The first legislative session of Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham’s term began eight years of progress on addressing the climate crisis.

In 2019, the governor addressed a group of 400 attending the Climate Summit we planned with a host of other groups to launch the first legislative session of her term. She laid out a vision of reducing emissions from the oil and gas industry, the electric sector, transportation and buildings. She joined other mayors and governors in meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement that President Trump had abandoned.

The next day, the governor signed this vision into reality with the third executive order of her administration, surrounded by the kid members of our after-school climate action program, the Global Warming Express. By the end of that session we had passed the Energy Transition Act, which would lead the state’s utilities and coops to dramatically increase their use of renewables to generate electricity while softening the blow of the San Juan coal-fired power plant closing PNM had announced a few years earlier.

The Administration later passed clean cars and trucks rules and updated our building codes twice to drive energy efficiency. In 2021, Senate Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, led the passage of a little noticed but absolutely pivotal bill that allowed the state to adopt clean air standards more stringent than federal requirements. This meant that over the next several years, the administration could adopt oil and gas, methane and smog-pollution safeguards that led the nation. Our state rules helped push the federal government to make even stronger methane rules than it otherwise might have.

The trouble was the Permian oil boom. While lagging momentarily in oil extraction at the beginning of the pandemic, the basin in southeastern NM bounced back, becoming the second most abundant extractor in the country only after Texas (with 25% fewer workers because of automation). With the sheer number of wells, even with reduced leaking, venting and flaring of methane gas throughout the oil and gas fields, we are ever further from meeting our state climate commitments.

In response to this challenge the New Mexico Environment Department, in collaboration with a host of other agencies and stakeholders, has now published a Climate Action Plan that will help the state take the action necessary to urgently meet our goals. To ensure those plans and possibilities survive a change of administration in 2027, we urgently need to put the governor’s greenhouse-gas reduction goals into law and provide the Environment Department with the firm authority it needs to regulate climate pollutants.

This leads us to 2026 and its 30-day legislative session, the last for Governor Luján Grisham. This administration, legislature and grassroots supporters have achieved so much, from decriminalizing abortion to establishing free pre-K, all while stabilizing impacts from the boom-and-bust fossil fuel economy and protecting us from global collapse. That was done by investing royalty income in interest-earning accounts to supply the state with revenue for years to come without actually having to continue extraction. Though we haven’t agreed on everything with this administration, we’ve made real progress on protecting the climate together. Now is the time to ensure the durability of this climate action legacy. Here’s what to expect in the upcoming session.

Climate and energy

State Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, and House Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, will introduce legislation to put the state’s climate goals into law, allow the Environment Department to do greenhouse gas rulemaking and require enforcement of these rules. Last session, we passed legislation providing over $200 million in climate solutions and just economic transition funds to be spent over three years for things like grid modernization, home weatherization and efficiency, and renewable energy and storage build-out. We’ll advocate for the appropriation of further funds for these purposes.

Water

High on the priority list is ensuring all of New Mexico’s water agencies are appropriately resourced. Without this, we can’t meet the challenges ahead. Priorities for one-time funding include the River Stewardship program, critical to restoring the state’s rivers and habitats; $15 million for the Strategic Water Reserve, which completes water rights transactions to keep more water in New Mexico’s rivers and streams; $3.5 million for the state-led surface water quality permitting program authorized by SB 21 in 2025; and $5 million for regional water planning, which provides a mechanism for communities who know their waters best to be involved in statewide water planning.

Lands

We’ll support improving the way the $350 million Legacy Permanent Fund is invested, increasing distributions to Legacy Fund programs from $12.5 million to $20 million annually, more than four years ahead of schedule.

Photo: Climate activist at March 6 Climate Crisis Day rally. Photo by David McGahey

After more than two hours of impassioned public comment, the Water Control Commission  reversed its earlier decision to begin rulemaking aimed at nullifying a ban on the discharge of toxic oil and gas wastewater into New Mexico surface and ground water. The 7-4 vote on Nov. 13 resets a process that was launched by the oil and gas industry after the discharge of waste liquids outside of the industry was prohibited by rule for five years.

