Every Little Bit Help Us to Defray Printing and Other Costs!

Please join us for our next Executive Committee Meeting on Monday February 5 at 7PM. That's where we will plan our March Membership Meeting, and we would love your input.

Please join us for our next Membership Meeting on Monday February 12 at 7PM. Learn about what was accomplished and what you can still do as this year's legislative session ends.

Bernalillo County Assessor and EJC member Damian Lara is making good on his promise to convert his agency's vehicles to electronic ones and to add charging stations. “I made a promise to cut down the carbon footprint from the Assessor’s office and I will continue to push this issue,” he says. “And I will continue to bring my department, and hopefully, many other departments with me into the electric age.”

Our Legislative Action Working Group is going full speed ahead. We track the bills that forward the caucus mission and oppose those that do not. To access to our tracker, please click the link below. We need your help! We need members to email and to call their state representatives, and we need more people to testify before committees online or in person. This is the core of participation in our democracy, and we will train and support anyone interested. If you have any questions or want to participate on any specific bill(s), please contact Alex at alexdaviking@yahoo.com

On Friday, January 26, EJC members joined others at a protest initiated by Los Jardines Institute at the Journal Center to oppose the Albuquerque Journal's pro-business, one-sided, and anti-environmental justice coverage of the Albuquerque city council plans to destroy the Air Quality Board.

The following letter was sent to the Journal that day:

BREAKING NEWS: A preliminary injunction halting The Albuquerque City Council actions against the air quality board has been issued by the Santa Fe District Court. We thank the legal expertise of EJC Member Antoinette Sedillo Lopez who, in her role as an attorney, is defending the peoples' rights in this case.

Jane Yee, an activist of many years and an attorney, is invaluable to our caucus for her legal input and her years of work for the people in the area of environmental justice. The following is her summary explaining the creation of the Air Quality Board, its use of cumulative impact criteria, and its status.

Despite Industry-Led Disinformation Campaign, Air Board Approves HEEI Rule; Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction

Against City of ABQ; and Community Protests ABQ Journal's Biased Reporting of the Issue

The Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board (Air Board) approved the Health, Environment, Equity Impacts (HEEI) rule on December 19, 2023. The HEEI rule is a type of cumulative impact permitting in which regulators must consider the effects of

adding more pollutants to already overburdened neighborhoods. In contrast, prior traditional rules authorized permit approvals based on whether the pollution that a proposed facility by itself would emit would exceed standards. Sofia Martinez and

Xavier Barraza, Los Jardines Institute, attended the EJC general meeting in October to explain how cumulative impact permitting works.

The Air Board approved a weaker version of the HEEI rule than the one proposed by the community (Mountain View Neighborhood Association and Los Jardines, both in

Albuquerque’s South Valley). Under the approved rule, the Air Board will use the Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to reduce pollution in overburdened neighborhoods. Under the rule proposed by the community, the Air Board would have

had the authority to prohibit the construction of facilities that exceeded cumulative impact standards in such neighborhoods. The HEEI rule goes into effect on January 1,2025.

The Air Board concluded this historic rulemaking in a race against the clock and in the face of massive interference. After industry failed in its efforts to kill the rule-making through the Air Board’s processes, industry recruited Albuquerque City Councilor Dan Lewis, to introduce illegal legislation to kill the Air Board itself! This ordinance violated state law by abdicating the City’s duty to regulate and by discriminating against and

disenfranchising County residents. Many people spoke out at City Council meetings against this hijacking of the democratic process. Still, the Council voted to enact Lewis’ ordinance and override the Mayor’s veto.

Meanwhile, the Air Board continued meeting to take evidence and deliberate on the scope of the final HEEI rule – undeterred even by a personal appearance by Councilor Lewis

to browbeat the Air Board into adjourning in deference to his illegal ordinance. The Air Board refused to adjourn before it finished its work; instead, it filed a petition in state

court in which it asked for injunctive relief. This past week (on January 25), Judge Francis Mathew granted the requested preliminary injunction which will allow the Air Board to operate. As is required in such cases, Judge Mathew found likelihood of

success on the merits.

On Friday, January 26, people from neighborhood associations, environmental justice organizations, and others met in front of the Albuquerque Journal’s offices to protest the

newspaper’s disinformation campaign against the HEEI. The people demanded independent journalism (free from industry lies) and a meeting with the editorial board to rectify these biases.

In a press release, Governor Lujan-Grisham states her latest idea for bailing out the oil and gas industries. These are her words:

Through a $500 million investment, New Mexico will purchase treated brackish and treated produced water to build the strategic water supply. . . Companies that are awarded an advanced market commitment contract can secure private capital to build and operate water treatment facilities with the assurance the State of New Mexico will purchase the water. Then, the state will make the water available for creating green hydrogen; storing energy produced by wind and solar; manufacturing electric vehicles, microchips, solar panels, and wind turbines; and other uses as treatment and demand allow. (emphasis added)

A link to coverage of this press release by KUNM is here.

Environmental activists oppose this. What it basically means is that our state would pay the oil companies for the water that they produce during fracking, so that the state can then use this brackish water containing an unknown quantity of unknown and potentially lethal chemical substances.

New Energy Economy provides an informational booklet explaining this proposed bailout of the oil and gas industry. Find it here. (Scroll down and the booklet will appear.) We are grateful that New Energy also provides a quick and easy way to email your opposition to this proposal, which is now before the state legislature.

Please join us Monday February 5 at the Roundhouse for Transit Equity day. Not a single bill was brought forward to increase direly needed funding for Public Transit and Busing this session. Transit is the main means we have of successfully combating the largest contributor to climate change, and unless the state takes this seriously, we are going to fail to reach our climate goals. We will be there all morning and until 2:30PM. For more information, please contact Alex at alexdaviking@yahoo.com

Mark your calendar so you can join us at the State House where we will again have a table in support of Environment Day. Last year was a blast! Please save the date and attend. Contact Muriel Carpenter at mucarpenter412@gmail.com for more information. This is a great event and a fantastic way to make contact with your representatives in Santa Fe. . . and for us at the EJC to get to know you better. Please arrive at 8:30AM or after and find our table.

Join us every Friday at 6 PM to actively work on legislation that promotes environmental justice. During this session, we are asking members to become knowledgeable about one or two specific pieces of legislation. This method worked well for us last session. We need testifiers, letter writers, email senders, and phone callers, and we welcome those new to this work. Working on legislation is one of the most thrilling ways to become involved and make a real difference. For more information contact Alex at alexdaviking@yahoo.com.

The Transportation and Housing Working Group meeting has been cancelled this month. The next meeting will be in March.

Meetings of this working group are on Zoom every month on the fourth Wednesday at 7PM The next meeting date is Feb 28.

Meetings of this working group are on Zoom every month on the third Monday at 7PM The next meeting date is Feb 12. Contact Zlata for more information. z7nourie@gmail.com

Please watch Zlata's exclusive interview with Bernalillo County Commissioner Eric Olivas below.