Capital & Main

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham flew to Australia earlier this month with an oil and gas lobbyist and the head of a natural gas industry group to speak at a hydrogen conference. The trip came after a week of whiplash hydrogen news in the state, with a panel recommending money for hydrogen projects, the federal government snubbing a New Mexico-led regional hydrogen hub proposal and a state agency releasing a rosy outlook for the carbon sequestration needed for hydrogen production.

Oil and gas money is all over the New Mexico Roundhouse. It accounts for 35% of the state budget proposal this year, according to the Legislative Finance Committee. It’s also in the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the aisle. It’s within this landscape that debates around expanding or restricting fossil fuel production take place.

Since 2020 the state has allowed oil and gas producers to temporarily stop running pumps because the pandemic economy was particularly bad for business. But despite the rebound in oil prices, there are still more than 1,000 wells sitting idle.

New Mexico reaped more than $1.7 billion dollars in oil and gas revenue in the first third of 2022 – that’s more than double the income from the same period last year according to oil and gas reporter Jerry Redfern from Capital and Main. He told KUNM that all the extra money comes with complications when it comes to budgeting for the future.

Earthquake activity has increased dramatically in southern New Mexico likely due to injection wells in the Permian Basin. These are used to store…