New Mexico Tea Party Governor Kills 3% Yearly Pollution Reduction Plan

January 8th, 2011 by Susan Kraemer

According to the New York Times, incoming Tea Party Governor Susana Martinez has just fired all of the Environmental Improvement Board members who in December passed pollution reduction legislation, and issued an executive order, to halt all pending regulations to “determine whether they hurt business” in New Mexico. The climate plan had been opposed by the energy interests that funded her candidacy.

In December, under termed-out Democratic Governor Bill Richardson, New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Board had adopted a greenhouse gas reduction plan that would gradually, at a rate of 3% a year, transition the state to clean energy, by requiring greenhouse gases be reduced 25% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Four Northeastern States have already embarked on similar annual pollution reduction plans, and have been meeting those goals, and California is about to implement its own.

New Mexico’s plan was adopted by the board by an overwhelming majority vote. Martinez halted it to determine if the plan “hurts business.”

Given that the fossil fuel industry sued for two years in court to stop the greenhouse gas reduction plan, it can be assumed that there will certainly be at least one aggrieved industry to claim that regulations “hurt business”.

Under her protection, this will enable big polluters in the state to overturn the regulations. Martinez, an outspoken climate denier candidate, received hundreds of thousands from oil and gas interests, according to the Times. But polluter industry efforts to overturn the ruling via their new Governor might not be that easy.

It was a small local non-profit environmental organization, New Energy Economy, that was instrumental in getting the plan passed into law, with local input and testimony to counter two years of legal obstruction by the fossil energy industry.

The emissions reduction plan would put New Mexico on a path to joining Massachusetts and California, which is just about to begin implementing its own climate plan, having shaken off similar polluter obstruction (with a Tea Party astroturfed ballot initiative: Prop 23) that failed.

The Northeastern RGGI states have for several years succeeded in reducing greenhouses gases with similar legislation that encourages clean energy and efficiency.

The plan was to begin in 2013, and require 3% reductions annually from 2010 levels starting in 2012. It would involve big polluters only, those electric power plants, petroleum and natural gas facilities in New Mexico that generate greenhouse gas pollution emissions exceeding 25,000 metric tons per year of carbon dioxide.

There was flexibility in how the reductions would be achieved. Owners could use drastic cuts in one faciltiy to count towards their overall cuts. So an owner of several power plants could, for example, replace one of several coal plants with a natural gas power plant (for a 60% GHG reduction), or with a (zero emissions) wind or solar farm. There were upper limits to the spending on new plants.

It had surprised to me that a small local environmental organization had been able to face down the fossil industry in court and get this petition passed into law, and in December I had contacted New Energy Economy to find their secret. They are not the NRDC, after all. It appears that local involvement in the court cases was instrumental.

Lilia Diaz told me in December “one of the reasons that we were successful here is because we had a lot of community support throughout the hearings, with people from very different walks of life testifying in support of a cap on carbon pollution”.

Asked about the prospect of a roll back after the election, one of the board members did say at the time that a simple edict from the governor would not be enough to kill the plan, and speculated that even if she reconstituted the board, it could take as long as a year to rescind the measures.

She has begun that process by firing the board members.

For the Martinez administration to succeed in rolling it back, by New Mexico law, this will take another public process, which must include at least one hearing and a chance for public comment to overturn the rules.

The New Energy Economy plan passed in December was very thorough, involving 200 hours of technical testimony and complex documents and public comments before reaching the decision.

Susan kraemer@Twitter

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Tags: Energy, progressive legislation

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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mark

Nothing but small minded red-neck racist hill billy’s with a hand in every polluters pocket, spreading their miserable childhood across the world.
Lloyd Miller

How silly! CO2 is not a pollutant.

Limiting its emission means RATIONING energy to the people. Lack of energy or higher priced energy means REDUCED STANDARD of living!

Don’t be silly! Palin’s WWW site was not advocating murder! Gun sights indicate defeating politicians politically!