“New Mexicans put their trust in the commission to base its decisions, without interference, on technical expertise and independent science.” — Dale Doremus, The Sierra Club / Rio Grande Chapter

The commission in May voted to close a loophole that allowed “pilot projects” to release 84,000 a day of treated produced water to groundwater. The result of the commission’s action was a complete ban on produced water discharge to ground and surface waters until the rule sunsets in five years. Produced water is a waste byproduct of oil and gas operations and contains known and unknown chemicals, many of which are toxic to human health and the environment. Then came the industry’s proposed rule to reverse the ban. The governor and her cabinet had worked behind the scenes to concoct a vote on July 8 in favor of the industry’s proposal, including having cabinet members be present and vote in favor of it. That now has been quashed.

“The commission did the right thing here today by wiping the slate clean and avoiding any appearance of impropriety,” said Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center after the Nov. 13 vote. “The public takes the issue of clean water, and how dangerous oil and gas wastewater discharge is to our rivers, streams and lands, seriously.”

“New Mexicans put their trust in the commission to base its decisions, without interference, on the technical expertise and independent science from state agencies,” said Dale Doremus of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club.

“This is a critical issue that should only be considered under 100% irreproachable circumstances. Safeguarding our precious and scarce ground and surface waters from toxic contaminants that can endanger human health and the environment is too important for anything less.”

Since 2022, New Mexico Environment Department staff have worked to develop a science-based rule for reuse of treated and untreated produced water outside oil and gas operations. Produced water is a highly toxic waste generated by oil and gas production.

This May, the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission approved a rule proposed by the department prohibiting discharge of produced water to NM surface and ground water. Based on a two-week hearing and thousands of pages of evidence, the commission concluded that produced water could not be treated for safe discharge. The Sierra Club and Amigos Bravos were represented by the Western Environmental Law Center in the rulemaking.

The commission initially approved allowing discharge of up to 84,000 gallons per day of treated produced water to groundwater for “pilot projects.” The law center requested the commission to reconsider and it voted unanimously to prohibit all discharge of produced water. The rule, which sunsets in five years, allows non-discharging pilot projects to study treatment technologies.

But before the ink had dried on the rule, an industry group petitioned for a new rulemaking to overturn the prohibition. As Sierra Club, and other organizations, rallied the troops to oppose the petition, their law center filed objections.

But at its July meeting, the commission, including the environmental department’s secretary, voted to hear the petition. This came even though it would reverse years of work by departmental scientists and those scientists would not be participating in the hearing to assess whether the discharges proposed are safe.

During the commission’s August meeting, the law center objected to the petition moving forward without the department’s participation as a party. In the commission’s 58-year history, the environmental department has never failed to take part in a rulemaking on a rule it would implement.

Sierra Club, and other groups, rallied the troops again and overwhelmed the commission with opposition. But five cabinet secretaries showed up to the meeting, all voting to move the petition forward.

Industry frames its reuse rules as a solution to the profound drought we face. It is pure hypocrisy for industry to extract fossil fuels at an unfettered rate, driving the climate crisis and accompanying drought, only to turn around and offer its waste product as a solution to water scarcity.

The Sierra Club will continue to advocate for science-based rules that protect our environment and public health. The hearing will be next year. We will be up against Big Oil and Gas without the scientific expertise of environmental department staff. We urge you to write to the governor (https://www.governor.state.nm.us/contact-the-governor/), contact legislators and join the fight to stop a rule that would reverse protections just put into place.

(Featured image by pixnio.com/media)

In just a few short months, the federal government has swung an axe at the foundation of US clean air protections – and the splinters are already hitting our lungs.

Six months ago, on March 12, the Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin launched what it proudly called the “biggest deregulatory action in US history.” Thirty-one safeguards were targeted, including oil and gas methane rules, all in the name of “unleashing American energy.” Translation: Polluters profit, people choke.

That followed Congress’s February move to repeal the methane fee. Companies that spew above legal limits were supposed to pay $900 per ton in 2024, rising to $1,500 by 2026. Now? The fee is gone, and with it one of the only real financial deterrents against methane emissions.

On May 1, the Senate went further, voting to overturn an EPA rule that had restricted seven of the most toxic air pollutants — including mercury, lead and, dioxins, – marking the first time in history that such a safeguard fell under the Clean Air Act.

