Very rural New Mexico reaps millions in oil revenue

In the U.S., only Texas produces more oil than New Mexico.
(Photo by Laura Mann, Unsplash)

New Mexico's state treasury began reaping millions in oil revenue after global crude supplies were strangled in the Strait of Hormuz. 

Despite the predominantly rural state's dependence on fossil-fuel-generated revenue, the windfall has sparked mixed feelings for "Democrats who oppose the war and would rather reduce their reliance on fossil fuels," reports Morgan Lee of The Associated Press.

The Democratic-led "Land of Enchantment" is second only to Texas for oil production, and the "state’s revenue from taxes, royalties and lease sales helps cover the cost of college tuition, all school meals, health insurance and a new initiative for free universal child care," Lee explains.

Even seemingly small increases in crude oil prices can mean big money for the state. Lee reports, "For every $1 fluctuation in the average annual price of oil, New Mexico sees a roughly $59 million swing in state government income."

The state's treasury automatically channels increases in oil revenue "into a series of trust accounts designed to gradually reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels," Lee writes. Through investments, those trusts "underwrite Medicaid, early childhood education, infrastructure projects and an expansion of mental healthcare" in a very rural state that is "entrenched [with] swaths of extreme poverty and the nation’s highest enrollment rate in Medicaid."

New Mexico isn't the only rural state to see surges in state income because of the war with Iran. Lee adds, "In Alaska, the state forecast an additional $1.05 billion for the current fiscal year and the one beginning July 1."

Despite aggressive rules to limit N.M. gas flaring, it goes on

Incomplete combustion in a flare, as pictured, generates
more emissions. (Photo from WildEarth Guardians)

“Laws without enforcement are just good advice.” --Attributed to Abraham Lincoln

In New Mexico, when Michelle Lujan Grisham became governor in 2019, she issued an aggressive executive order that "set a goal of reducing the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2030," reports Martha Pskowski of Inside Climate News. "In May 2021, New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department adopted new rules that prohibit routine flaring and venting and require operators to achieve a 98% gas-capture rate by 2026." But state records from December and January "show venting and flaring increasing, not decreasing. According to the division, from November to December 2022 flaring increased 39 percent and venting increased 161 percent."

Delaware Basin is a rich section of the Permian Basin.
(Map by C. Cunningham, Albuquerque Journal)

Pskowski visited Carlsbad, N.M., in the heart of the Permian Basin, the nation's most productive oil patch, to see examples of how methane regulation is failing. "Transmission lines and flare stacks dot the horizon. . . . One flare sent off dark smoke, a sign that it wasn’t burning efficiently," Pskowski explains. "Flares are designed to eliminate methane from natural gas. But unlit flares and inefficient combustion mean that flaring still emits large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas . . . . The Environmental Defense Fund’s Permian MAP project found that the Permian was the highest methane-emitting oil and gas basin in the nation. . . . advocates say that in the absence of rigorous state field enforcement, companies are continuing wasteful methane flaring and venting."

Environmental advocates aren't the only ones who have noted the lack of compliance. "Recent flyovers by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, independent monitoring by environmental advocates and NASA satellite imagery have documented significant methane releases," Pskowski adds. "To date, only two companies have been fined for unauthorized flaring since the rules went into effect. . . . industry watchdogs warn that counting on operators to self-report flaring and venting is a failing strategy." A state spokesman "said that the agency relies on inspections, audits and internal reviews to verify the data companies report. But its capacity for on-site inspections is severely limited. Funds are allocated for only 14 inspectors statewide, with two of those positions currently vacant."

After viewing videos of apparently bad flaring, Pskowski contacted four companies involved. "In one case, the company acted," and another said it "eliminated routine flaring at its U.S. operations in 2022 and met the 98 percent gas capture rules," she reports, adding that other companies didn't respond to her requests for comment. 

The West's trees being decimated by pine beetle fungus; some say they're telling us something

North America is witnessing the largest pine-beetle epidemic in recorded history, reports Sophie Quinton of the National Journal. From Canada’s Yukon Territory to New Mexico, pine trees by the hundreds of millions are succumbing to a fungus that the beetles carry. Jeff Mitton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado (Boulder), has been studying the mountain pine beetle for more than 30 years. “The question is, why has this gotten so much worse?” Mitton said. Among the scientific community, a consensus is growing that changes in climate have propelled the outbreak. (AP photo of Colorado state park)

