Environmental Project

New Mexico is experiencing climate change in the form of drought

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Hydrologist Katrina Bennett describes extreme weather events like droughts and floods as the way that human societies experience climate change. These events are immediately noticeable and can have rippling impacts, including economic repercussions. These events will become more frequent and intense amid climate change, according to a paper Bennett published in the journal Water on April 1. Bennett’s co-authors include Carl Talsma and Riccardo Boero, who also work at Los Alamos National Laboratories. The study highlights the need to look at the extreme events together.

2021 Legislative Session

Community solar bill heads to the House

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A bill that would allow communities to subscribe to local solar facilities passed the Senate floor Thursday. 

SB 84, sponsored by Democratic Senators Liz Stefanics of Cerrillos and Linda Lopez of Albuquerque, would direct the Public Regulation Commission to evaluate existing community solar programs and develop and adopt rules for a program in New Mexico by April 2022. Each project would be limited to producing 5 megawatts of electricity each year, and facilities would be limited to generating 100 megawatts per year, which Lopez said is about 1 percent of the total annual electricity generation in the state. 

Each project would require an anchor tenant that would subscribe to no more than 40 percent of the project’s electricity capacity, and each project would need at least 10 subscribers before construction can begin. Lopez said the bill targets low income participation. 

“Community solar is favorable to low income participants, because it typically offers them savings, no upfront costs, and no penalty to cancel the subscription to a community solar facility,” Lopez said. “Thirty percent of the annual program capacity is reserved for low income customers and low income service organizations, and the PRC will issue guidelines to ensure the low income carve out is achieved each year.” 

Lopez also highlighted the economic benefits of community solar. She pointed to a UNM Bureau of Business and Economic Research study that estimated community solar could deliver some $517 million in economic benefits and would generate $2.9 million in tax revenue for the state.

2021 Legislative Session

Community solar bill heads to Senate floor

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A bill that would enable communities to subscribe to solar electricity without needing to install solar panels on their homes passed the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee Thursday. The bill would direct the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to develop and adopt rules to implement a community solar program in the state. 

Community solar refers to “large, local solar arrays” that are “shared by individual community members who receive credits on their electricity bills for their portion of the power produced,” said Democratic Senator Liz Stefanics of Cerrillos, who is one of 10 sponsors of SB 84. 

“Community solar makes solar power available to people who can’t access it for reasons such as renting, finances, apartment ownership, home type, etc,” Stefanics said. She added that the bill would likely lead to job creation and other economic benefits. 

“There’s a great deal of job creation in the solar industry. There are lease payments to landowners, as well as to other sectors, and many economic benefits to the state and counties,” Stefanics said. 

Both PNM and El Paso Electric spoke against the bill, as did Xcel Energy and the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce. The bill was supported by the All Pueblo Council of Governors, Kit Carson Electric Coop in Taos, the Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico, Earthcare, YUCCA and the NAVA Education Project, among other groups. 

The committee spent about four hours debating the technical aspects of the bill.  Much of the debate focused on impacts to non-participating ratepayers and low-income ratepayers in communities that might adopt community solar, as well as tribal communities.

2021 Legislative Session

Bills addressing water management and utility securitization pass committees

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A bill that would require the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (OSE) to consider climate change implications when making water rights decisions narrowly passed the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee Thursday. 

HB 95, sponsored by Santa Fe Democratic Rep. Andrea Romero, would require the State Engineer to conduct analyses on climate change-related impacts to the state’s water resources when approving or denying permits. The bill mandates the OSE to develop climate change impact rules based on the best available science to inform permit approvals. 

Dr. David Gutzler, a climate science expert and professor at UNM, speaking on behalf of the bill, pointed to a water resources study being conducted by the Interstate Stream Commission. Gutzler said he believed the study “could be leveraged as input to the development of a robust and science-based climate change assessment that could be used operationally by the State Engineer’s office.”

The original bill was replaced with a substitute bill on Thursday that Romero said incorporates feedback from the committee at an earlier hearing and that now better achieves the goals of the legislation of “ensuring that the Office of the State Engineer takes climate science into account as a rationale for why a permit is approved or denied.” 

The bill would also require the OSE to publish its rationale for approving or denying water rights permits “so that the public knows and understands how these decisions are being made.”

But State Engineer John D’Antonio told committee members that his office has concerns about the bill. He called the rulemaking provision of the bill an unfunded mandate that he said would conflict provisions in HB 9, a separate piece of legislation that’s currently under consideration in the House State Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. 