What an absurd nut-job you are!
- ericj
  
  @lloyd: what you say is the usual gross generalization, exageration and baseless fear mongering text you get from right wingers. Limiting co2 emissions does not mean rationing energy to anyone. Where did you get that? What is the basis of this wild and fear mongering claim? Nothing. It also doesn’t mean less energy, higher prices or reduced standards of living – except maybe for the energy industrialists who clearly care about nothing but profits, as evinced by NM gov backing by them. They are the only business that will be “hurt” by pollution controls, and the hurt will be insignificant considering the massive profits they make anyway. Greed rules the tea party. They would eliminate all environmental protections if they could, just to make more money. The tea party is not grassroots. It’s run and funded by billionaire industrialists and aimed at profiteering disguised as “freedom”. BS all the way. You could wrap cow manure in the american flag and they would swallow it like ice cream, and that is what they are doing. Greedy haters.
Roger Lauricella

Susan: I have to agree with Joe, you lose credibility on a Cleantech issue when you start bringing in a tragic event and politicise it with statements you can’t back up. No where did the Congresswoman’s opponent nor Sarah Palin advocate killing anyone. They used metaphor in reference to being in the gunsight for attack (in the election) and in use of a clear drawing point (shooting an M-16) to get backers to come to a campaign rally. Susan you demean yourself and the blog and the group in bringing this up. Stay with the issue of the NM governor firing the Environmental team. Does she not have the right to do so (I believe she does). The NM people elected her knowing where she stood on the issue. And furthermore, the C02 rules would harm the Fossil fuel industry (and therefore business) in NM, do you not doubt it?? If it did not cause affects on their business they would not fight it. You don’t have to agree with their approach but to infer that “businesses would not be hurt” is not truthful. It would have been clearer and more truthful to say “Governor Fires Environmental Panel who passed CO2 rules until such time as She can ascertain the adverse affects on Businesses in New Mexico”. Just like there are consequences with elections everywhere (in our California and the no vote on prop 23) these consequences flow both ways whether right or left on your political spectrum. That one side disagrees when it does not flow there way is inevitable. You can lament that the NM governor is taking an action that is disagreement with the trend in California and the NE but then again CA and the NE tend to be more left leading and Democratic than maybe NM now is?? Since I lean a slightly different direction than you I would have to say CA may be on the one hand expanding business opportunities (in the Cleantech arena, where I will personally benefit greatly) but clearing increasing costs to overall business and the public as a whole that will most likely continue to chase businesses and people out of the state. I am not entirely sure that my increasing personal benefit will outway the global effect on costs in my life and community. Hence I applaud the NM governors stand on the issue.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Hi Roger, we’ve had our disagreements in the past, but you are right. I was surprised by a comment from a friend, on a day with shocking news, that I was shocked to hear about only after posting, with coincidentally ‘tea party’ and ‘killing’ in the headline, which drew a flood of hate spewers to this normally quiet section of the internet.
  
  As to democratic decisions, the people clearly voted for the pollution reduction program by giving testimony in the two years of court cases brought by the polluters who fought the program. It isn’t every day that the enviros win against big polluters, but they did there.
  
  You don’t really believe that a coal plant couldn’t lower its greenhouse gas emissions by just 3% a year, do you? There’s ways to lower pollution 40% 50% 70% or they can buy a wind farm and make energy for about the same money these days. This is hardly onerous to polluters: 3% a year.
  
  But it achieves what we need to do. Why the resistance? It is cleaner and healthier energy.
Geoff Henderson

When the Democrats prevailed over the Republicans, the joy of the world was awesome. In my tiny hometown in Australia, I know people who wept with joy and relief.

Since then we have seen cash politics and stunning stupidity prevail. America is, without a doubt, shooting itself in both feet. Sadly, the great US of A is losing it’s relevance as a respected entity of this world, and Americans, such fine people, seem to have absolutely no idea that this is the happening.
Joe

What a shame that we in New Mexico won’t have the oportunity to “join California” in utter bankruptcy, brought on by foolish waste and superstition, fighting an enemy that does not exist.

