More than 2 million New Mexicans depend on a safe and healthy environment to live a good life. They need clean water, air and soil to raise healthy children and create jobs. But New Mexico is struggling to deal with a variety of serious environmental problems that threaten public health, including air that has been fouled by industrial pollution and challenged by climate change, Superfund-level pollution and other dangerous substances fouling the state’s land and agricultural sector, and multiple threats to clean drinking water.

Unfortunately, as environmental threats to New Mexico’s families and prosperity grow more challenging, some political leaders in Santa Fe and Washington, DC have been in retreat. New Mexico’s Environment Department (NMED) saw its general fund budget drop more than 20 percent after Governor Martinez took office, and has remained flat since. Meanwhile in Washington, DC, the Administration has been slashing the EPA’s budget, hiring polluters who will protect their industries, rolling back environmental safeguards, and putting politics over science.
This report summarizes the threats facing New Mexico’s families, how a lack of policy leadership is making things worse, and what New Mexico can do to protect the health of its children and families. Although much must be done to repair the damage that has been done, five steps in particular are critical:
1. Fully fund the Environment Department: Stop hobbling and handcuffing NMED as it works to protect public health.
2. Hold violators accountable: The state’s capacity to levy effective fines and enforce the Oil and Gas Act is broken, and must be fixed.
3. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Enact policies consistent with securing reductions in climate pollution necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change—reducing total greenhouse gas emissions at least 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025 and 83% by 2050, on a path to zero net emissions.
4. Step up when the feds step back: The retreat by the EPA in Washington leaves New Mexico’s children and families more vulnerable to growing threats. New Mexico’s leaders need to fill the gap, including a methane rule for new and existing oil and gas sources statewide.
5. Stand up for a functioning EPA: New Mexico’s leaders and families need to join the chorus to protect the EPA from the assault it has been enduring, so that the agency can help protect our health and environment.

You can find a link to the report here.