D’Antonio also argued that the state is addressing water scarcity through Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 50-year state water plan. 

“Climate change will affect New Mexico and our stream systems on a broad scale. The best way to address it is on a statewide or stream system basis,” D’Antonio said.

2021 Legislative Session

Produced water bill dies in committee

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A bill that would have made it illegal for oil and gas operators to spill produced water died in the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday. Produced water is the toxic flowback water generated in oil extraction. 

SB 86, sponsored by Democratic Senators Antoinette Sedillo Lopez of Albuquerque and Liz Stefanics of Cerrillos, sought to address many of the issues the state is now facing in managing scarce freshwater supplies and increasing volumes of produced water. “This bill does two things,” Sedillo Lopez told legislators. “First, it compels industry to reduce the volume of and reuse its waste by prohibiting freshwater use in fracking when produced water can be used instead. And second, it fulfills the original intent of the Produced Water Act of 2019 by mandating safeguards to protect public health, the environment and freshwater from this waste stream.”

Norm Gaume, a water expert and former director of the Interstate Stream Commission, and who currently sits on the Produced Water Research Consortium’s technical steering committee, spoke in support of the bill.

2021 Legislative Session

Fracking pause bill advances, ETA amendments bill fails

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A bill that would pause new fracking permits in the state passed the Senate Conservation Committee on Saturday, while an attempt to amend the Energy Transition Act died in the committee. 

Albuquerque Democrats Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero co-sponsored SB 149. The bill would enact a four-year pause on fracking permits while the state conducted studies to determine the impacts of fracking on agriculture, environment and water resources and public health. 

The bill directs state agencies and departments, including the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, the New Mexico Environment Department, the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture to study and report annually to the governor and the relevant legislative committees on the impacts of fracking on the respective sectors. “Nothing [would] affect existing operating wells,” Sedillo Lopez said. “It’s to pause those [new permits] for four years to give us two long sessions and two short sessions to hear from our regulating agencies about what is the impact of this technology on our air, land and water, and also to make recommendations for what should happen.”

Biologist and author Dr. Sandra Steingraber, who spoke in support of the bill as an expert witness, highlighted the public health impacts that have been linked to living near fracking wells in a growing body of peer-reviewed research. 

“Smog and toxic air pollution follows fracking wherever it goes and there again is no real good way to mitigate this, because the air pollution begins as soon as the drill bit goes into the ground,” Steingraber said. “So far, the public health problems associated with drilling and fracking include poor birth outcomes among babies born to pregnant women living near fracking sites, respiratory impacts cancer, heart disease—and more recently we understand, mental health problems.”

RELATED: Bill would halt new fracking permits while state conducts impact studies

The bill was widely supported by local environmental groups, including Tewa Women United, the New Mexico Environmental Law, the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, New Energy Economy and YUCCA. 

The legislation was opposed by oil and gas groups, including the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and lobbyists for Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Excel Energy and Chevron, which argued that fracking is safe and that concerns about the technology are overblown.

2021 Legislative Session

Bill to address produced water spills passes committee

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The Senate Conservation Committee passed a bill that would make spilling produced water, the toxic flowback water generated in oil extraction, illegal. 

Democratic Senators Antoinette Sedillo Lopez of Albuquerque and Liz Stefanics of Cerillos sponsored SB 86, which would allow state regulators to impose fines on operators for produced water and oil and gas-related spills. It would also limit the use of freshwater in the oil field and require produced water be tracked by operators. “The oil and gas industry uses a massive amount of water that is impacting agricultural use, and has the potential to completely deplete our aquifers, Sedillo Lopez said during a committee hearing, pointing to the Ogallala aquifer in southeastern New Mexico. “At an average of two or more spills of this toxic waste today, it threatens to turn the Permian Basin and other areas where fracking occurs into a wasteland — or as some have called it, a sacrifice zone.”

RELATED: ‘Dereliction of duty’: 1.6 million gallons of produced water spilled so far in 2020

The bill would also direct the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department to adopt rules relating to produced water and other waste fluids that are “protective of public health, worker safety and natural resources.” 

Sedillo Lopez said the bill would increase transparency and accountability around oil and gas operations in the state, including tracing the use of freshwater in the oil field and requiring operators to disclose the toxins in spilled and released produced water, including naturally-occurring radiation. Norm Gaume, a water expert and former director of the Interstate Stream Commission who spoke in support of the bill, noted that many oil and gas operators are already limiting the use of freshwater in their operations.

