Golden Spread Electric Cooperative Inc. is a nonprofit electric generation and transmission cooperative headquartered in Amarillo, Texas. It provides power to 16 local electric co-ops, who together provide power to about 318,000 consumers in Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Oklahoma. Of the 79 counties served by Golden Spread, 58 are either entirely or partially designated as disadvantaged communities.

Golden Spread serves a region that has seen significant growth in wind and solar energy. Given the intermittent nature of these resources, Golden Spread relies on always-available natural gas power plants to keep the power on when wind or solar energy isn't available.

The Environmental Protection Agency's power plant rule will hurt the continued development of renewable resources in geographic areas served by Golden Spread and other co-ops. By strictly limiting how much of the time new gas power plants can run, the rule ignores their important role in ensuring grid reliability and efficiency, especially as the use of solar and wind increase.

Golden Spread's Mustang Station was the subject of a carbon capture and storage study conducted by the University of Texas and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy. The study concluded that CCS was not feasible at Mustang Station because of the limited availability of water and the high number of renewable resources that are dispatched by the Southwest Power Pool in the geographic area where Mustang Station's gas turbines are located.

The power plant rule's restrictions on gas power plants will negatively impact Golden Spread's ability to provide reliable and efficient power to its consumers. The rule could even force power plant operators to rely on less efficient and flexible alternatives that could limit the amount of renewable energy that can be added to the grid, resulting in an overall increase in emissions.