Press Advisory: Colorado Organizations Ask Governor Polis to Veto Pro-Nuclear Bill, HB25-1040
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3/19/2025
Contacts:
Jamie Valdez, Roots to Resilience: 720-933-6363, jamie2719@gmail.com
Ean Tafoya, GreenLatinos: 720-621-8295, eantafoya@greenlatinos.org
Colorado Organizations Ask Governor Polis to Veto Pro-Nuclear Bill, HB25-1040
Seventy-six Colorado organizations, community leaders, and elected officials* sent a letter to Gov. Polis last night asking him to veto HB25-1040: Adding Nuclear Energy as a Clean Energy Resource, because the bill's inclusion of nuclear power under the legal definition of “clean energy,” would divert much-needed energy transition funds from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources toward a "risky, expensive, and unsustainable technology."
The group expressed concern that the nuclear lobby is pushing for Pueblo, Craig, and Hayden Colorado to transition local coal plant facilities to nuclear reactors by rebranding nuclear power as “clean” and “carbon free”, despite nuclear being the only energy source that generates dangerous waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years. They noted that radioactive waste has remained stored at the defunct Fort St. Vrain plant in Platteville since it shut down in 1989, and that the potential for nuclear meltdowns, like those that occurred at Chernobyl and Fukushima remains a real threat to human health and safety. More recently, a proposal to open a Federal nuclear waste storage facility in Northwest Colorado has sparked additional concerns about what Colorado might be signing up for if it labels nuclear as “clean.”
The letter points out that nuclear power is no climate solution because the carbon footprint of nuclear energy development is significantly larger than that of wind and solar energy production and because nuclear facilities consume large amounts of water, even as climate change threatens Colorado's supply.
The group also noted that marginalized communities bear a disproportionate burden of the environmental and health impacts of uranium mining for nuclear reactors. They cite the example of over 500 uranium mines on Navajo land having contaminated the land, air, and water, contributing to high rates of lung and bone cancer, kidney failure, birth defects, among other health impacts for decades since the mines have closed.
Despite nearly all of Colorado’s major grassroots environmental organizations, and dozens of community members, voicing their strong opposition to HB25-1040 in both the House and Senate bill hearings, the bill has now arrived on Governor Polis’ desk for a final signature. Signatories of this letter hope that Governor Polis will ultimately veto the bill, to reaffirm that nuclear power is not “clean.”
* Signatory Groups:
350 Colorado
Arvadans for Progressive Action
Brown and Black Parents United Foundation
Clean Energy Action
Colorado Coalition for a Livable Climate (Representing 53 Colorado organizations)
Colorado Renewable Energy Society
Conservation Colorado
Equinox Consultancy LLC
GreenFaith Boulder County
GreenLatinos
Mi Familia Vota
Naropa University and the Joanna Macy Center for Resilience and Regeneration
Our Sacred Earth
Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado
Pueblo’s Energy Future
Renée Millard Chacon, Commerce City Council Member
Renewable Energy Owners Coalition of America
Rocky Mountain NAACP CO-MT-WY State Conference
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
Roots to Resilience
Sierra Club Colorado
Snake River Alliance
Sunrise Movement COS
Womxn From The Mountain
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