El Rito Media News Services
 

The temperature in the Senate grew hot at times Tuesday over a bill designed to make communities across New Mexico more resilient to the effects of a warming planet.

Senate Bill 48, which would create a community benefit fund to pay for projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change, passed the Senate on a party-line 23-15 vote after Republicans introduced a series of amendments the Democrat-controlled chamber rejected one by one.

“This bill is about giving New Mexico a fighting chance at a cleaner, safer and more prosperous future,” the sponsor, Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said in her closing remarks after a three-hour debate.

“It’s a bit dismaying to think that people don’t want to fund our communities that are asking for help mitigating wildfires, repairing after floods and wildfires,” Stewart added. “It’s just embarrassing to me that so many would say no to deliver funds to our communities.”

Republicans, however, argued they were trying to provide guardrails with some of their proposed amendments to protect New Mexico taxpayers from income disruptions, particularly when a revenue bonanza from the oil and gas industry starts to decline.

The first amendment proposed would have delayed SB 48 from going into effect until the share of the state’s revenue from oil and gas, which currently accounts for about half, drops below 35%.

“It would be counterproductive to target this industry while it literally is paying our bills,” said Sen. Steve Lanier, R-Aztec. “I want to make sure that we are not killing the goose that lays the golden egg.”

After Lanier’s amendment failed, Sen. Jim Townsend, R-Artesia, introduced what he called the “flip of the previous amendment,” which would repeal the proposed law if oil and gas revenues dropped below 35%.

“Not many people [currently serving in the Legislature] was in the Legislature the last time oil broke,” said Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview. “It would probably have been better if more of them were in the chamber at that point in time. I can remember it. I can remember all the school districts hollering at me that they swept all their surpluses.”

Stewart deemed the Republican amendments unfriendly, and all of them failed. At one point, a large number of Democrats left the chamber while Republicans were discussing one of the amendments and only rushed back on the floor when it was time to vote.

Other Republican amendments included requiring electric vehicle charging stations in the state Capitol parking garage and requiring the governor, lieutenant governor and employees and contractors of the New Mexico Environment Department to use electric vehicles. The latter, sponsored by Woods, was eventually withdrawn.

Some Democrats have said privately Republicans are simply trying to run the clock in the second half of the 60-day session to prevent some of their bills from passing.

The proposed community benefit fund, hailed by a statewide coalition of environmental, social justice and conservation advocates from 34 organizations and businesses across New Mexico, would be administered by the state Department of Finance.

The original bill appropriated $340 million from the general fund for myriad projects, including some that would reduce greenhouse gas related to the construction or renovation of a public building or increase electric grid capacity.

Stewart said the state’s proposed budget includes a slightly smaller appropriation, but the “primary amount remains.”

“We have communities statewide that are asking for resources to invest, adapt and innovate in the face of the changing climate,” she said.

The win for Stewart came a day after she suffered a blow in the Senate Finance Committee on another climate bill. Her Senate Bill 4, which aimed to put New Mexico on a path toward net-zero emissions, was tabled by the committee Monday on a 6-5 vote. 

Dubbed the “Clear Horizons Act,” it would have required the state to meet a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, a 75% reduction by 2040 and a 100% reduction by 2050.

“The cost of inaction on climate is devastating,” Stewart said in a statement after the vote.

Supporters of SB 48 said in a news release Tuesday it “has the potential to grow local jobs while improving infrastructure, expanding clean energy and increasing resilience to extreme weather events.”

Projects that stand to benefit from the proposed fund in Northern New Mexico include the Mora County Complex Community Center, which Senate Democrats said would provide a hub for disaster response and community services in a county heavily impacted by recent wildfires, and the Kit Carson Electric Microgrid Development, which would ensure energy reliability for rural communities.