By July, the EPA issued an “interim final rule” delaying compliance for methane and smog-forming Volatile Organic Compound standards until January 2027. The cost of that “flexibility”? An extra 3.8 million tons of methane, nearly a million tons of VOCs and tens of thousands of tons of toxic emissions, translating into lost lives, particularly in frontline states like New Mexico. Submit your comment opposing this rollback at sc.org/methane.

Now the agency is preparing to gut the 2009 Endangerment Finding – the legal backbone that declares greenhouse gases a threat to public health and gives EPA authority to regulate them. Without it, climate protections collapse entirely. Some 400 of you commented to defend EPA’s right to regulate greenhouse gases. Thank you!

This is deregulation on steroids, rolled out while wildfires rage hotter, droughts cut deeper and climate disasters become our daily news. The federal government hasn’t just tapped the brakes on climate action – it has ripped them out entirely.

Our response must be louder, sharper and impossible to ignore. The comment windows are open. Raise your voice now, continuing to resist but also acting locally.

We are lucky to live in a state where we can work to counteract deregulation. And our efforts are working. The Environmental Defense Fund recently reported that New Mexico’s Permian Basin has a methane pollution rate half that of Texas because of our state methane and smog rules.

Learn more here.

(Featured photo by rawpixel.com)

It has been called a “once in a lifetime” moment and a “land of superlatives”. It’s that moment of awe when you see a perfect valley shining with high-altitude light, green abundance and outstanding beauty. This is the feeling many express when they first set eyes on the giant Valle Grande in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

How best to preserve the unique values of the preserve as well as manage the visitors that want to come hike, ride, bike, fish, hunt and explore is the task ahead for National Park Service at the preserve in consultation with nearby pueblos of Santa Clara, Jemez, Zia, San Ildefonso as well as the public.

The 88,900-acre preserve is described as “the world’s premier example of a young volcanic caldera,” created about 1.25 million years ago with a major 11,254-foot resurgent dome, Redondo Peak. The Valles Caldera was designated as a unit of the national park system in 2014.

Superintendent Jorge Silva-Bañuelos recently hosted a public meeting to describe the draft General Management Plan and the possible additions of trails, backcountry permitting, camping and other visitor “engagement” activities. The agency staff has proposed new trailheads, road closures, a relocated entrance road, a new visitor center and a zoned management system to concentrate use in some places and leave large areas essentially wild.

Here are some comments already submitted in response to the plan:

The organization Caldera Action commented that, “Since the (preserve) has been public since 2000, we can see clearly the pressures and ecological eventualities of the future. We’ve seen high-severity wildfires burn through most of the preserve, radically altering its vegetation, wildlife and hydrology. We’ve seen post-fire flooding with its gullying and debris fields. We’ve seen trespass cattle polluting the streams, damaging vegetation, and ruining restoration structures put in by staff and volunteers. With climate change a certainty for the future and with a growing human population in the region, these events from the past are likely to repeat in the future. The National Park Service knows what is coming and must use the best available science to prepare.

Additionally, one individual commented that, “This (draft) should include a specific reclamation plan to remove legacy waste and infrastructure and restore areas damaged by geothermal and timber industries as well as by heavy grazing and high-intensity wildfires that have impacted over 60% of the preserve. The current (35 per day) permitted rate of visitors to the back country should be kept as well as seasonal closures due to weather or high wildfire risk.”

Opinions differ on what activities should be permitted and which areas should be accessible to the public, but protecting the unique values of the Valles Caldera described by trustee, Willian deBuys, remain paramount:

“The friends of the Caldera need to repeat their message over and over, and make sure they are heard. If the preserve is to remain a place where eagles congregate in the fall and elk canter through the night like a living tissue of the land, the friends of the Caldera need to insist on it, and settle for nothing less.”

(Featured image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.)

New Mexico is rich in oil and gas. With that wealth comes a mess – literally.

The state is home to more than 60,000 wells that will eventually need to be plugged to prevent methane leaks, groundwater contamination and long-term environmental degradation that place New Mexicans’ climate and health at risk. Right now, hundreds of these wells are already abandoned, and thousands more are dangerously close. Unless we act, New Mexicans – not the out-of-state corporations profiting from our public resources – will be stuck with a cleanup bill that could top $1.6 billion.
Oil and gas operators are legally responsible for plugging wells and cleaning up after themselves. But not all follow the law, leaving the state holding the bag. Worse, our laws make it easy for corporations to walk away.

