SUPPORT SB 104

(formerly SB 459)

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
Patricia Roybal Caballero

• A four-year moratorium on new fracking permits so that agencies have time to report;
• Reporting requirements from seven state agencies on the impacts of fracking;
• Requires agencies to provide policy and funding recommendations to properly regulate fracking in New Mexico.

SB 104 calls on the constitutional obligation of the New Mexico Legislature to control pollution and protect the air, water and other natural resources of this state. It places a four-year moratorium on new oil and gas permits wherein the Energy Minerals Natural Resources Department, Department of Agriculture, Environment Department, Department of Health, Department of Transportation, Office of the State Engineer, Indian Affairs Department, and Workers Compensation Administration and Workforce Solutions Department are directed to report on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, as well as provide recommendations for legislation and appropriations to conduct analysis.

In a presentation before Senate Conservation Committee during the 2019 Legislative session, New Mexico's Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department revealed that the State has little information about the impacts of fracking and that there is nothing in the law currently that allows them to regulate multi-stage horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing differently than conventional vertical drilling. In the past year, New Mexico became the third biggest oil and gas producing state in the nation by drilling what’s-now the world’s largest oilfield in the Permian Basin, threatening to exhaust 10% of the global carbon budget. Now a net-exporter of crude, companies ship oil overseas and leave New Mexicans with adverse health impacts and massive amounts of radioactive fracking waste. With the 2019 passage of the Produced Water Act (HB546), this waste, re-labeled water, may make its way into rivers, streams, and onto crops.

New Mexico’s leadership are unable to make informed decisions regarding oil and gas regulation because there is a glaring lack of knowledge and reporting requirements related to multi-stage hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling and the impacts of this industry on our lands, water, air, and public health and safety.

SB 104 finally provides for the State of New Mexico to learn the truth about fracking. The Bill
allows for reasonable restraint, asking for a pause on new fracking permits until state
agencies are able to report to decision makers.
“The protection of the state's beautiful and healthful environment is hereby declared to be of fundamental importance to the public interest, health, safety and the general welfare. The legislature shall provide for control of pollution and control of despoilment of the air, water and other natural resources of this state, consistent with the use and development of these resources for the maximum benefit of the people.”
-Article XX, Section 21 of the New Mexico Constitution.
 
It’s good business to do your research.

• SB 104 gives legislators the time and information they need to responsibly manage industrialized fracking in our state. And consider the peer-reviewed studies in the Compendium 6 which New Mexico can benefit from. 

 
This isn’t conventional oil and gas. This bill helps us look before we leap.

• Conventional drilling used vertical wells at 1,000 feet below ground where multi-stage fracking and horizontal drilling – industrialized fracking - drills 10times that depth and horizontally up to two miles in every direction.
• Industrialized fracking isn’t regulated under the Clean Water Act and other federal safeguards (NEPA, WOTUS) are being rolled-back by the Trump Administration. Right now, the Environment Department is the sole agency reviewing proposals to dump radioactive fracking waste water into our rivers, streams, and onto crops.
• Currently our state agencies know next to nothing about how many industrial wells are operating and potential impacts on communities, environment, and long term health.

 
We don’t know enough about fracking in New Mexico other states have already done studies.

• New Mexico is now one of the top three oil and gas producing states in the nation, but we still have the worst public education and the highest rates of child poverty in the country. If oil and gas were going to make us rich, we’d be rich by now.
• Our state coffers are full - for the moment - but we don’t even know how many oil and gas wells are horizontally fracking under our aquifers or what the impacts are on our public health, our land, our air, and our water.
• Over 1800 peer-reviewed papers confirm fracking-related pollution leads to increased rates of cancer, birth defects, and pulmonary disease for residents and workers, but New Mexicans living within 300 ft of wells don’t know what’s happening in their backyards.

 
Support transparency. Pause for protections.

• SB 104 allows us to finally learn the truth about fracking by requiring ten state agencies to study industrialized development, providing necessary funding for reports.

It was Raining On Us, Carlsbad Family
Rolling Stone: America's Radioactive Secret
Compendium of Scientific Findings on Fracking
WPX Fire in Naghezzi, NM