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It appears that New Mexico’s state government is continuing to move in the direction of environmentalists and away from oil and gas operators. However, New Mexico enjoys significant revenue from the production of oil and gas, so it’s debatable that actions to slow production will have widespread support.
In December 2020, New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands, Stephanie Garcia Richard, announced plans to halt the commercial sale of fresh water from state trust lands for oil and gas development. In a letter to oil and gas operators, the Commissioner informed companies that hold easements and grant access to state trust land to pump fresh water for sale to the oil and gas industry, their easements/permits won’t be renewed, nor would any new permits be granted.
This article was reported in collaboration with the Institute of American Indian Arts’ journalism program.
For most New Mexico businesses, the arrival of COVID-19 wreaked havoc, caused shutdowns or threatened doom. But for one enterprise potentially one of the world’s largest nuclear waste sites the pandemic offered an unusual opportunity.
A long-planned nuclear waste storage facility in the southeastern New Mexico desert was rushed through the approval process during the pandemic, according to New Mexico’s congressional delegation, environmentalists and other opponents.
Typically, project foes would have been able to voice their disapproval at Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearings around the state. The coronavirus brought an end to such public gatherings, however, so New Mexico lawmakers asked the NRC to pause the hearings.
New Mexico State Land Office 2020 Oil And Gas Royalty Audits Recoup $2.3 Million For Land Grant Permanent Fund
State Land Office News:
SANTA FE –The New Mexico State Land Office Royalty Management Division has announced the collection of $2,302,418 from standard audits of royalty collection for calendar year 2020.
The 2020 audit collection amount is a 47.5 percent increase from 2019 and a 120.4 percent increase from 2018.
The Royalty Management Division audits approximately 85 percent of State Land Office royalty revenue every five years. Staff auditors and compliance analysts look for mistakes and errors in reporting from all businesses that lease state trust land and are required to pay royalty on oil or gas extracted on leases.
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In August 2020, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, responding to the national reckoning that began with the alarming (killing) of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, created an Advisory Council on Racial Justice with three subcommittees. The governor chose council members based on their leadership and knowledge of and experience with the interlocking systems of discrimination and unequal resources that thwart Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.
In early December, the Council on Racial Justice provided more than 50 recommendations to the governor, including a recommendation strongly urging the governor to support HJR1, the proposed constitutional amendment to invest an additional 1% from the Land Grant Permanent Fund proceeds to pay for early childhood education programs. When this amendment was first proposed in 2010, New Mexico ranked 46th in the nation for child well