On Thursday’s episode of Let’s Talk New Mexico, journalists joined KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios to review what happened in the recent legislation session. Among the most notable bills to fail was the Clear Horizons Act. Jerry Redfern, a reporter with Capital & Main who covers the oil and gas industry, said the idea of the bill was to codify 2019 goals set by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to reduce greenhouse gas levels across the state.
JERRY_REDFERN: It’s not the first time this has been up, a very similar bill was in the legislature last year, also was struck down in committee at that point. This time, the main sponsor of it, Sen. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), spoke with oil and gas companies during the interim to try to figure out, “is there a way that we can get this bill across the line? What can I write into this to get you to sign off on it?” And the oil and gas companies came back with an idea for carbon offsets they're called, where, instead of requiring emissions to be reduced directly at the source, say, right at a leaking wellhead, or right at a gas plant down in the Permian Basin, they would be able to offset those greenhouse emissions someplace else in the state, you know, you grow a forest, you capture carbon and sequester it underground, which is another large initiative of state government at this point. It's a simple idea, but it was kind of a complicated bill.
KUNM: What were some of the reasons this session for oppositions?
REDFERN: I've always found that a little bit difficult to put my finger on. The main opposition came from the oil and gas industry, for sure, but also then a huge coalition of business groups across the state and farmers and ranchers. It was interesting listening to the complaints that came up against the bill during the hearings for it. The key thing though, was that the bill this year did have very specifically limits set on who would be covered by the bill. And if you're not emitting more than 10,000 metric tons of CO-2 emissions a year, you weren't going to be covered by that. And that's pretty much most farms, most small businesses, but still, they came out very strongly against it. And again, even though the oil and gas industry had this whole carbon offsets plan written up and set into the middle of the bill, the oil and gas industry, particularly led by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, came out very, very strongly against it, and that group, NMOGA, spent well north of $100,000 in advertising against the bill, and particularly by name, against various senators on the Democratic side.
KUNM: During the hearing for this bill, it came down to seven Democrats who joined all of the minority Republican caucus that eventually killed it. Can you describe what happened?
REDFERN: Well, it was kind of interesting at the time, because I kind of thought the fix was in. There was the debate in favor of the bill, and usually what happens afterwards is there's debate against the bill, but there was none of that. There was no counter debate, no Republicans spoke against it, which was, I think, very telling at the time. And none of the Democrats who eventually voted against it, none of them spoke against it, either. The funny thing about that, though, I just was talking with Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup) yesterday about this and about some other things as well. And I asked him, you know, why'd you vote against it? Did you folks all talk about this beforehand? And he said, actually, he was totally surprised by the vote in the end, he thought it was going to pass. So that came, I think, as a surprise to all sorts of people.
KUNM: So I wanted to talk about one of your articles. You note that some of the biggest producers, including Chevron and Occidental in the state, already have greenhouse gas reduction goals that are equal or better than what was in the Clear Horizons Act. If these standards are already being implemented by the companies, why did lawmakers push back against the bill?
REDFERN: Just sort of a quick clarification there. Just because a company says that they're going to do a thing doesn't mean they're going to do a thing. Sometimes they think that companies need to be sort of, you know, they plan to do it. They tell people that's what they hope to do. It's a goal. But, you know, are they actually going to get there? And I think that the Clear Horizons Act, the point of it, is something that Senator Stewart told me as well, part of the point of it is to get these companies to do what they say they're going to do. Yeah. So I think that's what we were seeing in action there.
KUNM: So given that our state relies heavily on the surplus of oil and gas to pay for many projects, how did the pro Clear Horizons lawmakers try to convince those against the bill to sign on?
REDFERN: Well, I think that carbon capture and offset part of it was the big part of it this year. That, plus putting into writing that baseline where businesses or institutions that were only emitting, you know, 10,000 metric tons or less per year were not going to be controlled by that. I think those are the big offers that were being made there. I mean, again, this is kind of a complicated issue, I think, and in this state where oil and gas revenues make up literally a third of the general fund or so and a half of total revenues that come into the state, I think an awful lot of legislators get really, really, really nervous when there's a large group, a loud group, saying that doing anything against oil and gas is going to cost the state money. I think there's a lot of debate to be had about whether that's actually the case or not, but yeah, that's what we saw play out here.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
