Gasoline may finally be hovering above $2 a gallon, but for many Coloradans, times are tough and money is tight. The holidays are a reminder of how steep groceries and basic goods are, just as winter reminds us how expensive it is to heat our homes.

In this environment, you’d like to think state officials would see this and avoid making things worse.

You’d be wrong.

On Monday, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission — which regulates utilities like Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy — announced a decision effectively jacking up home heating costs in the name of fighting climate change.

The latest “clean heat plan” rule forces gas utilities to slash greenhouse gas emissions 41% by 2035, compared to 2015 levels. That’s nearly double the legislature’s original target of 22% by 2030 — with only five extra years to get there.

Let’s be real: This isn’t remotely realistic. It will hammer everyday Coloradans, and regulators couldn’t care less.

It gets worse. While the commission insists it isn’t “codify(ing) future targets beyond 2035,” it also warns that clean heat plans “must account for” the state’s overall statutory goal of 100% emissions reduction by 2050. That’s a backdoor 100% mandate, wrapped in Orwellian doublespeak.

They can’t be serious, you think. But they are.

When state lawmakers passed SB21-264, the nation’s first-ever “Clean Heat Plans” required utilities to cut emissions by 4% this year and 22% by 2030. Last year, Gov. Jared Polis’s Energy Office suddenly urged the commission to raise the bar to 41% by 2035.

The proposal sparked swift backlash — from the conservative Independence Institute to liberal labor unions to the Utility Consumer Advocate — all warning that the jump was wildly expensive and technically infeasible. The Polis administration backed off, reducing its request to 31%. But the commission didn’t budge, siding with hardline environmental groups and sticking with the higher target.

Get ready for utility bills to surge.

As Independence Institute Policy Director Jake Fogleman wrote this week, the commission’s decision “all but guarantees” higher costs as ratepayers are forced to subsidize a statewide move from gas to electric heating and appliances. Utilities can make modest progress through efforts like methane capture and better pipeline leak detection, but that won’t come close to meeting the mandate.

Estimates from Xcel and Black Hills add up to $1.4 billion in increased costs just to meet the original 2030 target — let alone the steeper 2035 mandate. And they’ll pass every dollar onto ratepayers.

The shift to “all-electric” homes is likewise outrageously expensive. Xcel estimates retrofitting a single home could cost more than $20,000 before incentives. Even after rebates, the customers’ total tab could run “additional billions of dollars.”

That generates what Fogleman calls a “vicious cycle” whereby “well-off homeowners able to afford the upfront expense” of electrifying will drop out of the gas system first, leaving everyone else — especially lower-income families — to “cover the fixed costs of maintaining the existing gas system.” Their bills will climb even higher.

For most Coloradans, switching to electric heat won’t even save money. Once you factor in upfront costs, current gas customers are “almost certainly going to be worse off financially” by switching to electric.

Why must strapped ratepayers foot the bill for government edicts chasing mythical objectives — as though Colorado can unilaterally dent global greenhouse emissions?

As The Gazette editorialized last week, aggressive renewable targets “ignore the state’s longer-term needs” while costing Xcel extraordinary amounts — all slapped on consumers’ energy bills.

The Land of Oz sounds nice, but we can’t just wish away reality for the great wizard behind the curtain. Colorado must still meet its energy baseload. Pretending wind and solar alone can shoulder it just means higher rates and greater risk.

That’s where nuclear power comes in. Next-generation modular reactors — compact, factory-built and zero-emission — offer reliable clean energy without exploding monthly bills. By finally redefining nuclear as “green energy,” lawmakers made these projects eligible for clean-energy financing.

That’s a welcome step toward emissions cuts through innovation, not force.

Washington gets it. The Department of Energy just rebranded the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden as the National Laboratory of the Rockies to focus on all energy sources, not just renewables.

“We are no longer picking and choosing energy sources,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson stated, noting priorities include driving down costs while meeting “soaring energy demand.”

Right on target. Colorado needs its own all-of-the-above strategy to reduce emissions while keeping costs in check — unleashing nuclear power, maximizing natural gas as a transition fuel, modernizing clean coal and cutting red tape holding back wind and solar.

Our elected officials and regulators must follow suit, stop playing pretend — and embrace the realistic, affordable energy future staring them in the face.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.