Americans for Prosperity-Michigan

Governor halts New Mexico carbon reduction program

ReChargeNews.com     –     by Richard A. Kessler     –     January 5, 2011
Five days after taking office, Governor Susana Martinez fired all seven members of the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) for pursuing “anti-business” policies and halted the state’s fledgling carbon reduction program.
Martinez, a Republican, argues that board members appointed by her Democratic predecessor, Bill Richardson, a former US energy secretary, adopted policies last month to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that the state legislature had rejected in its 2010 session.

The policies included requiring the state’s largest carbon polluters to cut their CO2 emissions 3% a year from 2010 levels starting in 2013 through 2020. The program covers stationary sources such as large industrial plants that emit more than 25,000 tons of pollutants a year.

EIB also voted to have New Mexico join the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) carbon trading program that is scheduled to cap emissions starting in 2012, as part of a goal to cut them regionally 15% by 2015.

Participating in the plan as members are California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, in the US, and British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec in Canada. Arizona pulled out last year after Governor Jan Brewer said membership would leave her state at an economic disadvantage.

If the WCI scheme is delayed or scrapped, EIB members had commited New Mexico to pursuing its own cap-and-trade mechanism.

“New Mexico has recently suffered from an anti-business environment exacerbated by policies which discourage economic development and result in businesses setting up shop across state lines,” Martinez says.

“Unfortunately, the majority of EIB members have made it clear that they are more interested in advancing political ideology than implementing commonsense policies that balance economic growth with responsible stewardship in New Mexico,” she adds.

Martinez issued an executive order that suspends all pending regulations, including those covering CO2 emissions, by agencies that depend directly on her office. They will be scrapped if a review by her administration determines they hurt New Mexico businesses and the state’s ability to attract investment..

Richard A. Published: Wednesday, January 5 2011