Santa Fe County Commission approves controversial solar project – Santa Fe New Mexican, KUNM News
The Santa Fe County Planning Commission approved a controversial solar project Tuesday after more than 12 hours of public testimony over two days.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports commissioners also held a closed-door discussion, then voted 6-1 to approve a conditional use permit for the Rancho Viejo Solar project.
The massive solar power and battery storage facility has faced intense opposition. Residents in the area have argued the facility poses a fire risk and would affect their property values. There have been problematic fires at other such sites, like Moss Landing in California.
Officials with developer AES say newer technology reduces fire risk from these kinds of facilities, which use lithium-ion batteries.
AES says the project would generate 96 megawatts of power and about 45 megawatts of battery storage. Supporters say the solar farm would help the state meet its clean energy goals.
One group opposing the project said it will appeal. There’s a 30-day window to appeal the decision to the County Commission.
Despite concerns, oil and gas setbacks bill makes progress - Megan Gleason, Albuquerque Journal
Three hours and many criticisms later, Democrats let a bill that would bar new oil and gas operations within a mile of schools through a House committee.
A 7-4 vote on a motion to pass the legislation with no recommendation pushed it through the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee. All committee Republicans voted against it, and some Democrats said they’d like to see more work done on the legislation in its future committees.
Bill sponsor Debra Sariñana, D-Albuquerque, and bill expert Gail Evans, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity — who is also helping lead a lawsuit against New Mexico and state legislators for the state’s alleged allowance of pollution caused by oil and gas — faced hours of questioning during the first committee hearing.
House Bill 35 still must clear two more House committees before making it to the floor.
“We are on the side of public health and kids’ health,” said Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, who chairs the House energy committee.
Republicans on the committee argued against the bill in fear of it negatively impacting the oil and gas industry and, subsequently, New Mexico. Rep. Elaine Sena Cortez, R-Hobbs, brought up her position as a mother and the benefits oil and gas revenue, which majorly funds public schools in New Mexico, has brought children.
“I’m a momma, and my daughter was raised there (in Hobbs). Above all, I represent my daughter,” Sena Cortez said.
Sariñana said tens of thousands of operators in the state are polluting beyond a legal limit, something already hurting families. Evans added that existing wells wouldn’t have to shut down; operators would just have to comply with air quality standards. The state could also grant exceptions for new well drilling, including when it’s necessary to abandon an existing well or results in complete economic loss of a property, according to the bill.
“No one’s wells are being shut down by this bill,” Evans said.
Rep. Meredith Dixon, D-Albuquerque, questioned data provided in a legislative analysis of the bill. Specifically, she pondered why there would be more youth asthma hospitalizations in Chaves County than Eddy or Lea counties — the oil and gas hot spots of New Mexico. Dixon later said there are a lot more reasons behind asthma hospitalizations than just oil and gas.
Along the same lines, Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, noted that vehicular pollution is what’s affecting most children in New Mexico, as most of them don’t live or go to school near oil and gas wells. A legislative analysis of the bill listed at least 864 oil and gas operations within a mile of a school.
However, the biggest polluter in the state is oil and gas, Evans pointed out. Indeed, while most greenhouse gas emissions nationwide come from transportation, New Mexico is an outlier in that most of its emissions come from the oil and gas sector.
Other concerns from Small and Dixon included a lack of scientific basis around the one-mile designation as opposed to other distances and not enough outreach to oil and gas operators for input on the bill.
“The intent of this bill is to protect our children,” Dixon said. “I do think it is a fair and valid point as to whether or not families in these communities could be adversely affected by these setbacks.”
Both Small and Dixon were among numerous legislative candidates who received hefty campaign donations last year from big energy companies, like Chevron and Marathon Oil, which ConocoPhillips recently acquired.
Meanwhile, other legislation also impacting oil and gas got delayed. After not getting to Senate Bill 23 last week in the Senate Conservation Committee, committee chair Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, assigned it first on Tuesday’s schedule.
However, after discussions with Republican committee members before the meeting started, Stefanics announced the bill wouldn’t be heard until Thursday.
Vasquez sponsors legislation to make public land sell-offs harder - Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
Congressman Gabe Vasquez wants to make it harder for the federal government to sell public lands, an idea that has been floated to balance the federal budget.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., introduced the Public Lands in Public Hands Act with Vasquez, D-N.M., in January. The bill would require congressional approval for selling or transferring public lands managed by the Department of the Interior or the U.S. Forest Service.
“The fact that our former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has joined me in supporting this bill as a Republican is hugely important, as we’ve seen that the sale and transfer of public lands are part of what we see from this administration’s attempt to shore up the budget, essentially to make budget cuts to give away trillions of dollars to billionaires in this country,” Vasquez said.
House Republicans’ new rules for the House this congressional session could make it easier to sell public lands. The rules package adopted by the House includes a provision that lawmakers can’t raise a budgetary point of order if a bill to transfer federal land to state, local or tribal governments comes to the floor.
