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Welcome to Your Legislators on KRWG Public Media.

I'm KC Counts.

The New Mexico State Legislature adjourned February 19th in Santa Fe after its 30-day session.

Throughout the session, we've talked with lawmakers about legislation they support, and how the state's budget is taking shape.

Senator Jeff Steinborn was our first guest for the season, and he'll join us later in the program, our finale to review it.

First, we'll talk about how lawmakers failed to codify climate goals Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, set early in her first term.

To help us understand this complex issue, is investigative journalist with Capital & Main, Jerry Redfern.

Welcome back to KRWG.

Thank you KC, I really appreciate you having me on.

It's great to have you.

How long have you been covering oil and gas in New Mexico?

Since during the pandemic, started in 2020.

How have you seen the legislature deal with this issue?

So even before 2020, the governor had laid out her ambitious goals, for climate in New Mexico.

And so you kind of came in right at the beginning of that or just shortly after.

How have you seen things change in New Mexico regarding that lofty goal?

Well, the Environment Department and the Oil Conservation Division, the two main bodies that regulate oil and gas production here in the state, have each implemented sort of two sides of a plan to reduce, methane emissions, in particular from oil and gas operations, mostly looking at the emissions that come out of the Permian Basin down in the southeast corner of the state.

So that's been a pretty big shift.

Those are mostly self-reported, reports that are coming out.

And, it looks like, generally speaking, those emissions have dropped a bit over that time period.

So that, I think, is the biggest change that I've seen in these six years.

I should take a math class, but over six years of public.

Yes.

That's the, that's probably the biggest thing.

So the industry has changed, but the legislation really hasn't.

Right?

So much, because last year I think it was only two Democrats that derailed a similar bill to the one we saw this year and this year, the Clear Horizons Act, it was seven Democrats that voted against it.

What do you think is bringing more Democrats to the other side?

Oh, well, I think actually it's just a technical issue.

This time, the vote with where the seven Democrats voted against it happened on the Senate floor.

So you had all of the senators in the room together voting for or against the bill.

Previously, last year, it was voted down by essentially all of the Republican and two Democrats on a committee hearing.

So far, fewer people, so far fewer people to vote against it.

That's that's, I think, what really happened there.

Why don't you give us an overview of the Clear Horizons Act and what it would have accomplished?

The main goal of the Clear Horizons Act was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, across the state of New Mexico to 2005 emission levels by 2050.

This was often called a 100% reduction.

It's not entirely true, cause we were certainly as a state of emitting greenhouse gases in 2005.

The way it had previously tried to go about this, for example, in last year's bill, was to require emitters to reduce those emissions at the source of emission.

So, in the case of oil and gas, which is what everybody here is talking about, that would have meant you are reducing those emissions at the wellhead or, you know, at the processing facility, things like that.

A big change that was in the bill that was proposed this year was a thing called carbon offsets, where a company, you know, an oil producing company, think, think like Exxon, Chevron, yada, yada.

They would be able to pay for another group to remove greenhouse gases somewhere else in the state and sequester them somehow while they continued to emit greenhouse gases, say, from, wellheads.

So that was really, I think, the biggest change, in the bill this year, there were some other wording changes where, it stripped out very clearly that small emitters weren't going to be subject to this but that's really the biggest change.

We did hear a lot of arguments, about smaller businesses and agriculture and what a struggle it would be for them.

what is, what is, what have you found in the course of your reporting about how these changes outlined in the Clear Horizons Act would have impacted, smaller outfits?

Well, in theory, I mean, we're talking in theory here because the bill didn't pass, and I'm not sure that that was ever fully debated.

Exactly how that would have worked.

But there was very strictly outlined in the bill, any business group of people, whatever, that emits 10,000, what's it, metric tons, of, of CO2 emissions per year or less would be exempt from these rules.

And that's most small businesses across the state.

And it was never intended to go after farmers either.