2021 Legislative Session

Green Amendment proposal passes first committee

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A proposed amendment to the New Mexico Constitution to protect the state’s natural resources and environment passed the Senate Rules Committee Monday on a party-line vote. 

Senate Joint Resolution 3, sponsored by Democratic state Senators Antoinette Sedillo Lopez of Albuquerque, Bill Soules of Las Cruces and Harold Pope Jr. of Albuquerque, would provide residents of New Mexico with environmental rights, including a right to a clean and healthy environment and a right to the preservation of the environment. Rep. Joanne Ferrary, D-Las Cruces, is the House sponsor of the legislation. If the legislation passes both chambers, it would go to the voters in 2022 to decide whether or not to add it to the state constitution. Sedillo Lopez previously told NM Political Report that the amendment is part of the national Green Amendment movement, which aims to enact protections for the environment within state constitutions. The idea was first championed by Delaware Riverkeeper and author Maya van Rossum, who visited the state in 2019 to campaign for a green amendment to be adopted in New Mexico.

2021 Legislative Session

Climate Solutions Act would reduce emissions statewide

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A group of Democratic legislators filed a proposal aimed at lowering the state’s carbon footprint and reducing emissions across sectors. Albuquerque Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury is the sponsor of HB 9, with Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, and Speaker of the House Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, cosponsoring. 

The Climate Solutions Act would establish a statewide target of a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and direct state agencies to develop rules to realize those targets. It would also establish a Climate Leadership Council, which would be administratively attached to the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. 

The council would be responsible for developing a statewide framework for addressing climate change and developing a “sustainable” economy, including reaching a “net-zero carbon footprint” by 2050. 

RELATED: PNM wants customers to pay $300m to exit a coal plant

“The reason why this bill is so significant is that it addresses climate change from really three angles,” Stansbury said. 

First, she said, “it really sets our entire economy on to a carbon-free pathway” by setting greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. 

Second, it provides support to communities in the state most impacted by climate change. That support would include providing resources, tools and research to “help communities actually do planning and preparation and to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change,” she said. Third, the bill addresses the state’s need to diversify the economy away from fossil fuels, she said. 

“It takes recommendations that came from a year long process involving a workforce development study and a number of organizations across the state to look at how do we help our economy prepare for a more sustainable and resilient future,” Stansbury said.

2021 Legislative Session

Bills on community solar and air quality permit denials pass committees

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The state Senate Conservation Committee passed a community solar bill Thursday after a lengthy debate and multiple amendment proposals. Legislators have introduced various community solar bills over the past years, but the newest version of the bill was drafted by a task force that was created during the last session. 

Senator Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, presented SB 84, the Community Solar Act, to the committee. The bill would direct the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to develop and adopt rules to implement a community solar program, in which communities can subscribe to local solar facilities that are established by an anchor tenant. 

“It’s making solar power available to people who maybe are renting, maybe, who cannot afford it, who don’t have the property to put it on, or who maybe have covenants against rooftop [solar] or don’t have enough land to put it on or enough financing,” Stefanics said. 

The bipartisan task force was composed of state legislators, solar energy advocates, representatives of the state’s investor-owned utilities and rural electric coops, as well as community members. Input from the All Pueblo Council of Governors was also included in this year’s version of the bill. 

“We tried to include anyone who wanted to be involved,” Stefanics said. 

Stefanics also pointed to a recent study funded by UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research that estimated the program could deliver “over $500 million in economic benefits to various sectors of the economy and [create] close to 4,000 high quality jobs over the next five years,” Stefanics said. 

The study also estimated the program could bring in “$2.9 million in tax revenues annually for the state, funded through private investments,” she added. 

Albuquerque Democratic Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, who is a cosponsor of the bill, noted that the legislation would leave many details of the program—such as consumer protections for subscribers, ensuring that utilities are fairly compensated for interconnection, and determining subscriber bill credit rates—to be developed by the PRC in its rulemaking. 

Representatives of PNM and the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce spoke in opposition of the bill, over concerns that the legislation would be at odds with the Energy Transition Act. 

“Everyone from the government to the legislature, local businesses to the environmental advocates, our low income partners and our unions worked really hard to get that Energy Transition Act passed. And it lays the foundation towards 80 percent renewables and 100 percent zero-carbon energy for energy New Mexican,” the representative said.