On Monday, the New Mexico Environment Department announced the second monetary penalty in a week for an oil and gas producer found in violation of state and federal clean air laws. NMED announced a consent decree wherein Matador Resources of Dallas has agreed to pay $1.15 million in fines to the state of New Mexico and the federal government and millions more in wellsite cleanup and upgrades at sites across New Mexico’s portion of the Permian Basin, after a 2019 overflight program conducted by the EPA found dozens of Clean Air Act (CAA) and permitting violations by the company. Last week the EPA announced a settlement under which Chisholm Energy of Fort Worth will pay a $440,000 penalty and spend millions on upgrades after that company also was found to be in violation of the CAA following overflights in 2020.
NMED Secretary James Kenney says the fines are a result of two earlier stories reported by Capital & Main showing that the EPA was closing out CAA cases without fines for air pollution violations found in New Mexico during annual flyovers looking for methane leaks at oil and gas facilities in the Permian Basin. Capital & Main “pointed out to me EPA was settling these cases without a penalty for a while until we said, ‘That’s unacceptable,’” Kenney says.
