Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus
achedden@currentargus.com

Stalled plans to store spent nuclear fuel in the Permian Basin could get new life depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a case seeking to restore vacated licenses for two such facilities.

The court heard oral arguments in the case March 5 and filed it for a later decision

At issue are two projects to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel rods – one proposed by Holtec International near the Eddy-Lea county line in southeast New Mexico and another proposed by Interim Storage Partners in Andrews, Texas, about an hour’s drive east.

Holtec’s plan calls for a newly constructed facility to hold up to 100,000 metric tons of the rods. The Texas project would augment the existing Waste Control Specialists facility in Andrews to store about 40,000 metric tons of the materials.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the Texas site a license in 2021 and approved a license for Holtec’s project in 2023, but the licenses were vacated in separate 2023 decisions by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said the licenses were invalid under a provision of the federal Atomic Energy Act that specifies spent nuclear fuel can only be moved to a permanent, deep geological repository.

Those rulings were appealed last year to the Supreme Court in separate fillings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the companies. The appeals were consolidated, meaning any ruling on the Texas case will also apply to the New Mexico proposal.

Attorneys from Interim Storage Partners and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission argued to the Supreme Court that the facilities were legally licensed by the federal agency and would provide a solution to the nation’s problem of what to do with its nuclear waste.

The state of Texas and oil and gas company Fasken Oil and Ranch both appealed the NRC’s original approval of the license for Interim Storage Partners and now want the Supreme Court to affirm the circuit court’s revocation of the license, arguing that the projects in the Permian Basin pose too big a risk for the local area.

What is temporary?

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch voiced some of the same concerns, asking how the facility could be considered “temporary” when the license was for 40 years of operations.

He pointed to canceled plans for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which was defunded by the administration of President Barack Obama after officials from that state opposed the project.

Gorsuch also voiced concerns about impacts the site could have on the oil and gas industry that is booming in the region where the facilities would be built.

“Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the solution. We spent $15 billion. It’s a hole in the ground. How is this interim storage that the government is authorizing here, especially when ISP is getting a 40-year license. That doesn’t sound interim to me,” Gorsuch said. “On a concrete platform in the Permian Basin where we get our oil and gas? Hopefully, we don’t get irradiated oil and gas.”

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that by not moving the spent fuel, which in many cases sits at the site of decommissioned nuclear reactors, the federal government continues to put local communities at risk.

“If it takes 40 or 80 years to have a solution, it is still temporary,” Sotomayor said. “The risks to communities continue to rise If we keep permitting storage in facilities that have had to be shut down.”

David Frederick, an attorney for Fasken, argued the material was safer where it was, stored in cooling pools that gradually lower the heat and danger posed by the fuel rods than it would be while being moved by rail to rural New Mexico.

“That material is so hot, it takes years to cool,” he said. “It can only be done safely onsite by removing the reactor core and moving it into water.”

Malcom Stewart, a Justice Department lawyer representing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said many of the former power plants now only functioned to store the waste left after decommissioning.

He said moving the rods to one location – in the desert of the Permian Basin – would allow the former plant locations to be repurposed and restored to their native state.

“The petitioners and ISP have argued that you have a bunch of places around the country that now serve no other purpose than to store spent nuclear fuel, and it would be better to centralize the waste so that the other facilities can be returned to what is called green space,” Stewart said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the federal government already decided that Interim Storage Partners could move and store the rods safely, contending that future advancement in technology could make it even safer.

“We have (Interim Storage Partners) here saying that they can receive this material. I’m not fully understanding why it matters that the material is so hot in a situation where the commission has licensed this transfer,” Jackson said. “Someone thinks it can be done.”

But attorney Aaron Lloyd Nielson of the Texas Office of the Attorney General argued that regardless of how it is moved and stored, and the level of safety, the facility would pose decades of risk and potentially be a target for foreign adversaries.

“If anyone thinks this is temporary, I have a bridge to sell you. There is no way we can move all the spent fuel in 60 years,” he said. “What the commission has done is put an enormous terrorist bullseye on the Permian Basin.”

Mike Smith
El Rito Media
msmith@currentargus.com.

Payton Putman has a unique perspective on the forthcoming changes at the Eddy County Fairgrounds in Artesia.

Putman, a sophomore at Loving High School, has been involved with the school’s FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter since eighth grade and started participating in 4-H as a fourth grader.

And there’s more. Her father, Jon Putman, is a member of the Eddy County Fair Board so she had an insider’s view as plans unfolded to transform the aging fairgrounds into a 21st century showcase.

Father and daughter were on hand Wednesday, March 5, to help celebrate the groundbreaking for the fairgrounds’ new $25 million livestock and community building. Also participating in the ceremony were a number of FFA members from Loving, Carlsbad and Artesia, along with representatives of the fair board, the Artesia Chamber of Commerce, and the area’s agricultural community.

Payton said the new building will be a welcome improvement for those who show animals at the annual Eddy County Fair.

“It’s the whole community coming together and building something new and to help and grow the Eddy County Fairgrounds,” she said. “It means so much having a brand-new facility … and we’ll all be in one barn.”

Currently, exhibitors and their animals deal with heat and humidity in outdoor barns during the fair, which is held in late July. The new building is expected to be completed by January 2027.

The fair is a Putman family tradition, Payton said.

