By Luis Guerrero, Rio Grande Chapter legislative and political organizer
This year is a “long” 60-day New Mexico legislative session starting Jan. 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. Below are a few of the bills we will be advocating for or against in this legislative session:
CLIMATE & ENERGY
Climate Solutions and Just Transition
This legislation will put into law aspects of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Executive Order on Climate Change and create a comprehensive framework for addressing climate change in New Mexico. Building on the Energy Transition Act, which focuses on the electricity sector, the Climate Action Act will likely ...
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 was a wild and wacky year. There are some wins and some losses. Review our successes and failures ...
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 ...
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 ...
On November 17, U.S. Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez and Sen. Ben Ray Lujan introduced the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act. Though the Greater Chaco Coalition supports this legislation, more needs to be done to address the cumulative impact of extractive industries on the Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities ...
On November 11, Public Regulation Commission hearing examiners recommended approval of a settlement agreement between Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, Western Resource Advocates, PRC staff, the New Mexico attorney general, New Mexico Affordable Reliable Energy Alliance, New Energy Economy, and Incorporated County of Los Alamos with New Mexico Gas Company on its rate case. ...
On November 11, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a supplemental rule proposal that would establish strong, commonsense protections against methane and other harmful pollution from the oil and gas industry. This proposal improves upon a draft rule that EPA issued last November to curb methane from the oil and gas sector. A strong methane rule will help the United States meet its more ambitious emissions reduction commitments expected to be unveiled at COP27, and will go a long way in protecting the air families who are surrounded by oil and gas pollution on a daily basis have to breathe ...