The Public Lands in Public Hands Act was introduced previously in early 2024 but has become timelier after the state of Utah filed a lawsuit pushing for control of about half of the state’s federal public lands. The Supreme Court declined to hear that lawsuit in January. Utah could refile in federal district court.
The bill is critical to ensuring public lands remain accessible, said Michael Casaus, New Mexico state director for The Wilderness Society.
“These are lands that the vast majority of New Mexicans depend on for outdoor recreation, for traditional uses, firewood gathering, collecting piñon nuts and medicinal plants, hunting and fishing,” Casaus said. “For me, you can’t put a price tag on that. Any efforts to sell off and privatize our public lands is really only aimed to privilege the few wealthy individuals who’d be able to purchase those lands.”
FIX OUR FORESTS ACT
Vasquez is also cosponsoring the Fix Our Forests Act, forest management legislation introduced by Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, which passed the House last week in a 279-141 vote. The stated goal of the Fix Our Forests Act is to reduce wildfire threat and expedite forest management projects.
The bill includes legislation from Vasquez to allow targeted livestock grazing meant to reduce wildfire risk and to expand Good Neighbor Authority to tribes, allowing tribes to sell timber under Good Neighbor Authority agreements.
“Allowing tribes like the Mescalero Apache to be able to participate in force in projects in an area in the Lincoln National Forest that impacts their traditional homelands is really important for me, and their ability to actually take on some of these projects is included in this bill, which is one of the main reasons I supported it,” Vasquez said.
The U.S. Forest Service can enter agreements with non-federal entities like states or counties through the Good Neighbor Authority. But under existing law, tribal governments cannot do timber sales under their own Good Neighbor Authority agreements.
The legislation would allow tribes to “have thinning operations that both help prevent catastrophic wildfires, and at the same time, allows them to benefit both from the jobs and the timber sales that come with reducing that wildfire risk,” Vasquez said.
The Fix Our Forests Act would also exempt some activities from review under the National Environmental Policy Act and exempt the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from some regulatory requirements under the Endangered Species Act, a measure drawing ire from environmental advocacy groups.
NEPA requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts of major projects, such as new roads or mining, while the Endangered Species Act provides protections for endangered plants and animals.
According to advocacy groups Environment America and Defenders of Wildlife, exempting a range of vegetation management activities from NEPA would open public lands to massive logging projects.
“This is nothing more than a bill of goods that will do little of anything to combat fires and instead plays favorites with the timber industry which is hungry to consume more of our forests — removing large fire-resilient trees and devastating the lands and species which call them home,” Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife said in a statement.
‘Red or Green Chile Month’ proposal advances - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
What’s your preference – red, green or Christmas?
You may soon have the whole month of August to decide as another legislative proposal dedicated to the beloved chile pepper moves forward in the Roundhouse.
Rep. Rebecca Dow (R-Truth or Consequences) presented House Bill 172 to lawmakers in the House Rural Development, Land Grants and Cultural Affairs Committee Tuesday morning and received a unanimous do-pass vote. The bill proposes proclaiming August “Red and Green Chile Month” annually.
The proclamation is intended to give a nod to the state’s status as the “Chile Capital of the World,” as well as the economic and cultural impacts the peppers bring to the state.
“It’ll provide us the opportunity (in) all four corners of the state, all 33 counties, to celebrate chile and New Mexico,” Dow said during the meeting. “We really want to have an opportunity to elevate awareness and celebrate our producers and what’s unique to our state.”
Dow said the plan is to work with New Mexico True, a campaign of the Tourism Department, to create tours across the state.
In 1996 the New Mexico State Legislature passed a House Joint Memorial declaring “Red or Green?” as the official state question. In 2023, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law declaring the smell of roasting green chile the state’s official aroma. Chile is also one of the state’s official vegetables.
Travis Day, executive director of the New Mexico Chile Association, joined Dow as her expert witness and noted for lawmakers that 8,800 acres of chile were harvested in the state in 2023, equating to about $41.5 million in value.
“I think as a state, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to promote and advocate for our New Mexico chile product, because we are a declining crop, unfortunately, and we want to do anything we can to help build that industry back up,” Day told committee members, noting that labor shortages
Lisa Franzoy, a “lifelong” resident of Hatch and organizer of the annual Hatch Chile Festival, which is celebrated over Labor Day weekend, said she is proud that her family has long been involved in chile production in the valley and said she supports the bill.
“We’ve already got our license plates, we already have our billboards,” Franzoy told lawmakers, “and chile is an important industry to New Mexico, to every New Mexican.”
Joe Wellborn, a member of the New Mexico Chile Association board, also voiced his support for the bill saying a month-long celebration of the crop might attract more people from out of state to take advantage of what New Mexico has to offer.
“We are trying to build an agricultural tourism industry in New Mexico, and this has to be part of it,” Dow said during the meeting.
Committee Chair Rep. Linda Serrato (D-Santa Fe) added that northern New Mexico has an old tradition of producing red chile while southern New Mexico claims green chile. “I love how we mix it together,” she said.
HB 172 will be heard in the House Government, Elections & Indian Affairs Committee. It has yet to be scheduled for a hearing.