By Daniel J. Chacón
The Santa Fe New Mexican
A former oil worker and current medical student, Carter Bakarich stood before state senators Tuesday and implored them to take action for the health of his future patients.
“Pollution from carbon fuels brings devastating costs to our communities,” Bakarich told the Senate Conservation Committee during a marathon public hearing on a contentious proposal to put New Mexico’s existing pollution reduction goals into state statute.
The health of New Mexico residents and its economic prosperity collided during more than five hours of discussion and debate on Senate Bill 18, which squeaked by on a 5-4 vote.
Known as the Clear Horizons Act, the bill, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, would codify emission reduction targets set by an executive order Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued in 2019.
“This bill, different from last year, is more streamlined, and it regulates only major emission sources,” Stewart said. “You have to produce more than 10,000 metric tons of emissions to be part of the emissions reduction program.”
The measure sets ambitious goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state, aiming to reduce emissions by 45% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 75% by 2040, reaching 100% or “net-zero,” by 2050.
The bill advanced mostly along party lines, with Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, joining the three Republicans on the committee to vote no. Cervantes said he supports the state’s efforts to reduce pollution but raised concerns about the bill’s language, saying it could lead to litigation over rulemaking authority and ambiguities in emissions targets.
Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma, said New Mexico needs to take action before it’s too late, raising examples of the effects of climate change her constituents experience, from less snow to keep the ditches flowing to elk coming down from the mountains in search of water and food.
“Indigenous ways of life are disappearing in our lifetime and under our authority as lawmakers,” she said.
The land has always cared for New Mexicans, and the time has come for New Mexicans to return the favor, she said, adding it “offered her resources to the extractive industry.”
“The land gifted us the budget we now use to take care of the people of New Mexico,” Charley said. “This land has always taken care of us. I come from people who understand that deeply, and today I am asking us to take care of the land, to protect her in the same ways she has always protected and provided for us.”
‘Rigid statewide mandates’
While environmentalists and other advocates lauded the push to reduce climate-warming pollution, critics sounded the alarm on what they described as a progressive proposal that will cripple the oil and gas industry, the source of the state’s yearslong revenue boom, and drive up utility costs.
Tuesday’s hearing was held in the Senate chamber instead of the committee’s usual room to accommodate a large crowd, and the meeting was started a half-hour earlier in anticipation of a big turnout.
State Environment Cabinet Secretary James Kenney called SB 18 the engine that powers the state’s Climate Action Plan and focused on economic issues he predicted would be discussed at the hearing.
“Speaking of the economic issues, I just wanted to highlight that in the work we’ve done with the Climate Action Plan, if we took no action on climate between now and 2050, it would cost the state of New Mexico an estimated $294 billion,” he said. “We’ve modeled that in terms of infrastructure damage, air pollution, extreme weather, health impacts, etc.”
Kenney said action on climate is not mutually exclusive to job growth, adding New Mexico has experienced a 58% increase in methane mitigation activity between 2021 and 2024.
“In fact, one company … said they’ve gone from just a couple individuals working in the Permian [Basin] to over 70 people working on environmental, climate-related issues in the Permian itself,” he said. “Those jobs can reach about $145,000 per year.”
The opposition represented a broad set of interests, from livestock and agriculture to restauranteurs and oil and gas.
“This legislation may be well branded, but is deeply disconnected from the realities facing New Mexico families,” said Matthew Gonzales, vice president of state affairs for the Consumer Energy Alliance. “It imposes rigid statewide mandates without requiring regulators to consider affordability, reliability or the real-world consequences for consumers.”
Tom Clifford, an economic researcher “with long experience analyzing the state’s revenues,” said he asked by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association to analyze revenue impacts on the oil and gas exploration and development industry. His analysis included comparisons to Colorado and California, the other two major oil- and gas-producing states that have implemented similar policies.
“In California, the oil and gas production has decreased at a rate of over 6% per year since these policies were implemented. In Colorado, production has decreased over 2% per year since these were implemented,” he said.
Similar decreases in New Mexico, he said, would reduce state and local government revenue “by between $740 million per year and $2.2 billion per year by 2030.”
‘Clear, clear horizon’
Supporters of SB 18 said there is no price to be put on New Mexicans’ health or the future of the planet. They emphasized the importance of reducing emissions and protecting public health and safety.
“Effects of climate change are already upon us,” said Santa Fe County Commissioner Hank Hughes.
“We don’t need to wait for them,” he continued. “In Santa Fe County, we fear a fire. We know what happened on the east side of the Sangre de Cristos. We fear that it will happen on the west side and perhaps burn through Santa Fe County, so the timeline set by this bill is very reasonable, although it is aggressive.”
Lobbyist Conroy Chino, who represents Acoma and Taos pueblos, said the two tribes appreciate the bill calls for tribal consultation when enforcement action is contemplated. But its long-lasting environmental benefits are the driving factors behind their backing.
“We support the bill largely because we believe that every citizen in New Mexico should be entitled to breathe fresh, clean air and look out their window every morning and see a clear, clean horizon,” he said.