Building in a Coal Town? You Might Need to Hire Former Miners First.

The Bottom Line

If your company is building infrastructure or energy projects in a Colorado community moving away from coal, you now have to give former coal workers the first shot at open jobs. The legislation also gives local governments in these towns much more freedom to invest the settlement money they received when the plants closed, allowing them to actually grow those funds for the community's future.

What This Bill Actually Does

For decades, Colorado's coal communities have powered the state. As those facilities wind down to meet statutory clean-energy goals, the state is trying to ensure the highly skilled workforce left behind isn't forgotten. This legislation tackles the transition in two distinct ways: creating a strict new hiring preference for displaced workers, and untying the hands of local governments trying to manage closure settlements.

First, the bill creates a hiring preference that officially kicks in on January 1, 2027. It targets any covered business operating in a coal transition community—defined as a municipality, county, or region where a coal facility or its supply chain was located. If a private company is in the business of constructing or operating railroads, utilities, energy generation facilities (like wind and solar farms), or advanced manufacturing, they must give a qualified coal transition worker the "first and preferred opportunity" for available jobs. State and local government employers are exempt from this rule.

This isn't an absolute mandate to hire unqualified people. A business can hire someone who isn't a former coal worker, but only if no qualified coal worker applies, or if every qualified coal worker who is offered the job turns it down. The law operates on a standard of good faith efforts, and it explicitly protects internal promotions—businesses don't have to follow the preference if they are simply moving an existing employee into a new role, nor do they have to violate the terms of an existing collective bargaining agreement with a union.

Second, the bill changes how local governments can handle the financial fallout of a plant closure. Currently, public entities are tightly restricted in how they invest public funds to prevent taxpayer money from being lost in the stock market; they are largely limited to standard bank depositories. This bill carves out a special exception for settlement funds paid to a community to offset the socioeconomic impacts of a closing coal mine or power plant. Local governments can now use investment firms and brokers to invest that specific money in a wider array of financial instruments—like equities—based on their own approved local investment policies.

What It Means for You

If you live in a community like Craig, Hayden, Pueblo, or anywhere else historically anchored by the coal industry, this bill is designed to directly protect your livelihood and your local economy as the energy landscape changes.

If you previously worked in a coal facility or anywhere in its manufacturing and transportation supply chain, this legislation puts you at the absolute front of the line for the region's next chapter. The state recognizes that you have years of experience in highly regulated, safety-sensitive, and technical environments. Starting January 1, 2027, you have a legal first-preference right to open jobs at major new utility, infrastructure, and manufacturing projects in your area. As long as you meet the minimum qualifications for the role—whether that's as an electrician, a construction manager, a solar technician, or an HVAC specialist—the law states you must be given preference over other applicants.

To make sure you don't miss out, you'll want to stay connected with local worker organizations and the state's Just Transition Office. Because the law requires incoming companies to actively consult with these groups and retiring plant operators to find talent, making sure you are visible in those networks is the best way to ensure you get the opportunities you're owed.

Even if you don't wear a hard hat, this legislation changes the financial trajectory of your hometown. When coal plants close, towns lose massive amounts of property tax revenue that funds your local schools, fire departments, and road maintenance. Settlements paid out by closing energy companies are meant to bridge that gap. By lifting the state's strict limits on how your local government can invest that settlement money, your town can now put those funds into higher-yielding investments. Instead of letting inflation eat away at cash sitting in a standard bank account, your local leaders can grow that money to help replace lost tax revenue, which ultimately takes the pressure off your own property tax bills.

What It Means for Your Business

If your company works in construction, railroads, utilities, energy generation, or advanced manufacturing, and you operate in a coal transition community, your hiring processes are about to face new statutory requirements. With the state projecting massive labor shortages across the construction and climate-tech sectors through 2030, this bill forcefully aligns the existing displaced workforce with your future labor needs.

By January 1, 2027, you are legally required to make good faith efforts to prioritize former coal workers for open roles. You will need to update your HR protocols to identify these applicants and give them the first right of refusal if they meet the minimum qualifications for the job. You cannot hire a non-coal worker unless no qualified coal transition worker applies, or if all the qualified coal workers you offer the job to decline it.

The compliance and reporting side of this is substantial. To prove you're following the rules, you are required by law to consult with the Just Transition Office, operators of retiring coal plants, and local worker organizations to actively identify and recruit these individuals. Furthermore, you must submit an annual report to the state detailing exactly how many coal workers you hired, the titles of those positions, the number of non-coal workers you hired, and a summary of your specific recruitment efforts.

While the mandate doesn't officially take effect until 2027, the time to adjust your operations is now—especially if you are currently bidding on long-term infrastructure, grid, or renewable energy projects in these regions. Take this time to review your applicant tracking systems to ensure you can easily tag and track coal transition workers. You should also start building relationships with the retiring coal facilities in the area and local labor groups. When you need to scale up your workforce quickly, having a direct pipeline to the talent you are legally required to consider first will keep you compliant and keep your projects on schedule.

Follow the Money

From a state budget perspective, this legislation is highly efficient. The official fiscal note shows $0 in new state appropriations and no change to state revenues. The only real state-level workload falls on the Just Transition Office within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), which is tasked with building the reporting framework to collect annual hiring data from affected businesses. The CDLE will handle this new administrative duty using their existing staff and resources.

The most significant financial impact happens at the local government level. Historically, state law heavily restricts how public entities can invest public funds to protect taxpayer dollars from market volatility. By intentionally exempting coal transition settlement funds from these strict rules, the state is giving local municipalities the freedom to act more like institutional investors. Local governments can now use third-party brokerage firms to invest these settlements into a broader, potentially higher-yielding portfolio. While the exact returns will depend entirely on the stock market and the risk tolerance built into each town's local investment policy, this flexibility gives these communities a fighting chance to significantly grow their settlement reserves and replace the massive tax base lost to plant closures.

Where This Bill Stands

SB26-052 is currently Signed Into Law. The latest official action came on 03/09/2026: Governor Signed.

That means the legislative process is complete and the bill is now law. The remaining questions are about implementation timing and how agencies, businesses, or local governments respond.