Diane has lived in New Mexico since 2007 – when she received orders to Kirtland AFB. She served 25 years as a medical service corps officer, beginning in the Navy and finishing in the Air Force. When she retired in
Meet the ExComm – Diane Reese
Meet the ExComm – Derrick Toledo
Derrick Toledo, from the Pueblo of Jemez, is a congressional staffer for Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández currently based out of Santa Fe. He previously served as a tribal official in Jemez and now works closely alongside the tribes in natural
Industry report leaves out oil and gas health, water, climate damages
The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter issued the following statement in response to an economic report issued by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, which failed to include the industry’s well-documented economic costs and harms to New Mexicans’ health, water, and air quality. The Sierra Club is also supplying science-based facts to give the public a more complete understanding of oil and gas impacts in our state.
2023 Legislative Tracker
See a list of priority bills for the current session that the Rio Grande Chapter is for the 2023 legislative session.
How did Sierra Club’s endorsed candidates do? (Pretty darn well!)
Thanks to all of you who voted and volunteered in the 2022 general election! Your thousands of calls and door knocks resulted in climate champions winning up and down the New Mexico ticket, and perhaps made the difference in a priority state House race our candidate won by just 30 votes. Across the country, progressive, pro-environment candidates defied the pundits and historical voting patterns, though Democrats will barely lose control of the U.S. House. And Democrats increased their paper-thin Senate majority to 51.
2022 Year in Review
2022 was a wild and wacky year. There are some wins and some losses. Review our successes and failures.
Task Force building solutions to NM’s water crisis
It is no secret that New Mexico is in a water crisis. In fact, the whole Southwest is in the driest two decades it has seen in at least 1,200 years. And the hard truth is climate projections tell us conditions will only get more challenging from here. We can expect temperatures to increase 5-7 °F over the next 50 years, with a 25% decrease in our overall water supply, increasing demand and competition across the state for this precious resource even as it slips through our fingers. The Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force is tackling these challenges head on. Established by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over the summer and led by New Mexico’s State Engineer, the Task Force has brought together a diverse array of members to identify solutions that have broad consensus to some of our toughest water challenges.
2023 legislature Preview
This year is a “long” 60-day legislative session starting January 17, and there will be many exciting opportunities for Sierra Club members to provide input and participate (sometimes late into the night!) in the process. Here are a few of the bills we are expecting and will be advocating for or against in the coming session.
D.C. Premiere of “Our Story: The Indigenous-Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco”
A delegation of Indigenous community leaders and Greater Chaco protectors traveled from New Mexico to Washington D.C. to lobby members of congress for Greater Chaco protections, and premiere a film screening of the award-winning Our Story: The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco (film trailer) which showcases the threats the Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities face from continued oil and gas leasing and drilling.
Winter 2023 Outings
Rio Grande Sierra Club hikes and outings for January – April 2023