Current bonding requirements – meant to ensure corporations have money set aside for cleanup – are woefully inadequate. State law caps bonding at $250,000 per operator for active wells even though it costs an average of $163,000 to plug just one well. Some corporations have as little as $105 set aside per well.
Meanwhile, nearly a third of oil and gas operators in New Mexico are out of compliance with the law, holding more inactive wells than they’re allowed. Inactive wells – those that haven’t produced for 15 months and aren’t approved for temporary abandonment – are often the ones left behind next.

The state has inventoried over 600 abandoned wells in New Mexico, and 1,400 more are likely to join that list soon. While recent federal grants have helped plug some, those programs are on hold. We can’t rely on federal dollars to help with this large and growing problem. But we can look to our state regulators to adopt common-sense reforms to address the problem.

The New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission is considering long-overdue updates to bonding rules that require oil and gas corporations to set aside money to clean up after themselves. Bonding works like insurance or a retirement plan for a well.

Matching bonding to actual costs is not a punishment; it’s a guarantee. It ensures that when a well reaches the end of its life, there is the right amount of money set aside to plug it properly. Let’s get behind and support these rules.

The commission will hold a public hearing Oct. 20-Nov. 7. Please visit the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department page to learn how to comment in support here. For more information, contact miya.king-flaherty@sierraclub.org.

(Featured image from WikiMedia Commons.)

What was once a concrete dumpsite in the drought-stricken southwest became a four-acre oasis, known as La Mancha Wetlands, along the Rio Grande near Las Cruces.

The La Mancha Restoration Project, a vision of Kevin Bixby who then lead Southwest Environmental Center, took years of planning, permitting, fundraising and hard work to come to fruition in 2010. It provides habitat for numerous species of waterfowl, beavers, foxes, rabbits and quail as well as snakes, dragonflies and birds. The trail around it welcomes many visitors who enjoy the serene beauty of nature at its finest.

We began volunteering there in 2020 and were soon joined by Jim Mulhauser, a true craftsman who built and installed numerous birdhouses. His kestrel house was such a success that a study group from New Mexico State University came to monitor the project, which is now in its third year of successful fledging.

During our tenure there, Southwest Environmental Center decided to close its doors and in 2022 it donated the property to Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project, led by Ángel Peña. Years of severe drought began taking a toll on the water level, cattails invaded and soon the pond only held water a few months during the summer — when the Rio Grande was running.

Under the project’s new stewardship, the wetlands experienced a remarkable renewal. In 2023 the organization kicked off its first Earth Day Clean Up (pictured above). It marked the beginning of sustained community engagement and celebrated the first year of new management.

Just this year, the project launched its first-ever designated giving campaign specifically for La Mancha Wetlands restoration efforts, raising nearly $1,000. These funds will help protect La Mancha’s ecosystem, restore trails, enhance public access to the wetlands and provide community programs focused on conservation education.

In May, 12 members from the growing La Mancha volunteer group joined their first official monthly gathering to continue ongoing restoration efforts. The restoration has also attracted academic interest. Professor Buenemann and students from New Mexico State are initiating research for a GIS project at La Mancha, using drone technology to study the wetland’s recovery.

Through our five years volunteering, we’ve witnessed La Mancha Wetlands thrive as essential habitat, proving dedicated community efforts can successfully revive and protect precious natural resources in our desert.

For more information on Nuestra Tierra’s La Mancha Wetlands Restoration Project, visit nuestra-tierra.org

About Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project: Based in Las Cruces, NTCP works to ensure historically and deliberately excluded communities have access to the outdoors and that our history, values, and people are authentically reflected in public land and water management decisions.

FEATURED IMAGE “ASHA” WITH PUP, U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE

This spring marks the 11th year of wolf pup cross-fostering. Seventeen Mexican wolf pups were transferred from captive dens into wild dens to increase the wild population’s genetic diversity.

Now the agency has released good news about the wolf Asha. She famously twice roamed north beyond the arbitrary I-40 boundary. First, she almost got to Colorado and, after being captured and located south again, she journeyed north a second time to the Valles Caldera. Then she was placed into captivity with a captive born male wolf named Arcadia.