It's natural that beetles kill, die off, and regenerate, but human activity has helped to set the stage for the current epidemic. Writes Quinton: "Decades of fire suppression have left the West with dense stands of vulnerable, elderly trees. Frigid winters that usually kill the beetles have become, over the past 20 years, the exception rather than the rule. Earlier snow-melt and longer summers have altered the beetles’ range and life cycle; they now attack pines at higher altitudes and latitudes, and they reproduce twice a year instead of once. Earlier springs and a series of dry years have also weakened trees, turning them into ideal beetle food."
The devastation of the forest has been vast. The infected trees first turn a violent red, then they fall, and, finally, the tree falls. "Year by year, communities have watched a scourge advance across mountainsides and through neighborhoods, trees turning from green to red to gray. The beetles now attack 12 pine species, from the high-elevation whitebark pine to the lower-elevation ponderosa and piñon." The blight has overtaken 3.3 million acres in Colorado alone since the 1990s. “To a large degree, our nation’s parks are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to on-the-ground effects of a warming climate,” U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said at a 2009 hearing on climate change at held at Rocky Mountain National Park with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. At the same park, John Mack, the chief of resource stewardship told Quinton: “These trees are dead; they just don’t know it.”

Newspaper series focuses on water crisis looming for 30 million dependent on the Colorado River

The West is fast running out of water. Its lifeblood, the Colorado River, reports Utah's Deseret News, "is being hemorrhaged by cities, by farms and ranches, by power plants and by the more than 30 million people who depend on its water in the United States and another 6 million people in Mexico." (Photo of the Colorado River in Southern Utah by Tom Smart)

In a three-part series aimed at explaining the extent of the crisis, reporter Amy Joi Donoghue writes that this year's flows "are near historic lows with runoff about a third of average, pushing the seven states that share the river toward another year of drought." And, continues Donoghue, "Those stresses are further trumped by the dire predictions provided by the agency managing the Colorado River system, forecasting demand far outstripping supply during the next 50 years, reaching crisis levels within two decades. It reveals a coming tug-of-war over water resources that may pit state against state in the fight for new development, jobs, housing and force an answer to one of the West's most enduring questions: Who is entitled to the water?" (Read more)

More problems facing the region is offered by Jodi Peterson, writing in The Goat Blog on the High Country News website:
1) A U.S. Geological Survey study predicts that within 15 years, the population in the region served by the river will increase to 45 million.
2) By 2050, climate change will warm the basin and dry out its soil to an extent not seen since the 1930s Dust Bowl.
3) By the end of this century, the basin will see a 20 percent decrease in runoff, thanks to warming temperatures and earlier spring runoff.
4) Snowpack across the basin was well below average this year, less than half of normal.
Severe, even record-setting drought is foreseen for Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. (Read more)

New Mexico writer has a new word for rural life

Sharman Apt Russell (right) writes an essay on rural life for the Natural Resources Defense Council's magazine On Earth. Russell uses a newly coined word, soliphilia, which she says is "the love of and responsibility for a place, bioregion, planet, and the unity of interrelated interests within it." Russell believes the word best describes the "diversity of the rural West, perhaps of all rural America. ... We're Baptists and pantheists; we eat beef and drink soy milk; we like wolves and hate wolves and we're new and old and rich and poor. What we have in common is a feeling that some of us would be uncomfortable talking about, and some of us talk about all the time. We love this place. We are the bride of this place and we are the groom."

She adds, "Soliphilia has its own dangers ... Love of place can lead to xenophobia, with longtime residents resenting newcomers, even (perhaps especially) when they come with good ideas. Whether 'old' or 'new' to the rural West, we are all in danger of becoming provincial, caught up in the intricate pleasures of home and ignoring our connections to the rest of the world."

According to the magazine, Russell is an award-winning nature and science writer whose most recent book is Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist (Basic Books). She teaches creative writing at Western New Mexico University in Silver City and Antioch University in Los Angeles. (Read more)

N.M. newspaper publisher, mayor exchange blows

The mayor of Gallup, N. M., and the publisher of the Gallup Independent, the city's daily newspaper, exchanged blows in the parking lot of a local bank last week. Both men claim the other started the fistfight, but a series of stories linking Mayor Harry Mendoza to the gang rape of a 16-year-old woman in 1948 appear to be at the hear of the dispute, reports Jim Winchester of KRQE, a Gallup TV station. "He's [Mendoza] just a thug," Independent Publisher Bob Zollinger told Winchester. "That's all he is and unfortunately he's our mayor."

Gallup City Attorney Dave Pederson told KRQE that the mayor informed him of the altercation and insisted Zollinger has started the fight. Zollinger told the station Mendoza had refused repeated requests for comment about the rape allegations, but he denied instigating the fight by poking the mayor as alleged. The Gallup Independent is owned by Gallup Independent Co. (Read more)

Power lines to carry 'green' energy may threaten wildlife, posing environmental dilemma

With renewable energy a priority under the Obama administration, a new energy grid seems poised to become a reality. But with construction threatening wildlife refuges, environmentalists are finding themselves facing a dilemma: make green energy a key component of the nation's energy supply or protect wildlife?

