YUCCA'S 2025 LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

YUCCA's Policy Platform is based on our belief that we must quickly move forward policies that:

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• Just Transition Planning & Investment: End dependence on fossil fuel extraction and create actionable plans to transition our economy by modeling alternative revenue sources & community-driven economic development plans, assessing damage done by fossil fuels extraction & pollution, creating cleanup plans, and investing deeply in impacted communities' visions 

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• Keep fossil fuels in the ground

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• Protect against and clean up pollution​

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• Promote & invest in renewable energy

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• Expand democracy and justice

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SPECIFIC PRIORITY POLICIES FOR THE 2025 SESSION INCLUDE:​​

Just Transition Legislation

• S.B. 48 and S.B. 49 - Community Benefit Fund and Community Benefit Fund Transfers: These bills are a reflection of our call to establish a just transition fund to support planning and investment in alternatives to our dependence on extractive processes – they would make a critical investment in renewable energy projects, energy efficiency initiatives, and worker training programs while helping to bring our communities the resources to prioritize climate resilience, impact mitigation, and infrastructure upgrades.

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• S.B. 23 - Oil and Gas Royalty Rate Changes: S.B. 23 would generate billions of additional dollars for our public schools, hospitals, and universities by setting a new royalty rate for “premium” parcels of state land trust leased in the most productive oil and gas area in the broader Permian Basin, allowing the State Land Office to charge a top royalty rate of between 20-25%, a rate already demanded by Texas and private landowners. 

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Hold Polluters Accountable

• H.B. 222 - Chemical Transparency in Oil & Gas to Protect Water & Health from PFAS: H.B. 222 would play a critical role in protecting New Mexico’s waters and communities from the impacts of PFAS – dangerous forever chemicals that persist indefinitely in the environment – by banning the use of PFAS in oil and gas operations and prohibiting the use of undisclosed chemicals.

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• H.B. 257 - Oil and Gas Well Transfer Rulemaking: H.B. 257 strengthens accountability in the oil and gas industry by preventing the transfer of wells to financially unstable operators, ensuring that companies with a history of violations cannot offload their liabilities, and protecting taxpayers from bearing the costs of abandoned well cleanup.​​

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• H.B. 34 - Oil Conservation Protect Health & Environment: H.B. 34 would change just 5 words in the Oil and Gas Act to require that the Oil Conservation Division – which is tasked with overseeing oil and gas in New Mexico – consider human health and the environment in their decision-making processes surrounding oil and gas permitting across the state. (Tabled in the House Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Committee). ​

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Community Clean-Up Legislation

• S.B. 178 - Produced Water & Abandoned Wells Fund: S.B. 178 would would restrict the reuse of “produced water” (toxic fracking waste) outside the oilfield and impose a fee of 0.05 cents per barrel of fracking waste to fund the plugging and remediation of abandoned wells.

 

Emissions Reductions Legislation

• S.B. 4 - The Clear Horizons Act: The passage of the Clear Horizons Act would fulfill YUCCA’s long standing demand of establishing direct and tangible emissions reduction targets, representing an important step forward for meaningful climate action that backs our state’s emissions goals with the force of law, establishing statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits, and instituting reporting requirements to mitigate climate change.

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• S.B. 99 - No Fuel Less-Than-Zero Carbon Intensity: S.B. 99, the Methane Emissions Reduction Act, helps to ensure that no transportation fuel in New Mexico is falsely credited with having a negative carbon intensity. This bill represents a common-sense step toward strengthening our state’s climate policy with critical guardrails, helping to prevent industry greenwashing of negative carbon credits, ensuring our climate policies are based on real science, and achieving true emissions reductions. (Tabled in the Senate Conservation Committee). 

 

​Protect New Mexico's Young People​

• H.B. 35 - Children's Health Protection Zones: H.B. 35 would help to protect young people across New Mexico from the dangerous health impacts of oil and gas pollution by establishing 1-mile health protection zones surrounding schools, prohibiting the construction of new oil and gas wells within these zones, and implementing additional pollution controls, monitoring, and reporting for operators of existing oil and gas facilities within the buffer zones. 

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• H.B. 32 - The School Bus Modernization Act: H.B. 32 and the accompanying funding in S.B. 49 would help to make electric school buses available and affordable to every New Mexico school district, producing fewer emissions, enabling quieter rides, and saving our school districts between $8,000-15,000 per bus every school year. 

 

​Funding to Address the Public Health Impacts of Climate Change​

• H.B. 108 - Statewide Public Health and Climate Program: H.B. 108 establishes a State Climate Health Program within the Department of Health, allocating $1.1 million to strengthen capacity, improve interagency collaboration, develop culturally appropriate health education and warning systems, provide training and technical assistance, and enhance community engagement to address the growing health impacts of climate change.

