COVID obscures New Mexico Legislature — but oil and gas still get in nmpoliticalreport.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nmpoliticalreport.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Rio Grande River, March 2009 (CC BY-SA 2.0) by gardener41
A bill that would require the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (OSE) to consider climate change implications when making water rights decisions narrowly passed the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee Thursday.
HB 95, sponsored by Santa Fe Democratic Rep. Andrea Romero, would require the State Engineer to conduct analyses on climate change-related impacts to the state’s water resources when approving or denying permits. The bill mandates the OSE to develop climate change impact rules based on the best available science to inform permit approvals.
Dr. David Gutzler, a climate science expert and professor at UNM, speaking on behalf of the bill, pointed to a water resources study being conducted by the Interstate Stream Commission. Gutzler said he believed the study “could be leveraged as input to the development of a robust and science-based climate change assessment that could be used o
A tanker passes a well pad with six fracking wells.
A bill that would pause new fracking permits in the state passed the Senate Conservation Committee on Saturday, while an attempt to amend the Energy Transition Act died in the committee.
Albuquerque Democrats Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero co-sponsored SB 149. The bill would enact a four-year pause on fracking permits while the state conducted studies to determine the impacts of fracking on agriculture, environment and water resources and public health.
The bill directs state agencies and departments, including the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, the New Mexico Environment Department, the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture to study and report annually to the governor and the relevant legislative committees on the impacts of fracking on the respective sectors.
A warning sign near a fracking well in the Greater Chaco area.
The Senate Conservation Committee passed a bill that would make spilling produced water, the toxic flowback water generated in oil extraction, illegal.
Democratic Senators Antoinette Sedillo Lopez of Albuquerque and Liz Stefanics of Cerillos sponsored SB 86, which would allow state regulators to impose fines on operators for produced water and oil and gas-related spills. It would also limit the use of freshwater in the oil field and require produced water be tracked by operators.
“The oil and gas industry uses a massive amount of water that is impacting agricultural use, and has the potential to completely deplete our aquifers, Sedillo Lopez said during a committee hearing, pointing to the Ogallala aquifer in southeastern New Mexico. “At an average of two or more spills of this toxic waste today, it threatens to turn the Permian Basin and other areas where fracking occurs into a wasteland or as some have calle