In New Mexico, for instance, a power line which would provide wind and solar energy to Arizona cities "would cross grasslands, skirt two national wildlife refuges and traverse the Rio Grande, all habitat areas rich in wildlife," write Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson in The Washington Post. Among the wildlife threatened by the project are sandhill cranes, one of the species which live in that area. "Everybody in New Mexico loves the sandhill cranes," said Ned Farquhar one month ago, when he worked for the National Resources Defense Council. "We also love our renewable energy. So we have to figure this out." Since making that statement, Farquhar has been appointed head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, who control much of the land affected by the proposed line and are therefore charged with determining the fate of the power line.

Renewable energy projects often require more land than traditional energy projects. Eilperin and Mufson write, "As the push for renewable-energy development intensifies across the United States, scientists and activists have begun to voice concern that policymakers have underestimated the environmental impact of projects that are otherwise 'green.'" NRDC senior lawyer Johanna Wald told them, "There is no free lunch when it comes to meeting our energy needs."

But others say that cleaner energy sources should take priority, for the sake of all wildlife. "Do people think it's better all those birds are breathing CO2? I'm not a scientist, but I doubt it," said Ditlev Engel, president and chief executive of the Danish wind-energy company Vestas. "Let's get the facts on the table and not the feelings. The fact is, these are not issues." (Read more)

Navajos to sue EPA for coal-fired power plant OK

The Navajo Nation has been waiting since 2004 for an Environmental Protection Agency ruling that would allow the tribe's Dine Power Authority and its partner, Houston-based Sithe Global Power, to build a coal-fired power plant at Desert Rock, N.M. This week, the tribe and Sithe informed the EPA that they intend to sue over the agency's failure to rule on the plant's air-permit application, reports Susan Montoya Bryan of The Associated Press.

The $3 billion plant would produce electricity for 1 million homes in the Southwest, and it would be the third coal-fired plant in the area. "Some Navajos and environmentalists argue that Desert Rock would harm the environment and residents' health," Bryan writes. "But DPA and Sithe have touted it as one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the country and a much-needed source of jobs and revenue for the Navajo Nation."

Bryan later adds, "Both federal officials and Desert Rock developers have said the draft permit contains some of the strictest controls ever set for a coal-fired power plant in the United States." (Read more) Last week, a Navajo group proposed alternatives to the coal-fired plant, such as energy from solar, wind or natural gas. (Read more)

ConAgra scraps plan to build ethanol plant in N.M.

Rising construction costs and uncertainty in the ethanol market have prompted ConAgra Foods to end plans to build a $200 million ethanol plant near Clovis, N.M., reports the Clovis News Journal.

The 108-million-gallon-a-year plant was proposed in mid-2006 and was to be built near these grain elevators (at left in a CNJ photo by Tony Bullocks) on U.S. 60/84, Monte reports. Clovis is near the New Mexico-Texas border, about 220 miles east of Albuquerque.

"While some Clovis residents see Tuesday’s announcement as an environmental victory, others see it as a missed opportunity to bring jobs and economic development to the community," Gabriel Monte writes. "Clovis Industrial Development Corp. Executive Director Chase Gentry said the company’s decision cost the city about 60 high-wage jobs, $200 million in capital investment and additional tax revenue." (Read more)

Rural school enrollment up 15 percent last year, with a 55 percent jump in minority students

Enrollment in rural schools is up 15 percent since last year, and minority enrollment is up 55 percent, says the latest report from the Rural School and Community Trust. The jump in enrollment reverses year-by-year trends, yet rural schools, specifically in the South, continue to receive less funding per pupil.

The report also highlights what it calls the "priority states where rural schools produce the worst student achievement outcomes." The report, called "Why Rural Matters 2007: The Realities of Rural Education Growth," was written by Jerry Johnson, the trust's policy research and analysis manager, and Marty Strange, the trust's policy director.

The report ranked states according to 23 factors in five gauges: importance of rural education, socioeconomic challenges, student diversity, policy context and educational outcomes. Based on that, the report found 13 priority states that rank low across these factors: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. These states "serve student populations with the severest socio-economic challenges — especially high poverty levels — and they operate with less money than rural schools in other states," the report says.

The lack of funding and a rise in English Language Learner students, who require more teaching resources, have made difficult situations worse. The report concludes that in those priority states, "poverty, fiscal incapacity, low levels of adult education, and low levels of student achievement run in the same mutually reinforcing circles in states in these regions, many of which are as fiscally challenged as their citizens and schools."

Not surprisingly, one of the report's policy recommendations is a priority for the trust: "Keep schools small. Research shows there are academic benefits for students attending small schools in small districts." Other recommendations:

• Keep schools small. Concentrate resources in high poverty areas. The cost of teaching low-income children rises disproportionately as the poverty rate increases; more student support per pupil in schools with high poverty rates is needed.
• Maximize rural school effectiveness and efficiency with technology. Distance learning has been proven to be effective in meeting needs of rural communities.

To download the full report, go here. (Free subscription required.) To read the report overview, see summaries and compare state-by-state results on a clickable map, go here.