A plan to clean up Colorado's air is pitting two powerful industries — natural gas and coal — against each other in what could be a warm-up for a national fight over how to confront climate change.

The plan, moving quickly through the Legislature, would require Xcel Energy Inc., the state's largest utility, to either replace several aging coal-fired power plant units in the northern Front Range with cleaner natural gas plants by 2018 or refit those smokestacks with emissions-restricting technology or other green fuels before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency imposes tougher air quality rules.

The bill has bipartisan support and the backing of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. Environmentalists who long fought more drilling by Colorado's natural gas industry are working alongside their erstwhile foes.

"Kudos to Xcel, Gov. Ritter, Colorado's natural gas producers and environmental leaders for pioneering the road to a clean, robust and independent energy economy. All of America should follow its lead," Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, wrote in The Denver Post on Thursday.

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