Put your trust in the people!
- New Energy Economy
- Mar 4
- 4 min read
On March 1st the Governor was quoted in the SF New Mexican complaining about inexperienced young legislators and lamenting "when you don't know how government works and you don't know how the legislative process works and nobody gave you enough training or support, and the only relationships you have are not with business but with advocates, it would be hard to know what kind of course correction you need and who to trust." There you have it folks - according to our Governor, legislators need to put their trust in the business lobby, and those who listen to the people need a course correction.
With that kind of leadership it's no wonder that Democratic legislators are voting to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on false climate solutions. Over the weekend House Energy defeated two good bills to increase regulation on oil and gas but gave a Do Pass to HB 457 and 458, a carbon capture and sequestration permit and funding scheme, despite strong opposition from environmental groups across the state who pointed out that carbon capture is not an effective climate solution, sequestration underground can result in dangerous explosions and contaminate aquifers, and the law being proposed in New Mexico is the only carbon sequestration law in the country that transfers liability for any public health or environmental contamination to the state immediately upon well completion!
A Stanford study, published on February 9th, compared two extremes — one where 149 countries switch to powering their heat and electricity entirely with renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower) by 2050 and another where the same countries maintain their current fossil fuel use but both add carbon capture equipment to industrial smokestacks and use direct air capture (DAC) to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It found that when energy costs, health impacts, and emissions are taken into account, the overall cost of investing in carbon capture and removal is about 9-12 times higher than the cost of switching to 100% renewable energy. - New study finds carbon capture ineffective and costly compared to investing in renewable energy, February 24th, 2025.
And yesterday on the House floor Democrats voted overwhelmingly to pass HB 20, a bill to provide $100 million per year in grants to private industry in target sectors, including "clean energy and water," a thinly disguised method for public funding of false climate solutions like hydrogen, carbon capture and produced water reuse that includes no definition of "clean" and no consideration of public health, the environment or climate change in grant criteria. This is what trusting in the business lobby results in.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?!
We are still fighting the good fight at the legislature on several fronts, along with those "inexperienced" legislators that choose to listen to the people and to science.
On Monday we sent out an alert about HB 311, the Reclaimed Water Act, that seeks to rebrand treated fracking waste as "reclaimed water," but it ended up getting rolled until tomorrow at 1:30PM in House Judiciary, Room 309, due to last minute amendments. What were those amendments? They increased representation of the community on "Reclaimed Water Authority" boards, but still fail to protect against the dangers of treated fracking waste being used for any locally approved non-potable purpose without Water Quality Control Commission oversight. Read our full analysis here. If you didn't get a chance to take action on Monday, you can click here to email the committee about the amendments before tomorrow's hearing.
The Carbon Capture and Storage bills still have a way to go, with a hearing next in House Commerce. Click here to take action.
The Local Solar Access Fund will be heard in Senate Conservation on Thursday at 9:00AM. Click here to take action.
SB 23, increased Oil and Gas Royalty Rates, made it through House Energy this morning and goes next to House Appropriations, and SB 21, the Pollution Discharge Elimination System Act to protect vulnerable New Mexico waterways also got a Do Pass in House Agriculture but faces one last perilous stop in House Energy before its final floor vote. SB 48, the Community Benefit Fund is awaiting a hearing in House Energy, HB 222, Chemical Disclosure and PFAS prohibition in Oil and Gas downhole operations awaits a hearing in House Judiciary, and a number of important bills continue to wait for a vote on the House Floor.
If you are a constituent of Speaker Javier Martinez we encourage you to write to him at javier.martinez@nmlegis.gov or call him at 505-986-4782 and ask him to prioritize a vote on these important bills: HB 258, Natural Gas Capture Requirements, HB 169, the Public Expression Protection Act, HB 140 Hazardous Waste Constituent Definitions and HB 212, to prohibit non-essential PFAS in consumer goods.
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