Also, if you can establish for me that the deranged vetran who killed Gifford was a tea party member, I’ll gladly kiss any part of your anantomy you care to name, in front of your local poat office at high noon, and give you a half hour ahead of time to draw a crowd.

Blaming the tea party for every crime that takes place ruins any credibility you might have had…Joe
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Fortunately it turns out she may have actually survived, as of now. But the right, the Tea Party, and hate radio does in fact advocate for killing those of us who dare stand up to their fascist agenda.
  
  Giffords was among 20 Reps listed on Tea Party leader Sarah Palin’s site as literally in the cross hairs of a gun-sight – to be taken out.
  
  Her opponent used the same language, as you see in this screen shot during the campaign:
  http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/08/giffords-opponent-jesse-kelly-held-june-event-to-shoot-a-fully-automatic-m16-to-get-on-target-and-remove-gabrielle-giffords/
  
  You can’t advocate for killing democratically elected politicians, and then be held blameless when some crazy person takes you up on it.
  
  Suicide bombers can’t be right in the head either, but it is only by subjecting them to a steady diet of hate-filled propaganda that they are driven to kill, too.
  - hidrologo
    
    excellent comment by Susan. Of course the R-Party and the T-party will distance themselves from the wing-nut that did this crime. But let a couple of months go by and Palin, Beck, and others will continue the hate propaganda, since Americans have short term memories. In the meantime, they will work on repealing “Obamacare” so that the insurance companies can drop coverage (of the lucky ones that had insurance).
- http://wvoutpost.com WV Treehugger
  
  If your sweet little Tea Party haters would stop spewing hate at everyone who doesn’t agree with them,then we wouldn’t blame the Tea Party. Also if lil princess Sarah wouldn’t have put out a map with a gun target on this lady none of this would have happened! Now we have a 9 year old child dead in the shooting! Do you think that’s ok? Is this how the Tea Party is planning on taking the Country back,by killing elected Reps?
  
  Like Susan said you can’t hold an event to shoot a fully automatic m16 to take out your opponent! Way to many nuts in this world these days.
  Two of the Reps on her list were from my state of WV, so this pisses me off! What if my kids and I were at a local event with Nick Rahall speaking and some idiot opens fire on the crowd kills my kids? (I would not go to see him but anyway).
  
  You Tea Party members speak nothing but hate! You hate Gays,Dems,Latino’s,same sex couples and Renewable Energy. God forbid we would leave our children a planet with clean air,water and mtns behind. All you care about is leaving them debt free. Well let me tell ya something honey money wont buy them clean water,fresh air and a new ecosystem.Anyone who don’t bow down and worship Sarah Palin,Glenn Beck,Shawn Hannity and Fox news are hated by all Tea Party members. Our President is no Commie sweetie! Glenn Beck is the Commie leader. Name one Dem that constantly speaks about Socialists,Commies or Nazis on a daily basis? Not one!
  
  Just Glenn Beck and FAUX news. So if you think for one Minute that what happened in Arizona is a good thing then you are nothing more than a coldhearted Socialist commie yourself SIR!
  This DEM and the rest of the Nation is not afraid of your little revolution! But most of all we are not Commies nor our President! WE will not back down from your threats against us! That’s why it’s a FREE country,no matter what the Glenn Beck followers think.
  
  Also Susan is a very smart lady; she knows her stuff when it comes to clean energy. The only reason Cali is in the shape its in now is because it was ran by a REPUB! Greedy money grabbing repub only out for his bank account instead of the people of the state!
  Keep up the Great writing Susan!
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http://desertverde.com nan

What a sad day all around.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Hi Nan, yeah. I did not know of the Tea Party killing of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords today till just after I posted this. But what a sad day.