New Mexico officials made big promises to tackle climate change this year, starting with a slew of environmentally friendly bills adopted by the Legislature in January and February. But the question of how those good intentions play out inspired enough drama to be worthy of a soap opera, especially when it comes to shutting down the coal fired San Juan Generating Station.
It was also a record-breaking year for the oil and gas industry, causing youth activists to raise the irony of a state trying to go green even as it sinks ever deeper into financial dependence on fossil fuels.
As we go into 2020, here's a look back at what happened this year.
1) San Juan Generating Station Saga Season 1 just ended. Stay tuned for Season 2
In the spring, New Mexico's Energy Transition Act became law. It's one of the most progressive—and controversial—energy-related laws in the state's environmental history.
The new law sets New Mexico on track to transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy by 2045. It also lays out a plan for shutting down the coal powered San Juan Generating Station including $40 million in workforce aid and allows owners to refinance the plant through bonds that eventually get paid off by ratepayers.
In July, the Public Regulation Commission decided to handle abandonment and financing proceedings under a docket opened by the commission in January, before the law went into effect. The move was a signal that the PRC questioned whether the Energy Transition Act applied to the closure of the plant.
In the following months, PNM petitioned the New Mexico Supreme Court to enforce the new law on the closure plan, while New Energy Economy petitioned the court to rule that the law was unconstitutional because it shouldered ratepayers with the costs of closure. The court denied both petitions, and lawmakers questioned the PRC's ability to do its job. Some suggested restructuring the commission to an appointed rather than an elected board.
The drama continued into December as the PRC began hearings on the closure of the plant, and lawmakers who crafted the law—plus Gov. Lujan Grisham and Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez—once again asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Meanwhile, the city of Farmington and a company called Enchant Energy Corp. have an entirely different plan: They want to keep the facility running and produce low-carbon, coal-powered electricity by turning it into the largest carbon-capture and sequestration facility in the world. However, critics, including PNM, say it's an extremely risky endeavor.
2) Pecos community says ‘Not another mine’
In April, the Australian mining company New World Cobalt submitted an application to begin prospecting for gold, copper and zinc on the slopes of Jones Hill, just a few miles away from the site of the old Tererro Mine near the Pecos Wilderness. The firm wants to drill 30 "exploratory" holes to assess the potential of the site for further mining activities, and predicted that the project would begin before the end of the year.
But the company severely underestimated the pushback from people who live in and love Pecos, and how long it would take to navigate the bureaucratic process to get the application approved.
In August, Santa Fe County amended its Sustainable Land Development Code to include stricter regulations for mineral resource exploration, extraction and processing.
As the months passed into fall, Pecos residents, environmental groups, local farmers, acequia associations and surrounding pueblos joined together to stop the project.
At the beginning of December, the CEO of the company showed up to a public meeting hosted by the Forest Service, and US Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-NM, announced his support of legislation to change federal mining laws.
The project must go through environmental and cultural assessments and receive permits from the Santa Fe National Forest as well as the New Mexico Minerals and Mining Division before it can move forward. The application to the Forest Service is undergoing the scoping process and public comment period to determine what kinds of environmental protections will be required. The agency has prohibited any drilling until the end of the spotted owl breeding season in fall of next year.
The Forest Service deadline to comment is January 17.
3) Oil, gas, and methane, oh my!
New Mexico has experienced a windfall of cash from the oil and gas boom in the Permian Basin that allowed for a little extra spending in the last legislative session. But expanded oil and gas production also means a spike in CO2 and methane emissions emanating from the state—posing a serious problem for Gov. Lujan Grisham, who has both promised to lower the state's carbon footprint and support the oil and gas producers.
Eventually, environmental advocates say, the state will have to cut its dependence on oil and gas revenues to truly meet the challenge of climate change. But for now, the governor has set her sights on solving the state's massive methane problem.
In January, Lujan Grisham ordered the state's Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and Environment Department to jointly develop a statewide, enforceable regulatory framework for laws that would limit methane emissions in the future.
In September, the state partnered with Santa Fe-based data processing lab Descartes Labs to use information from space-based satellites and other public and private sources to detect, map and model methane emissions and get an accurate assessment of the problem for the first time.
4) Los Alamos National Labs plans to expand, but the safety violations just keep coming
Los Alamos National Lab has accrued multiple violations of toxic waste safety regulations in the last year, as has the company the labs hired to clean up and dispose of toxic waste from past operations that is still on site. The company, N3B, received 29 safety citations this year.
In November, the lab announced it would place a bid to develop an administrative complex at the Midtown campus in Santa Fe.
In December, analysis of the state's yearly report on hazardous waste permit violations found that the company responsible for cleaning up the Los Alamos site lost track of 250 barrels of waste that were being shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad. A few days later, the US House of Representatives passed a military spending bill that nearly doubles the cash for the lab to produce new plutonium pits.
The lab has said it plans to hire 1,000 new workers per year for the next few years.
The City Council is due to vote on Midtown projects in the coming year.
5) Youth strike and rise
In 2019, the youth climate movement became a worldwide phenomenon, led in part by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg. The young activist inspired hundreds of thousands of other young people to protest the failure of global governments to solve the climate crisis, which led Time magazine to name her person of the year.
In March, youth from Santa Fe schools joined the movement and organized a climate strike in solidarity with other students in cities across the country.
Over the summer young organizers joined forces to create Youth United in Climate Change Action (YUCCA), the youth-led arm of Santa Fe-based organization Earth Care. In September, YUCCA organized a second climate strike, this time aimed directly at the oil and gas industry.
In October, the activists once again occupied the Roundhouse. They asked New Mexico lawmakers to declare a climate emergency and presented a list of demands to the governor that include funding and research for a plan to transition away from fossil fuels in a way that is inclusive of historically marginalized groups, finds alternative funding sources for education, and helps communities recover from the loss of fossil fuel jobs. Their demands also included a moratorium on fracking and community solar legislation.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story misidentified US Rep. Ben Ray Lujan's role in federal mining legislation. He supports existing legislation to amend mining law.