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• ​H.B. 109 - Extreme Weather Resilience Fund: H.B. 109 establishes the $12 million Extreme Weather Resilience Fund to help local and Tribal communities prepare for and respond to climate-driven public health emergencies, prioritizing at least 50% of funding for small communities and providing grants of up to $1 million to support proactive disaster resilience efforts.

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Protect Our Waters​​

• ​S.B. 21 - The Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Act: S.B. 21 would give the state authority to take over permitting from the EPA for waters that remain federally protected, helping to safeguard our waters from pollution, and invest in long-term water protection by creating a permitting program to protect state waters that are not currently federally protected.  ​​​

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Advance Energy Justice​​

• H.B. 128 - Local Solar Access Fund: The Local Solar Access Fund is a proposed grant fund at the New Mexico Finance Authority, which will issue both planning and implementation grants to Tribes, Counties, Municipalities, School Districts, and Land Grants for solar and storage projects to power public buildings like community centers, libraries, schools, and fire stations, and infrastructure like water, wastewater, and street lighting. 

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• H.B. 91 - Public Utility Rate Structures: H.B. 91 takes an important step toward energy justice by allowing for the creation of additional utility rate structures that reduce the burden of high energy costs on low-income customers, prevent utility debt from becoming a permanent crisis, and promote affordability and continuity of service.​

 

Oppose False Solutions​​

• H.B. 137 - The Strategic Water Supply Act: The Strategic Water Supply Act is a $75 million publicly funded subsidy for the oil and gas industry’s toxic waste disposal problem that seeks to expand the use of “produced water” (toxic, unregulated waste) – posing a grave threat to public health, poisoning our water, threatening our resources, and compromising our economic security. 

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• H.B. 311 - The Reclaimed Water Act: The Reclaimed Water Act, is an attempt to make an end run around the Water Quality Act and the Water Quality Control Commission by moving the regulation of so-called "Reclaimed" Produced Water outside normal oversight. The Reclaimed Water Act, would remove any guardrails put on reuse of produced water from the Water Quality Control Commission.

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• H.B. 19 - The Trade Ports Development Act: H.B. 19 includes provisions to establish trade port districts, promoting unchecked economic development and leaving the door open for dangerous false solutions like hydrogen, CCS, and geoengineering. In addition, the bill lacks comprehensive public health protections and provides limited transparency to the public surrounding decision-making.

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• H.B. 273 - Certain Natural Gas as Renewable Energy: H.B. 273 seeks to classify methane gas (a potent greenhouse gas with over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide) using combined cycle technology as a “renewable energy source”. Methane (natural gas) is not a renewable energy source or a clean alternative to coal or petroleum – in fact, it’s still a fossil fuel that is responsible for ~30% of today’s global warming.

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• H.B. 20 - Technology and Innovation Division: HB20 creates new divisions solely focused on economic development, and relies on propping up experimental economies that will have global implications on our energy and water resources. This bill also lacks definitions regarding clean energy and water, creating a pathway for false solutions like produced water, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage which are not economically viable without subsidies that have been cut from the IRA.

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• H.B. 457 & H.B. 458 - Geologic Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Act & Carbon Dioxide Storage Stewardship Act: seek to advance Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), a dangerous false solution that puts our lands and waters at risk of serious impacts from groundwater contamination and leaks while delaying meaningful action on real emissions reduction efforts that would reduce our reliance on the oil and gas industry.  

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Expand Democracy and Justice ​​

• S.B. 216 - Rent Control & Certain Entities: S.B. 216 would end the prohibition on rent control and expand the democratic rights of all New Mexicans through this important and necessary option as rents continue to spike.

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• H.B. 9 - Immigrant Safety Act: HB9 would end New Mexico’s involvement in the federal immigration detention system by preventing state and local governments from entering into agreements to detain people for civil immigration violations, blocking ICE from using local governments to bypass public scrutiny, and prohibit the use of public land and resources for immigration detention.

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• H.B. 11 - The Paid Family & Medical Leave Act: H.B. 11 would provide employees with up to 12 weeks of partial wage replacement for leave, providing workers the resources they need to step away to care for a family member, manage a medical condition, support a new child, seek help from domestic violence and abuse, or grieve the loss of a loved one. 

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• H.B. 169 - The Public Expression Protection Act: H.B. 169 would help to safeguard our First Amendment rights by protecting those who speak up against a company, politician, or public entity from SLAPP Suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). These lawsuits are frequently used in an attempt to silence the public and intimidate us from making our voices heard.​

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• S.B. 36 - Sensitive Personal Information Non-Disclosure Act: S.B. 36 would help to support our immigrant communities during a time of increasing attacks at the federal level, helping to keep our private information out of the hands of for-profit data brokers and ICE.

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• S.B. 41 - Turquoise Alert System: S.B. 41 would help our communities better support each other through moments of uncertainty and crisis by creating a statewide emergency alert system to notify the public when an Indigenous person goes missing, similar to Amber or Silver Alerts.

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Onward to keep our elected officials accountable!