Amy Dominguez, amy.dominguez@sierraclub.org
PHOENIX – At its Resource Planning Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday, Arizona Public Service shared that it has signed a coal supply contract extension with the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. that would extend operation of APS’s coal-fired Four Corners Plant past its previous 2031 closure date to 2038 – going back on its retirement commitment for the plant, increasing air pollution, continuing water use, and likely driving up costs for ratepayers.
Continuing to operate the Four Corners Plant for another seven years means Arizonans will pay the price – reflected in higher utility bills even though the utility could save its customers millions by retiring the plant, worsening climate impacts, increased air pollution, and public health harms, including to those who live in the region of New Mexico where the plant is sited. The extension announcement comes after Sierra Club published a report demonstrating how APS’s continued reliance on fossil gas keeps Arizonans in a toxic, volatile commitment when it could instead prioritize ratepayers by investing in clean, renewable resources. The utility also received an F in the Sierra Club’s latest Dirty Truth Report that grades utilities based on how much coal they continue to use and how much gas they are planning, and it gives them points for how much renewable energy they are adding.
Independent studies have determined that 8 million people per year are killed by fossil-fuel pollution, and Navajo Nation Tribal members have been living with the plant’s harmful impacts for decades.
On October 14, APS will hold a public meeting on its 2026 Integrated Resource Plan that forecasts how the utility will meet energy demand over the next 15 years.
“Keeping a 60-year-old coal plant open just to prop up NTEC is delusional,” said Tó Nizhóní Ání Director Nicole Horseherder. “Executives at NTEC live in a different reality than those of us who live on the Navajo Nation. They have access to the best technical people and yet they choose to continue an industry directly contributing to climate change, polluting our air, and harming our health. We just got out of a summer with record numbers of heat waves and are currently experiencing flooding in many regions, yet they can’t seem to make those connections to coal or they just don’t care.”
“APS’s claims that it wants to make sure it can meet energy demand amid extreme weather events ignores its own contribution to those climate-amplified events,” said Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter Director Sandy Bahr. “As Arizonans already experience the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, we cannot lose sight of the role that fossil fuels play. That’s why APS’s so-called goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 rings hollow. The utility hasn’t shown it’s serious about meeting it when it has the most planned gas out of all of Arizona’s utilities, combined with its gas expansion projects, and now this coal contract to run Four Corners longer, shows the complete opposite. There is an urgent need for a just, equitable, and timely transition, and instead of meeting the moment, APS continues to show us that it would rather continue wasting our time and our dollars.”
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.