Free Republic

DENVER — Xcel Energy customers are sweating the possibility of another rate hike. They're making their opposition known to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as the agency considers a $45 million electric rate increase. “They make more than enough money. They don’t need to gouge their customers any further,” said Loren Meaux, an Xcel customer, in a public comment hearing Tuesday. Xcel originally filed for a $312 million increase to pay for investments in transmission projects and its commitment to meet Colorado greenhouse gas emissions goals. After negotiations with state regulators and consumer advocates, the company dropped the increase to...

PUC Public Comment Hearing Info re: Xcel Energy JTS.. ... The PUC invites community members to provide comments regarding Xcel Energy’s Just Transition Plan (JTS), Proceeding 24A-0442E. The JTS is Xcel Energy’s next Electric Resource Plan to address the acquisition of new utility resources to meet future electricity needs on its system. The primary objectives of the JTS include fulfilling resource adequacy and providing reliable service; continuing progress on emissions reductions; and, delivering a just transition in communities where generation assets are retiring. Xcel Energy’s Unit 3 coal-fired facility in Pueblo will retire no later than Jan. 1, 2031, and...

Wolves in California are costing ranchers millions of dollars far beyond just the price of cattle killed, .. A Wyoming rancher says the secondary costs of predation are well-known here. ... As California’s wolf population expands, the predators there are costing ranchers millions — not just in value of the cattle killed, but through collateral effects as well ... one wolf can cause $69,000 to $162,000 in “direct and indirect losses from lower pregnancy rates in cows and decreased weight gain in calves,” .. Those results should come as no surprise to Wyoming ranchers, Jim Magagna, executive vice president of...

A British farmer has warned that Britons could be facing "rationing" of bread products as the agricultural industry has slapped the Labour Government with a wheat strike, amid their ongoing inheritance tax raid. In a fresh round of protests against Chancellor Rachel Reeves, farmers have been urged to accelerate a bread shortage and "empty supermarket shelves" by refusing to release the wheat they produce. The goal of the protest, according to one of the organisers, is to trigger a situation akin to "panic-buying" across the country, similar to what was experienced with petrol and toilet rolls in the past during...

Gavin Newsom & his allies just forced 12 historic family farms & dairies out of Point Reyes National Seashore in California. They claim it’s about saving the environment — but the truth couldn't be more different. Here is the true story — and it's heartbreaking. 2/ For over 100 years, ranchers and dairy farmers have worked the land at Point Reyes. They built Marin’s organic food movement & supplied fresh milk to Californians. Now they’re being forced out — by environmental groups, the federal government, and Newsom’s political allies. ... 3/ When Congress created Point Reyes National Seashore in 1962,...

The Lake County (Oregon) Board of Commissioners has declared a public safety and livestock emergency in the wake of livestock depredations by wolf OR158. It is, according to Commissioner Barry Shullanberger, one of the first times such a declaration has been made. According to the declaration, OR158 is responsible for five confirmed calf kills and three probable kills in Lake County in less than 10 days. Efforts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal Plant Health Inspection Service to haze the wolf with a drone, which was ineffective. The declaration requests immediate assistance from Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek for intervention...

Wolf depredations on livestock in Idaho reached a record level during the past fiscal year, which ended June 30. From July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019, Idaho Wildlife Services conducted 264 depredation investigations related to wolf complaints from 136 livestock producers in 17 counties. Of those 264 investigations, 175 involved confirmed wolf depredations, said Todd Grimm, the Idaho state director of Wildlife Services, which is a federal agency that helps solve conflicts between humans and animals. “Last year we had a pretty busy year,” he said during the Idaho Wolf Depredation Control Board’s Aug. 21 meeting. “The cattle guys...

Looks like the bird flu missed Mexico and is only impacting us here in America. What are the odds! American living in Mexico heads to the grocery store to show you their eggs. Completely packed full of eggs and a dozen eggs is only $2 in US Dollars “Eggs on eggs on eggs on eggs” This is why they need social media censorship. Their narratives and SCAMdemics completely fall apart ... While defending Amish farmer Amos Miller, @barnes_law discovered PA Dept of Ag head had ties to... Guess who? Bill Gates. What is Gates occupation? World population reduction. Every project...

There is a private property rights battle brewing in rural parts of southeastern Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma and portions of the Dakotas, Nebraska and five Tribal Nations. The U.S. Department of Energy has plans to establish the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors or NIETCs, in these areas and the corridors span five to 15 miles in width. If approved, in New Mexico about 2 million acres of mostly private property would be transferred to the control of the federal government potentially via eminent domain. In Colorado, farmers, ranchers and rural residents stand to lose control of 325,000 acres in...

