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News
New Mexico Media Outlets
Peddle Pseudoscience for State Department of Health - by Dr. Ken
Stoller
How to Prevent Corporate
Lobbyists from Destroying Your Health and Welfare - by Stephen Fox
The Renewable Energy
Legislative Agenda - by Ben Luce
Sierra Club 2007 Legislative
Priorities Focus on Cleaner Energy - by Tom Robey
Legislative Priorities
of CVNM and New Mexico’s Conservation Community - by Leanne Leith
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Sierra Club
2007 Legislative Priorities Focus on Cleaner Energy
By Tom Robey
Planning for the upcoming legislative session began last March with
the selection of issues that we felt were the most important to discuss
amongst other environmental organizations, legislators, and the Governor’s
staff so that most issues would be worked out ahead of the 60-day session.
We started with a short list of items on which to focus our energies,
but as we approach the legislative session the combination of all the
proposals from all the various stakeholders is becoming quite long.
These Chapter priorities are now being handed over to the Legislative
Committee and our Chapter lobbyist, Dan Lorimier, who will work together
to continue to update them and add to them as we go through the legislative
session. They will also be responding to bad bills as they appear during
the course of the session. If you find one of the legislative issues
strikes a chord and you wish to contact your legislator to voice your
support, you might want to consider our Adopt-A-Legislator Program,
where Dan will introduce you to your legislator and help you in expressing
your views in the best way. If you wish to join the Legislative Activist
Network of members that will contact legislators whenever priority bills
need help, contact Dan Lorimier (see masthead page 2). Both of these
ways of participating are very important for legislators that are sympathetic
to some of our issues but may not regard them as one of their priorities.
There were three issues that we supported in the last legislative session
that we selected amongst our priorities. We adopted building efficiency
as a new legislative priority, which has developed into a suite of energy
proposals detailed on page 6. We also seriously considered the Clean
Car Act as a possible priority, which is also discussed on page 6.
Surface Protection Act
The Surface Protection Act was one of our legislative priorities from
last session that was gutted and dropped. This effort is led by the
Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) and the San Juan Citizens
Alliance. In the western United States, the split estate is quite common
where surface owners do not own the mineral rights. Presently, companies
extracting minerals can enter private property without notice; set up
a noisy and hazardous industrial operation, with toxic gases and liquids,
where they wish including near residences; and provide no compensation
for the detrimental effects of their operations. The Surface Protection
Act seeks to provide rights for surface owners and provide incentives
for mineral owners to negotiate a surface use agreement before commencing
operations in order to minimize the impacts of these operations on the
surface owners. Typically, the concerns fall under the location of the
well, roads, pipelines, and other facilities; operations, such as noise,
closure of gates, notifications of personnel entering the property,
etc.; waste disposal of drilling muds, saline water, and other fluids;
and compensation for damages that are incurred by the surface owners.
On October 19, 2006, the New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission adopted
stricter rules regarding oil and gas wastes after a year of stakeholder
meetings. OGAP and New Mexico Citizens For Clean Air & Water were
the primary environmental groups involved in the meetings.
New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority
Much of the potential locations for wind farms is located in the prairies
where there is limited transmission capacity. California and many cities
are embracing renewable energy to reduce their globalwarming impacts,
and this is creating a growing market for wind energy. Northeastern
New Mexico is an area with many sites with good wind-energy potential
and ranches looking for ways to augment their revenues. The prairie
states that are first to develop transmission capabilities that allow
wind farms to develop will likely capture the “first mover”
advantage in servicing the growing demand for wind energy. Other prairie
states have somewhat better sites for wind generation, but New Mexico
has an advantage in proximity to the California market. In order to
connect northeastern New Mexico to the California markets, it will be
necessary to build new transmission lines. Last session, the bill creating
a quasi-governmental transmission authority for planning, coordinating,
and financing new transmission lines and with the power to condemn private
land was well received, and different bills passed both houses but were
not reconciled. There was some sensitivity to what some viewed as abuse
of the power of eminent domain due to the Supreme Court’s decision
in 2005 in Kelo v. New London, where private property was condemned
for an economic redevelopment project. The use of eminent domain for
transportation and transmission is well accepted and people should approach
this a bit calmer this year. On another side, concerns that transmission
lines might be used to transmit power generated by coal plants, such
as a large coal plant proposed for Pueblo, Colorado, were addressed
last session by requiring a minimum amount of renewable energy to be
transmitted by the transmission lines.
Land, Wildlife and Clean Energy Conservation Fund
New Mexico is one of the only western states with no fund or funding
source for the purchase of land to protect special places, habitat for
wildlife, and development of clean energy. The idea of a conservation
fund is less controversial than funding such a fund. The bills submitted
in the last short legislative session with the Governor’s support
stalled in committee. Funding from the Oil Conservation Tax was stripped,
as competing demands for surplus revenue won out and left a conservation
fund with no permanent funding and severely hobbled the bill. Governor
Richardson has again proposed funding a conservation fund with a portion
of the proceeds from the existing Oil Conservation Tax (about $9.6 million
this year). The support of the Governor and the working out of the issues
that surfaced last session should give this a better chance in the upcoming
longer 60-day session. A recent addition to our legislative priorities
is a memorial in support of saving Otero Mesa from oil and gas development.
For more information, contact Sierra Club Political Committee Chair
Tom Robey at (505) 955-9578 or trobey@cybermesa.com
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