Rio Grande Chapter

The New Mexico Supreme Court today rejected New Energy Economy’s challenges to the constitutionality of the Energy Transition Act (ETA) and upheld the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) decision relating to the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station. These rulings end months of delays in sending transition funds to communities and issuing bonds that will reduce customer costs ...

On January 6, the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee unveiled its budget proposal for consideration in the 2022 legislative session. The Committee proposed a $8.46 billion budget plan that fails to address the severity of the climate crisis by underfunding critical programming, investing in fossil fuel projects, and drastically cutting the essential budgets for environmental regulators ...

Revisit some of the key environment- and justice-related events of 2021 ...

Fossil-fueled hydrogen projects take us backward in our race to avoid climate catastrophe. 

• • Hydrogen production is already responsible for 3-4% of the world’s carbon emissions — equivalent to that of the UK and Indonesia combined. New Mexico’s discussion draft of Hydrogen Hub legislation includes taxpayer-funded incentives for this type of hydrogen production.
  • Pouring taxpayer dollars into proposed fossil-fueled hydrogen projects would create new reliance on fracked gas that could lock in devastating climate consequences ...
    
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Chapter Executive Committee: Mayane Barudin:  Mayane advocates for inclusive renewable energy policy development and implementation. A proud Indigenous woman and a Tribal member of Kewa Pueblo in New Mexico, Mayane hopes to enable economic prosperity and environmental justice for her community and Indigenous peoples through energy policy reform and statewide solar campaign initiatives. Her work prioritizes environmental and energy justice for historically underserved communities. Mayane started Sovereign Energy as a native-led nonprofit organization to help center Tribal energy sovereignty and ...

Thanks to everyone who voted in the 2021 local elections, and a super big thanks to all of you who got out and worked for the election of our endorsed candidates.  The results were mostly good, but with some disappointments ...

If you live in Albuquerque District 7 or District 9, it’s urgent that you vote! This is a nonpartisan election, but both of the candidates endorsed by the Sierra Club are Democrats running against Republicans.  In the last City runoff election, the Republican vote dropped off 18% from the general election vote, while the Democratic vote dropped off 32%.  That’s the difference between winning and losing these races.  So far, in Rob Grilley’s race, Republicans are outvoting Democrats.  46.7% of ...

Members of the Greater Chaco Coalition are applauding President Joe Biden and Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s announcement to finally address environmental justice and meaningful tribal consultation for the Greater Chaco region by launching a new collaborative landscape level planning process in 2022 with Tribes, elected officials, communities, and stakeholders ...

On November 2, policy experts, frontline leaders, and corporate accountability advocates joined a press briefing to respond to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed new Clean Air Act safeguards to reduce methane and other harmful pollutants from new and existing sources in the oil and natural gas industry which were announced earlier today ...

On November 2, the Environmental Protection Agency released critical new draft rules to reduce methane emissions and other pollution from the oil and gas industry. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is more than 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Methane is also emitted alongside other harmful pollution that puts communities at risk of serious negative health effects ...