All of those new solar panels you see getting installed around the Santa Fe area and other parts of New Mexico reflect a concerted effort by officials to diversify the state's energy economy.
But in a 2023 report, the Legislative Finance Committee estimates that New Mexico is now deriving about half of its General Fund revenue from the oil and gas industry, up from about a third in prior years.
According to author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who was in town over the weekend, it should be a priority for the state to reverse that trend.
“New Mexico is in an interesting place, said McKibben. "It obviously has and is beginning to make use of large amounts of renewable energy. It also, to my mind, is cursed with having a lot of natural gas in one corner of the state underneath it, and
it's set up its revenue system for this state to depend too heavily on that.
"So now the question for New Mexico is basically, 'Do we want to export this stuff to the rest of the world and in the process exacerbate the climate crisis? Or are we going to bite the bullet and figure out how to pay for our state in responsible ways.”
That’s what McKibben had to say just before addressing an assembly of students at Santa Fe High last Friday.
He was referring to the Permian Basin in Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas—the most productive oil producing basin in the country.
According to a recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, New Mexico’s Lea and Eddy counties account for 28 percent of the production of the nation’s liquified natural gas, or LNG.
Those are the numbers that McKibben is particularly concerned about.
“The LNG in the Permian Basin is probably the biggest greenhouse gas bomb left on planet Earth. And if it stays in the ground, it will help immeasurably in the climate fight.
"If it's pumped all around the world, mostly to Asia, where it will undercut the effort to move to renewables, it'll be a huge problem.”
Another issue in New Mexico’s portion of the Permian Basin, according to Source New Mexico, is pollution. A state inspection earlier this year found that more than half of the oil and gas facilities may be violating air quality rules.