New York officials are taking precautions against the avian flu after seven cases were detected at live bird markets in New York City. The markets were ordered on Friday to shut down for about one week to combat the illness, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday. “The order came after seven cases of bird flu were found in poultry during routine inspections of live bird markets in the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens,” the outlet said, noting that officials said there have been no cases of the avian flu among New Yorkers. In an...

The recent Telegraph headline rang out of England recently with unsettling tones: Tenth of farmland to be axed for net zero More than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050, the Environment Secretary will reveal on Friday. Swathes of the countryside are on course to be switched to solar farms, tree planting and improving habitats for birds, insects and fish. The move comes on the back of an aggressive and highly unpopular inheritance tax placed on generational farmers by British politician Rachel Reeves that...

With eggs in short supply, some retailers around the country are putting limits on the number of cartons customers can buy at one time. The discount grocery store Lidl told a New York news outlet that certain brands of eggs sold at its stores are limited to two dozen per customer. "Specialty egg brands, including cage-free, free-range and organic, do not have limitations at this time at Lidl US," Lidl told News 12. Some customers in parts of Massachusetts were also subject to a two-carton limit, as Reddit users shared on a message board in late January. The egg shortages...

An idyllic stillness swallowed Home Ranch on Friday, as there was little to disturb the oldest dairy ranch on the Point Reyes National Seashore. California quail fluttered their wings and scattered in the brush beside a dirt road leading into the historic complex containing several barns, a silver silo and a farmhouse with green window trims that predates San Francisco’s cable cars.

Here we go...again.. Here we go again. The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has imposed a sweeping ban on poultry and dairy cattle exhibitions, this time citing fears of H5N1 avian influenza. If this feels like déjà vu, that’s because we’ve seen this playbook before. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government shut down businesses it arbitrarily deemed “nonessential,” crippling livelihoods and communities under the guise of public safety. Now, they are targeting farmers, youth organizations, and small-scale agricultural exhibitors. ... This isn’t just about bird flu—it’s about a growing pattern of overreach where freedom is sacrificed for an...

Investigators believe the 180 cattle, collectively, may have been stolen from several ranchers.. Investigators are working to determine if nearly 200 cattle that were reported missing southwest of Montrose were stolen. The Montrose County Sheriff's Office said roughly 180 cattle, collectively, are not accounted for by a number of ranchers. The cattle are missing from the Uncompahgre Plateau, where they graze during the summer months. “You can always lose some to predators, to accidents, to poisonous weeds, things like that. But the 180 is just far more than normal," said Montrose County Sheriff Chuck Searcy. “It's hard to believe that...

Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee met with the Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday to discuss potential reductions of the state’s wolf program.. As Colorado looks for ways to cut nearly $1 billion from its budget, some legislators are pondering whether pausing wolf reintroduction efforts could save the state $2.1 million per year. It was one of many options the Joint Budget Committee weighed during a budget hearing with the state’s Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday, Dec. 11. Funding for wolves After Colorado voters passed Proposition 114 in 2020 to reintroduce wolves in Colorado, the state’s wildlife agency has received...

Gov. Jared Polis is facing backlash for comments he made during the winter conference of Colorado counties, when he blamed ranchers for the cost of the wolf reintroduction program this year. The topic of wolves at the Colorado Counties, Inc. conference arose in response to Polis' comments about an ever-tightening state budget. The association represents 63 of the state's 64 counties. State economists have estimated that the 2025-26 state budget will be short about $1 billion due to lowering inflation and the end of billions in one-time federal money tied to the pandemic. "I've tried to bite my tongue and...

Owners of a solar farm torn to pieces were among those counting the cost of killer Storm Darragh - as recovery work was ongoing on Monday. Hundreds of panels at the giant 190-acre Porth Wen solar farm in Anglesey, North Wales - only built two years ago - were blown off their mountings, some ripped to shreds. The site at Llanbadrig, in the north of the island which is owned by French power firm EDF Energy and powers up to 9,500 households, now needs significant repairs. Elsewhere on the island of Anglesey, blades were sheared off a wind turbine which...

The leading bid for the first-of-its-kind facility in Gypsum that converted forest slash into electricity is from an Illinois real estate company.. The Eagle Valley Clean Energy biomass plant in Gypsum closed last month after its owners filed for bankruptcy protection. There are 7,000 tons of shredded forest slash at the facility. The leading bid for the biomass operation is a real estate company. The pioneering biomass plant in Gypsum — the first in the state to begin converting shredded beetle-kill trees into electricity — has shut down and its owner has filed for bankruptcy protection citing more than $40...

According to the lawsuit, the three asset managers acquired substantial stockholdings in coal companies, and then used their influence to pressure the companies to adopt ESG goals and reduce output. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 10 other state attorney generals, have filed a lawsuit against BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group, three of the largest institutional investors in the world. The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the firms conspired to artificially constrict the market for coal through anti-trade practices. “Texas will not tolerate the illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda....