New Mexico moves to forefront of global warming issue

Operators of power plants, oil refineries and other sources of global warming pollution must report greenhouse gas emissions to the state.

New Mexico has taken a step toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that puts the state at the forefront of the growing issue.

“Only a handful of states are requiring that greenhouse gas emissions be reported,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center in Taos.

The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board, which makes the rules for the state Environment Department, ruled last week that operators of power plants, oil refineries and other sources of global warming pollution must report GHG emissions to the state.

Western Environmental Law Center joined several groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, New Mexico Conference of Churches,Oil and Gas Accountability Project, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action and the Sierra Club to monitor the Environmental Improvement Board hearings that ordered the reporting of GHG emissions.

“It sounds very modest to ask these companies to report emissions, but it is very significant to New Mexico,” Schlenker-Goodrich said.

Power plants in New Mexico generating electrical power produce the highest amount of GHG emissions, Schlenker-Goodrich said. The oil and gas industry is the next largest producer of GHG emissions, he said.

The reporting requirement is the first step in Gov. Bill Richardson’s initiative to reduce emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020. New Mexico also has joined the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration by the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to meet the challenges of global warming.

The next step in New Mexico will be to decide how to reduce those emissions.

Tom Singer of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the reporting requirement is calculated on fuel consumption. “If a company is monitoring other emissions, it will not require any special equipment to determine the emissions,” he said. “Companies not yet doing any monitoring will have to install some equipment.”

Coal fire plants in New Mexico emit about 80 percent of the GHG emissions in New Mexico, Singer said.

Establishing the rules that will eventually require reductions in GHG emissions will need negotiations with the industries that produce them, Singer said. “We’ll need a consensus on a sensible public policy,” he said.