They mated last year, but no pups were forthcoming. This spring, the two have had a litter of five. Once the pups are old enough for their vaccinations, the US Fish and Wildlife Service promises the whole family is going to be released. They are currently in an acclimation pen on the Ladder Ranch. When ready, the agency will open the gates to let them run free on Ladder Ranch land which has agreed to accept them. Hopefully with a family, Asha will stay home. She never preyed on livestock on her travels and successfully avoided humans. She can teach her mate and pups to do the same.

Unfortunately, another wandering wolf named Ella roamed north of I-40 at the end of March. Just as news about her was spreading, she was found dead near Mt. Taylor. No cause has been released.

This roaming behavior is ingrained in young wolves and their moves north indicate suitable habitat is available. We have long urged the Fish and Wildlife Service to let wolves roam as they once did throughout the southwest, but so far the agency will not relent.

It’s also always jarring when Fish and Wildlife, tasked with recovering wolves, also removes them from the wild. Ranchers complained that the Mañada del Arroyo pack in the bootheel of NM preyed on their cattle. In May, even though the pack was denning, the agency captured the male and female parents and two pups and placed them into captivity. Even more disheartening, a third pup was euthanized in the den for being in poor health according to the agency.

Bowing again to livestock interests, Fish and Wildlife ordered one uncollared wolf to be killed from the Bear Canyon Pack in Arizona. But in a glaring instance of incompetence, a seven-year-old collared female was killed by mistake by the agency in April. No explanation has been offered for this error. The slain wolf may have been pregnant, making the fiasco even more tragic.

Shortly after, another wolf, Viento, of the Hail Canyon pack in New Mexico was also purposefully gunned down by Fish and Wildlife order. Both wolves had been accused of preying on livestock, but killing any one member of a pack to stop this behavior is controversial and scientifically questionable.

Emboldened ranchers in wolf country have continued to flex their political muscle. The Catron County Commission declared a wolf emergency in April and has asked Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to declare a state emergency to release funds and provide National Guard assistance to “protect” the county from wolves. Sierra and Socorro counties have followed suit.

Even though Mexican wolves have never harmed a human, the fear mongering has been extreme. And funds are already available both for compensation for documented wolf livestock losses and for coexistence measures. The governor, thankfully, has not responded to this request.

FEATURED IMAGE BY GREG LEWIS

Over the course of the last year and a half, the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter and Amigos Bravos, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center’s Tannis Fox, took part in a critical rulemaking for New Mexico’s clean water supply. A Water Quality Control Commission proceeding addressed whether to prohibit the discharge of “produced water” – a toxic byproduct of oil and gas drilling – from being discharged into New Mexico’s ground and surface waters.

The New Mexico Environment Department initiated the rulemaking to ban discharges of this toxic soup. The risks of discharging fracking wastewater to our waterways are many. It contains chemicals harmful to humans and the environment. There is no known treatment to remove those chemicals at scale. The oil and gas industry is not required to disclose what chemicals are in it; and there are no water quality standards for many of these toxic chemicals to protect human health and the environment.

“Produced water” is the water and chemicals that go down the well when drilling and the water and chemicals that come with the oil or gas that is extracted. Produced water contains many known and unknown pollutants. Many are known hazards. For example, produced water commonly contains arsenic, barium, bromide, mercury, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes.

At the hearing, Sierra Club and Amigos Bravos put on compelling expert testimony in favor of a discharge prohibition, supporting the position of Environmental Department experts. The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association argued treated produced water could be discharged safely into our precious waterways, but their experts’ testimony was vague and unconvincing.

The hearing nearly veered off course when, in the second-to-last meeting, the Commission voted to allow “pilot projects” to discharge up to 84,000 gallons of this toxic wastewater per day into New Mexico’s groundwater. Our team shot into action and filed a motion to reconsider challenging the evidentiary basis of the commission’s decision.

At the next meeting, after considering our request to reconsider, the commission adopted a final rule banning the discharge of toxic oil and gas wastewater to surface and ground waters. The rule will sunset in five years to assess whether viable treatment technologies have been developed.

This nation-leading rule sets a strong, defensible position that keeps New Mexicans and our environment safe from this fracking waste, and we will vigilantly advocate for the strongest defensible protections again when the state revisits the rule.