Colorado's Public Utilities Commission announced it would begin taking public comment at the opening of every commissioner's Wednesday gathering on Sept. 9, widening a slot that had previously appeared on only the second Wednesday of each month. Those sessions begin at 9 a.m. and will carry a virtual participation option. The second Wednesday of each month will also permit in-person attendance, running in a hybrid format.
Commission Chairman Eric Blank framed the change as an effort to increase dialogue with residents, saying in a statement, "by making it a weekly opportunity, we hope to hear and engage more with the public." He added that the PUC already maintains multiple ways to participate, among them phone, voicemail, email, online submission, and postal mail.
The new comment window comes with a significant constraint: speakers may not raise anything currently pending before the commission, listed on that day's agenda, or tied to an active proceeding. Input on pending cases must reference a proceeding number and reach the commission through its web portal, by email, through an English- or Spanish-language voicemail line, or by mail. Advance registration through the meetings calendar is encouraged — session links are posted each Friday beforehand — though it is not required. Requests for American Sign Language or Spanish interpretation must be submitted to the commission at least two weeks ahead of a session.
The expanded comment schedule lands close to a separate statutory deadline created by House Bill 26-1326, the PUC sunset reauthorization that Gov. Jared Polis signed on May 29, which requires any commission decision issued after Sept. 1 to include a written summary of public comments received during that proceeding.
An earlier draft of that legislation would have allowed commissioners to confer privately after a case record closed in quasi-judicial matters, but sponsors Rep. Jenny Willford and House Majority Leader Monica Duran pulled that language on April 23. Willford said utilities, press outlets, and environmental organizations all pushed to have the exemption removed, and that doing so preserves "the current requirement that all commissioner deliberations occur in public and on the record."
The private-deliberations carve-out had been recommended by a state policy and regulatory review office, whose October 2025 sunset report contended that open-meetings obligations hamper brainstorming and can slow the production of written decisions. Several organizations, including a press freedom coalition, a statewide press group, and a free-market think tank, opposed that exemption; an energy policy analyst from the Independence Institute told a House committee that a body setting monopoly utility rates requires transparency above all else, and that releasing a summary after the fact "is not the same as a public deliberation."
The most recent official finding that commissioners failed to properly disclose private communications dates to a 2012 State Auditor report examining conduct between 2008 and 2011; rules put in place afterward mandated disclosure and public posting of email and phone contacts, and no subsequent state audit has re-examined compliance. Weekly meetings are streamed live on the commission's YouTube channel and are overseen by Chairman Blank alongside commissioners Megan Gilman and Tom Plant.
Whether the commission's new obligation to summarize public comments satisfies the transparency advocates who successfully blocked the private-deliberations provision will become clearer as post-Sept. 1 decisions are published.