Skies clear — for now

Multiple attacks on clean air, water, climate at New Mexico Legislature session are all unsuccessful

By Dan Lorimier, RG Chapter lobbyist
During the last two years of Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration in New Mexico, key environmental and public health rules were adopted to protect New Mexico’s citizens and natural resources. Two examples are the carbon cap-and-trade regulations set to start in 2012 and the new dairy waste-discharge regulations that are ready to go into effect now.
With the election of Gov. Susana Martinez and several new legislators last November, big business in New Mexico saw a chance to undo the new regulations and increase its profits. Consequently, many bills were introduced in the 2011 Legislative session that sought to revoke the new rules, dismiss the Environmental Improvement Board and the Water Quality Control Commission, or require legislative approval of new rules.

Defensive action
The Chapter’s Legislative Committee organized and directed the on-the-ground lobbying at the Roundhouse and the thousands of calls and e-mails to key legislators from our member activists. This coordination resulted in a very high success rate for blocking the many bills aimed at deregulating our largest industries.
We were also able to stop several bills proposing to allow off-highway vehicles on certain paved roads and other bills seeking to pull spending in the OHV program away from education and enforcement and direct it to OHV track/trail maintenance and expansion.

Trying to move forward
We had less success trying to move good bills through the Legislature. After our achievement last session in passing a requirement that new public buildings must be designed and constructed to be far more energy-efficient than current building codes demand, we hoped to expand energy efficiency in the commercial building sector. This year’s SB442, sponsored by Sen. Carlos Cisneros, would require commercial building owners to disclose an energy-efficiency rating for the building at the time of sale or lease. Despite our serious efforts, this bill was tabled (killed) in the Senate Conservation Committee.
Our new approach
This year the Rio Grande Chapter employed new communication tools with our activists. In the past we have sent legislative alerts that required activists to compose and send e-mails to key legislators. Now, activists can just click through to automatically send a message to their own legislator. This has two big advantages; it’s faster and easier, and your message is automatically sent to your own legislator. Messages from their own constituents have a far stronger impact on legislators. By combining our direct lobbying work with these more focused and powerful activist communications, we are much more effective in the Roundhouse than in the past.

A team effort
Our efforts were part of a larger strategy adopted by the Environmental Alliance of New Mexico. As part of this ad hoc coalition, the Rio Grande Chapter participated in coordinated lobbying and activist alerts with other organizations. It was this coordination and strategic action that resulted in our remarkable success. We were also helped by legislators, including the House and Senate leadership of Ben Luján and Michael Sanchez, in protecting so many common-sense safeguards for our air and water.

Lay of the land
The bad economy dominated the session to the point that the Legislature expressed a general reluctance to take big chances. Big changes come with big risks, and legislators of both parties hesitated to gamble on risky changes like restructuring agencies, boards and commissions.

While the 2011 Legislative session ended without major environmental defeats, the pressure to weaken our protective regulations and the boards and commissions that promulgate these rules will continue. We will surely need your help to block the attacks we and New Mexico’s land, air and water will be facing.

A special thanks to all of our legislative activists, who gave the Chapter a critical lobbying advantage over big business’ special-interest lobbyists.