Last Thursday a pair of bills related to the oil and gas industry made highly consequential appearances in the New Mexico House — one on its way out and the other on its way in. The bigger of the two, the General Appropriation Act of 2023, is as big as a bill gets in New Mexico, as it is the first step in funding everything the state does in the coming year. On Thursday, the House gave its 252 pages a three-hour hearing before passing it and sending it to the Senate for further discussion and debate.
The Appropriations Act, as it currently stands, is a mixed bag for the two agencies that monitor the state’s oil and gas industry. The bill increases funds for the Oil Conservation Division over what was in the Legislature’s original budget proposal. “Those additions largely closed the gap,” says Dylan Fuge, acting director of OCD. The news was less positive for the New Mexico Environment Department. Matthew Maez, spokesperson at NMED, says that the House bill bundled budget requests for a new climate office and current oilfield ozone pollution enforcement but undershot the $6.1 million combined request by more than 40%, which he says, “directly undermines our mission.
