A Visit to Capitol Hill on National IPL Lobby Day

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By Cynthia Gonzalez and Rev. Clara Sims

We had a busy day on Wednesday, May 8, meeting with four congressional offices. We met with the staff from the offices of Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Senator Martin Heinrich, Representatives Gabe Vasquez and Theresa Ledger Fernandez. Due to conflicts with scheduling, we were not able to meet with the office of Representative Melanie Stansbury, however, were able to stop by and drop off a package with information and in the age of zoom, we look forward to a virtual meeting soon.

The staff at each of the offices were very welcoming. We had positive exchanges with each of the staffers, who listened and acknowledged our concerns. Since they are champions on the issues of climate and environmental justice, we asked for their support on specific bills and initiatives and shared with them about our ongoing work with communities of faith and conscience.

Urging Congress to preserve important EPA standards

A main focus in each meeting was our immediate concern with deployment of the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Congressional Review Acts seek to roll back President Biden’s administrative rules on EPA standards for things such as methane emissions, other air pollutants, and much more. As a recent “State of the Air Report” highlighted, counties across NM and the El Paso region are suffering from worsening air conditions – frontline communities in the Permian and Four Corners region as well as large urban centers like Bernalillo County.

In our meetings, we delivered postcards from community members highlighting the need to protect the EPA. We need an EPA with strong standards so they can not only enforce present rules but also declare where air pollution standards are already being violated across our state and region. We are grateful that all offices shared our concern with protecting these vital administrative rules to protect the immediate and long-term health of our sacred communities.

Supporting US participation in International Climate Finance effort

With a longer time-frame in mind, we also asked our legislators to support the United States participation in International Climate Finance (ICF). As Pope Francis expressed so poignantly in his encyclical letter Laudato Si, our country bears a “disproportionate responsibility” to lead internationally and help communities globally whose lives are already changing drastically due to climate change.

Presently the U.S. is behind on the relatively small financial commitments already made. Not only do these commitments need to be greater in proportion to our financial capacity to provide aid to other countries, we also need to do right by the promises already made.

In each meeting, we shared stories and experiences from communities of faith and conscience across New Mexico and the El Paso region, naming especially our increasing concern for the ways extractivism and New Mexico’s legacy as a “sacrifice zone” for industry interests continues to harm us all. We are grateful that each office shared these concerns and acknowledged the need to learn from and work closely with frontline communities and Tribal Nations especially as we seek healing and justice for our climate and common home.

We appreciate the opportunities we had to meet with the congressional offices and look forward to collaborating in the future on the many ways we are called to be leaders guided by moral integrity and love in action for this sacred creation into which we are woven.

(Cynthia Gonzalez is an IPL New Mexico-El Paso board member from El Paso Texas. Rev. Clara Sims is assistant executive director).

IPL New Mexico-El Paso, Citizens Caring for the Future Join 27 Other Groups in Petition to Governor

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IPL New Mexico & El Paso and Citizens Caring for the Future were among a group of 29  environmental and civic organizations signing a letter to Gov. Lujan Grisham urging her to line-item veto parts of House Bill 252 that would create an oil and gas severance tax exemption for “stripper well properties” for the costs of complying with the state’s 2021 methane waste rule and 2022 ozone precursor rule. If signed into law, this bill would perversely give companies a tax break for costs incurred to protect the public against hazards of these businesses’ own creation.

We adapted the above paragraph from an article written by The Western Enviromental Law Center. Here is the rest of the piece

“In its analysis, the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee found the exemption could cost the state $17.2 million in revenue between fiscal years 2025 to 2028, reduce bonding capacity by $18.8 million over the same time period, increase the Oil Conservation Division’s annual operating costs by $200,000, and require two new full-time-equivalent OCD employees. This tax giveaway to oil and gas operators therefore comes at the expense of the severance tax’s permanent fund and agency capacity at the precise time the state should be leveraging its resources to prepare for the inevitable decline of oil and gas revenue and production.

“House Bill 252’s oil and gas severance tax exemption reflects well-founded public concerns that the political deck is decidedly stacked in favor of the oil and gas industry, not the people of New Mexico,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “The oil and gas industry secured this severance tax exemption in the shadows while gutting sensible oil and gas reforms backed by the Lujan Grisham administration and other state officials. Line-item vetoing HB 252’s oil and gas severance tax exemption provides Gov. Lujan Grisham with an opportunity to stand strong for the people of New Mexico.”

Several state agencies expressed concern with the severance tax exemption:

  • The New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department wrote in its fiscal impact report that the exemption “[w]ould set a precedent in tax policy that businesses may lower their tax liability to financially support complying with other business regulations and laws for operations. All businesses across all industries have business costs to meet varying laws, regulations and reporting. This would erode horizontal equity among taxpayers.”
  • The New Mexico State Land Office warned the exemption “[w]ould incentivize producers to continue operating poorly producing stripper wells [and] could result in the state/taxpayers incurring the legacy remediation and reclamation costs of the wells.”
  • And, as observed by the Attorney General, “[t]he Severance Tax Act and the Incentives Act already give favorable tax treatment to production from stripper wells.”

“A fundamental economic principle is businesses should bear the external social costs they create,” said Kayley Shoup, community organizer for Citizens Caring for the Future. “Oil and gas operators—not the public—should pay the compliance costs of reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations to protect our climate and to reduce toxic air pollutants that harm public health. A tax break to the industry that is polluting the air where my neighbors and I live in the Permian Basin is simply not warranted.”

The groups signing on to the letter include the Western Environmental Law Center, 350 New Mexico, Albuquerque Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Center For Civic Policy, Chaco Alliance, Citizens Caring For The Future, Earth Action, Inc., Earthworks, Environmental Defense Fund, FracTracker Alliance, Indivisible Albuquerque, League Of Women Voters New Mexico, Moms Clean Air Force New Mexico Chapter, New Energy Economy, New Mexico Climate Justice, New Mexico Interfaith Power And Light, New Mexico Sportsmen, New Mexico Voices For Children, New Mexico Voters For Children Action Fund, New Mexico Wild, Progressive Democrats Of America – Central New Mexico, ProgressNow New Mexico, Prosperity Works, Rio Arriba Concerned Citizens, Rio Grande Indivisible, New Mexico, San Juan Citizens Alliance, See (Social Eco Education), and WildEarth Guardians.”

 

Please Sign Our Petition in Support of EPA Methane Rules

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Please join people of faith and conscience in New Mexico in signing a petition to thank the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for finalizing a strong rule to cut methane and other harmful pollutants from oil and gas operations. This action protects vulnerable communities in the Permian Basin and the Four Corners.

As people of faith and conscience in New Mexico, are writing to express our gratitude for your leadership in finalizing the rule to cut methane pollution and other harmful air pollutants from the oil and gas sector. This bold action is a critical step toward addressing climate change, protecting public health, and creating new jobs.

These common-sense protections address one of the single largest sources of climate-destabilizing pollution in the U.S. and the world. Methane is 80 times more powerful at warming the climate than carbon dioxide, and over one-third of the warming the world is experiencing today is due to methane emissions from human activities.

View full petition and please add your signature

Read a letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee in support of EPA rules, signed by Kayley Shoup, organizer for Citizens Caring for the Future, and Sister Joan Brown, executive director of Interfaith Power & Light New Mexico,