide Unit 1 is not obsolete. It is irreplaceable. In the new legal and geopolitical reality, this facility represents a national reliability anchor that no responsible government should permit to be dismantled. The permit to build a gas plant predicated on Rawhide’s retirement must therefore be denied, or at minimum, suspended pending federal review. Anything less would be a reckless abdication of energy security, fiscal stewardship, and constitutional responsibility.

V: The Alternatives PRPA Ignored

In its rush to replace coal with natural gas, Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) bypassed a host of viable alternatives—technological, operational, and strategic—that now define the cutting edge of lawful, federally incentivized energy planning. This glaring oversight undercuts the foundational claim of PRPA’s permit application: that a new gas plant is the only path to grid reliability. In reality, PRPA’s application is a relic of a previous regulatory era—one that has since been overturned by a sweeping wave of Executive Orders and national security realignments.

Among the most egregiously neglected alternatives is the Optimal Cost-Efficient Decarbonization (OCED) model—an approach that calls for retaining existing coal plants like Rawhide Unit 1 at minimum operational load to serve as dispatchable backup while maximizing the integration of renewables and distributed energy resources (DERs). Rather than build costly new fossil infrastructure, OCED emphasizes strategic flexibility: keeping already-paid-for coal plants online in a low-utilization “insurance mode,” while pursuing aggressive DER deployment, grid modernization, and storage investment under new federal incentives.

This model aligns directly with the Biden-era Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and is now even more compatible with President Trump’s April 8 Executive Orders, which reprioritize affordability, domestic production, and resilience over abstract decarbonization goals. Under these orders, especially Unleashing American Energy and Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry, coal is no longer a phase-out candidate—it is an asset to be protected, optimized, and modernized. PRPA’s IRP and subsequent 1041 application never even analyzed OCED-style minimum-load coal operations. That’s not just a missed opportunity—it may constitute a violation of Colorado’s 1041 requirement to fully consider “least impactful” alternatives.

Equally troubling is PRPA’s failure to model robust Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) or grid-scale battery storage as potential contributors to its capacity needs. The DOE’s Loan Programs Office and Office of Grid Deployment have both recently expanded pathways for DER and storage funding. Yet PRPA’s IRP modeling capped battery penetration at a mere fraction of feasible deployment levels, and failed to account for virtual power plants, demand flexibility programs, or AI-optimized microgrids now being deployed in peer utilities nationwide. This omission reflects not a technological limitation, but a planning failure.

FERC and DOE are moving in a fundamentally different direction. FERC’s latest reliability guidance favors portfolios with diversity, dispatchable reserves, and resilience to system shocks—criteria that OCED with DERs and minimum-load coal meet more effectively than a gas plant dependent on single-supply-chain pipelines. DOE’s Liftoff Reports, as well as recent white papers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), encourage scenarios that maintain fuel diversity while minimizing capital-intensive overbuilds. In short, the federal trajectory is clear: build smarter, not just bigger.

PRPA had ample time and resources to explore these options—but chose not to. Instead, it advanced a permit application based on the flawed assumption that the retirement of Rawhide Unit 1 was both inevitable and uncontested. It ignored emerging industry trends, it ignored new federal directives, and most importantly, it ignored the evolving needs of the communities it serves.

The permit application must not be allowed to stand on this foundation of omission. Before any local authority lends its consent to dismantling the region’s only fuel-secure baseload plant, or building a $350+ million gas facility whose emissions profile and cost projections are already obsolete, it must first demand that PRPA do its homework. That means re-modeling with OCED. That means evaluating DERs and batteries in earnest. That means aligning with federal law—not outdated GHG scenarios. Anything less is not just shortsighted—it’s irresponsible.

VI: The Path Forward — and the Battle Ahead

The Platte River Power Authority’s 1041 permit application for new gas turbines at the Rawhide Energy Station is no longer just a routine matter of local infrastructure planning. In the wake of four landmark executive orders signed by President Trump on April 8—and the national energy emergency declared in January—the application has become a legal, strategic, and moral test case for whether local governments in the United States will align with federal energy security priorities or remain tethered to a regulatory regime that no longer exists.

The four owner communities of PRPA—Longmont, Fort Collins, Estes Park, and Loveland—must recognize the pivotal role they now play. Their elected officials have both the authority and the obligation to demand that PRPA update its resource planning process, re-evaluate the Rawhide Unit 1 coal plant under new federal law, and formally pause the decommissioning timeline. City Councils in these municipalities must act swiftly to place the future of Rawhide back on the agenda, request independent legal and engineering reviews, and publicly question whether continued pursuit of the new gas plant serves their constituents—or exposes them to years of legal, financial, and environmental blowback.

At the same time, Larimer County, which is tasked with evaluating the 1041 permit application, is now on dangerous legal ground. If the County approves the permit in defiance of binding federal policy—particularly the retention and reliability mandates of the Federal Power Act Section 202(c) and the preemption principles enshrined in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution—it risks having its decision invalidated in federal court. Such litigation would not only tie up the project for years but could also expose the County to liability for issuing a permit that violates federally declared emergency protocols. The Department of Energy and FERC now hold jurisdictional authority over key reliability determinations—and local permits cannot usurp that authority.

Moreover, environmental and ratepayer groups, energy security advocates, and grid reliability experts across the country are watching this case closely. The PRPA permit is one of the first high-profile clashes between legacy decarbonization policy and the new post-Emergency Order energy doctrine. It will set precedent. And it will shape how other regional utilities navigate the turbulent regulatory realignment currently underway in Washington.

This is a battle over who governs American energy—federal law and constitutional authority, or ideologically entrenched local bureaucracies servile to the flawed doctrine of climate alarmism.

It is time for local leaders in Northern Colorado to make a choice. Will they comply with the national emergency directives intended to protect America’s grid, keep energy prices stable, and prepare for AI-driven demand growth? Or will they push forward with an outdated and potentially illegal gas project that could bankrupt ratepayers, weaken national security, and collapse under litigation before a single turbine is installed?

The path forward is clear: Pause the permit. Reopen the IRP. Re-evaluate Rawhide. PRPA must be held accountable to the law as it stands in 2025—not as it stood in 2023 and 2024. Anything less is not just a failure of policy—it is a failure of governance.