Energy and Environment
Energy and Environment
Democrats support the use of renewable energy and will train the workforce, create jobs, and support small businesses in a just transition to a renewable energy infrastructure. We will position New Mexico as a key global hub for technology, manufacturing, and construction to join and accelerate the clean-energy transition as a means to protect air, land, and water, and do everything in our power to avoid climate catastrophe. We will engage community members in decision making through meaningful consultation and full participation in environmental-justice planning.
We Affirm
1. The right to live in a healthy environment and the right to clean air, land, and water; and
2. Historically, Black, Indigenous, and people of color and lower-income and working-class people are
disproportionately and negatively impacted by climate disruption and/or pollution; and
3. The world must move swiftly to 100% renewable electricity and remove fossil fuels from all sectors as soon as
possible; and
4. New Mexico must be using 100% renewable electricity by 2030; and
5. That reducing carbon emissions in all sectors of the economy is essential; and
6. Our nation’s spending on infrastructure has fallen to its lowest level in 70 years, resulting in lost productivity,
investment, collapse of U.S. manufacturing, and a degradation of our competitive edge worldwide.
We Will
1. Develop a plan that lays out mandatory benchmarks to transition electricity generation, transportation,
manufacturing, and agriculture to 100% renewable energy; and
2. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than 80% below 2005 levels; and
3. Call for economic support for workers in affected industries and affected local communities and Indigenous
sovereign nations as we transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy; and
4. Cut energy waste in New Mexico homes, schools, hospitals, and offices by implementing energy-efficiency
programs and making New Mexico manufacturing clean and efficient; and
5. Reinstate the New Mexico Solar Energy Tax credit; and
6. Transition tax breaks and subsidies from fossil fuel industries to renewable energy providers; and
7. Prioritize and incentivize wind, solar, and other renewable energy and energy-storage technologies while phasing
out all fossil-fuel-based power plants; and
8. Support community solar programs to expand solar access to underserved lower-income individuals and groups;
and
9. Support the development of Public Power in New Mexico, i.e., some form of public ownership of electricity
infrastructure, to ensure that the transition to renewable energy will include a restructuring of the power grid
energy markets and the ownership and control of this infrastructure to best serve community values and interests.
Ensure and protect the right of New Mexicans to tie residential and commercial solar to the grid; and
10. Enact the Green Amendment to the New Mexico Constitution, which will make clean pure water, clean air, a
stable climate, and healthy environments a constitutional right for New Mexicans for future generations; and
11. Assert our rights to clean pure water, clean air, a stable climate, and healthy environments and communities as
they are essential to protecting all New Mexicans from contagious disease (e.g., COVID-19), and pollution (e.g.,
Gold King Mine spill and Kirtland AFB jet fuel spill) and from the disparate impacts that egregiously harm
communities of working-class people and people of color; and
12. Invest in a statewide, renewable-energy-powered, and publicly accessible electric-vehicle-charging network; and
13. Construct new transmission lines to transport low-cost renewable energy to market in a transparent and
environmentally sound way; and
14. Upgrade distribution systems so that they have the capacity to accommodate the continued growth of distributed
generation, building electrification, electric vehicles, and emerging technologies; and
15. Close the Halliburton loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act and require that all chemicals used in hydraulic
fracturing (fracking) must be disclosed to the appropriate government regulators as public information; and
16. Support the formation of a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) modeled on the four previous nationally chartered
public banks to fund the development of the infrastructure needed to achieve our renewable energy transition; and
17. Reject hydrogen production that utilizes any form of fossil fuel, either directly or as fossil-fuel-powered energy;
and
18. Ensure that all New Mexicans, including landowners, communities of color, and affected tribal nations, are
honored and respected in the decision-making and energy-implementation processes; and
19. Ban the importing and use of clean water for fracking purposes, and require that the oil and gas industry account
for all water: from its origination source; the amount used and recovered; the toxicity of the fracking waste
“produced water” that results; and where that waste ultimately ends up. Require that the oil and gas industry be
transparent with the public on these findings; and
20. Stop the use of fracking waste “produced water” and criminalize the contamination of watershed; and
21. Educate and empower our population using independent data with scientific integrity to face the challenges of
climate change, including mitigation strategies; and
22. Support improved government regulation to ensure our water is not polluted by agricultural, mining, sewage
treatment, chemical, oil and gas, or other activities; and
23. Increase funding of the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division to adequately staff all offices with qualified
personnel at competitive salaries to oversee drilled wells, witness and verify the integrity of all wellbores, and
enforce the most stringent federal and state environmental regulations, while creating public involvement and
oversight of this process; and
24. Respect the cultural heritage and historical use of acequias and other traditional irrigation practices; and
25. Engage and involve Black, Indigenous and other people of color, lower-income and working-class people in
meaningful consultation and full participation “at the table” from the beginning: when collecting data;
researching; investigating; engaging in environmental justice planning; and in formulating solutions to
unsustainable development and environmentally harmful practices; and
26. Support implementation of the “30 x 30 Initiative” (to conserve 30% of the nation’s land and water by 2030) and
keep public lands public for all time; and
27. Support the protection and reclamation of New Mexico’s state land, public land, and natural resources from
damage inflicted by extractive industries; and
28. Support federal Wild and Scenic Rivers designation for the Gila, the last free-flowing river in New Mexico and its
tributaries; and
29. Support the protection and preservation of our National and State Parks, Forests, Monuments, World Heritage
Sites, and Indigenous sacred sites, especially those in New Mexico, such as Chaco Canyon and Valle del Oro; and
30. Support the Endangered Species Act to protect threatened and endangered animals; and
31. Support a state-level moratorium on the building, placement, or expansion of existing factory animal farms; and
32. Support enlisting farmers and ranchers as partners in promoting conservation and stewardship; and
33. Advocate for legislation and policies that will require state and local governments to implement federal Justice40
policies, rules, and laws (to deliver at least 40% of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and
clean energy to disadvantaged communities). Coordinate with federal government agencies to remediate the
harms caused by decades of environmental and economic injustice and build instead healthy and sustainable
communities for all through massive investments in infrastructure designed and developed by and for the people;
and
34. Establish an independent and transparent baseline for groundwater based on Cumulative Impact Analyses; test for
groundwater quantity and quality before new permits are issued; and ensure due process in these water permitting
procedures; and
35. Advocate for federal, state, and local legislation that will require government agencies to consider cumulative
impacts from multiple pollutants and sources, mandatory limits on fossil-fuel emissions in already polluted
communities, and the applicants’ past violations when such agencies are making permitting decisions under water
and air quality laws; and
36. Advocate for federal, state, and local legislation that will require and adequately fund government agencies to
include community-based environmental, public health, and social impact data collection and analysis, related
research, mapping, and environmental-justice strategic plans in the implementation of agency programs and
policies.