“My sister graduated last year, so she showed at these fairgrounds growing up and so did my mother,” she said. “It’s really interesting, this whole new facility and this whole new building for a brand-new generation to experience.”

The fair board is in the process of developing a long-range master plan that could bring even more improvements, officials say.

Jon Putman said improvements to the fairgrounds have been in the making for 20 years.

“For it to finally come to fruition is big for the fair board,” he said. “They have been passionate about it. These guys (fair board members) donate a lot of their time and a lot of their personal money to keep these organizations going and these fairgrounds kept up.”

He said the fair has shown consistent growth with increased numbers of FFA and 4-H participants showing livestock.

“This is a major improvement and overhaul of the Eddy County Fairgrounds,” said Eddy County 4-H agent Wayne Shockey. “It’s going to be a tremendous asset to our 4-H and FFA youth.”

Shockey has been the leader for 4-H programs for eight years and said the number of youths participating in 4-H and FFA programs has grown during his time in Eddy County.

“We continually see large numbers of exhibits and fair projects that are brought into the fair every year,” he said. “We hope to continue that growth, and this is going to help … draw kids into our programs.”

Mike Smith can be reached at 575-308-8734 or email at msmith@currentargus.com.

Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus
achedden@currentargus.com

Democrat lawmakers in Santa Fe have less than two weeks left to pass a bill that would hike fees paid to the state by oil and gas companies to drill on state-managed public land.

Senate Bill 23, which would raise the cap on royalty rates for oil and gas leases on State Trust land from 20% to 25%, passed the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee on a 5-4 vote March 4 and was sent to the House Finance Committee for further consideration.

Royalty rates are charged by the State Land Office to energy companies as a percentage of the revenue derived from oil and gas production on land leased from the state.

The bill already passed two Senate committee, in the chamber where it originated, and survived a vote on the Senate floor in February.

If granted a “do pass” recommendation by the finance committee in the House, SB 23 would then go to a vote of the full chamber. It could be amended on the floor and would then need approval by the Senate before going to the desk of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to be signed into law.

The final approvals will need to occur in less than two weeks if the bill sponsored by Sen. George Munoz (D-4) is to become law, as the legislative session ends March 22. The bill was not scheduled for its next hearing as of press time.

“Raising the state’s top oil and gas royalty rate puts millions more into the state’s savings for some of our most important institutions every year to ensure we continue funding them well into the future,” Munoz said.

The State Land Office leases State Trust land to the industry through monthly auctions, which recently focused on the southeast corner of the state in the booming Permian Basin.

The 25% rate would only be charged for the most valuable tracts of land, as appraised by the Land Office, in the Delaware sub-basin – an area of the Permian encompassing Eddy and Lea counties and believed to be the most productive in New Mexico.

Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, who leads the office and has long supported the higher royalty rate, said following the bill’s most recent passage by the House Energy Committee the measure would allow New Mexicans to get a fair share of fossil fuel revenue produced in the state. New Mexico is ranked second in the U.S. in oil production.

The nation’s top oil-producing state is Texas, which shares the Permian Basin with New Mexico.

Financial benefit or anti-business?

Revenue gained by the Land Office supports its statutory beneficiaries such as public schools, universities and hospitals. Garica Richard argued such support saves taxpayers in the state thousands of dollars each year.

“We should always get top returns for our best public resources, especially because this money funds some of our most important institutions and saves taxpayers about $3,000 per year,” Garcia Richard said. “We need to capitalize on this opportunity to get the most value we can for New Mexicans.”

An analysis by the Legislative Finance Committee said the bill would raise up to $75 million a year for the Land Grant Permanent Fund, which the Land Office uses to distribute money to its beneficiaries.

Despite the purported financial benefits to the land office, Republicans and oil and gas industry groups oppose the higher rate because, they say, it would further burden oil companies – especially smaller producers – and could cause oil and gas operations to be moved over the border to Texas.

Paul Gessing with the nonprofit Rio Grande Foundation, a conservative business advocacy group, said the bill was the latest attempt by Democrats in control of the Legislature to attack the oil and gas industry.

Such an agenda, Gessing added, would come at the expense of New Mexico’s fiscal prosperity as the state already heavily regulates and taxes the industry.

“New Mexico is actually taking more than any other state from the oil and gas industry in terms of revenue,” Gessing said during the House Energy committee’s March 4 hearing. “If you want this money, I encourage you to share the wealth with New Mexicans, not just hoard it in government.”

Larry Sonntag with the New Mexico Business Coalition said fees and other expenses imposed by the state, other than the land office’s royalty rate, already made it more expensive to drill for oil and gas in New Mexico

“This would have a detrimental effect to our oil and gas industry,” Sonntag said of the bill. “They already provide a significant benefit to the state, and we don’t want to do anything to disincentivize that.”

Renewable energy, pollution control bills pass house

Lawmakers in the House voted March 6 to pass House Bill 289. The bill, approved by a vote of 35-23, would expand grant eligibility up to $250,000 for geothermal energy projects.

Geothermal energy, considered a renewable form of energy, creates electricity using underground heat. Projects usually draw heated water and steam to the surface from deep underground, using the heat’s energy to produce power.

The House also voted to pass House Bill 140, which would update the state’s Hazardous Waste Act to allow New Mexico officials to sue entities such as the Department of Defense for causing water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are industrial byproducts often labeled “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment.

PFAS contamination in local groundwater was linked to the use of firefighting foam at several Air Force bases in New Mexico.