So, you know, I, I don't want to say that these people's arguments were a bit of a red herring, but I never heard it clearly stipulated stated, explained, how these businesses, that were complaining about the bill actually would have suffered under the bill.

Since you began by talking about the progress the industry has made, do you think the industry will continue to make progress without being forced to by the state?

Yeah, that's that's the, that's the $50,000 question, isn't it?

The industry has always said it's doing the best it possibly can.

But curiously, every time rules or laws are passed, they suddenly do better.

So I think that the likelihood is that if this had passed, then, yes, greenhouse gas emissions would have dropped even more.

A, a key thing to point out is that many of the biggest producers in the state, which are some of the biggest companies in the world, talking like Exxon, talking Occidental, talking Chevron, have goals that they've already set for themselves to reduce their emissions in the same sort of way, or even more so either in the same time frame or more quickly.

But that's, that's, a self-imposed sort of thing that they're supposed to be doing.

And oftentimes it seems that, perhaps some nudge from outside gets those things over the line, maybe a little more quickly.

But I'm not sure we're going to see that soon.

Well, obviously, we're seeing on a federal level the kind of reversals that can happen in terms of climate goals, environmental goals and whatnot.

So the same thing could happen on the state level.

Talk a little bit about those concerns moving forward.

I think the big concern is going to come around air pollution, particularly in the Permian Basin.

There, there are several different air quality rules that govern air pollution across the country.

There was a very large one that was rolled back, or I should say that the Trump administration is trying to roll back.

It's immediately going to court.

It's not clear that that will actually happen.

That's going to be a years long legal process if it does.

There are signs that the EPA is simply just not doing the enforcement work that it did before.

Around oil and gas, venting, flaring, air pollution.

I'm still chasing down those leads and trying to get people to state that on the record.

I have plenty of people saying it off the record, but it's always a question of getting people who know how to say it on the record.

Yeah, I, I, I think that's what we're looking at.

It's going to be a shift where much of the major enforcement work, is no longer being done by the EPA, at least not being done the way that it had been done in the past, and where the state is going to try to pick up that ball and and run with it if it can.

But you know, all of that costs money, so.

And obviously we've got a, a, an election, big election this year.

We'll have a new governor by this time next year.

Who could then obviously take a very different approach to this issue.

Right.

And that was always the big reason that previously the governor and say, Mimi Stewart who carried this Clear Horizons Act, this time, this past session and the session before, that's why they wanted to get this into law as opposed to in a rule.

And I guess that it's key to point out that difference, you know, rulemaking is where, you know, a, a, a department, in state government creates a rule that they've been mandated to do by the governor or by, legislation.

And that's one thing.

But to have it actually encoded in law, it's much more difficult to roll back or to just not enforce, shall we say.

So that, that was, that was the big reason there was a push for that again this year to get that over the line before Lujan Grisham leaves office.

All right.

Well, we'll continue to follow your reporting.

Jerry, thank you so much once again for joining us, investigative journalist Jerry Redfern with Capital & Main.

Hope to see you again soon.

Thanks, KC.

Thanks for having me on.

All right.

Thank you.

And yes, those early spring winds for southern New Mexico seem to have already rolled in.

It was a very warm and dry winter.

And so we'll turn the conversation next to Jeff Steinborn, who joined us at the very beginning of Your Legislators to talk about some of the legislation he went into the session supporting, and we'll talk about how things worked out next.

So, so we have a reduction in revenue, but we still have a surplus.

So we actually are not looking at any cuts.

We're looking at maybe some flatter budgets in some areas of state government, but we're also looking at some increases, so.

But thankfully no cuts.

New Mexico's in a really strong fiscal position right now, unlike some other states that really are in a recession or a period where they're not.

And just like that, we're right back in these chairs.

Welcome back, Senator Steinborn Good to be with you.

Seems like I only saw you a month ago, literally.

And here we are.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to bring you in and thank you for coming back.

Your welcome.

Nice bookends for your legislators for the season, to kind of go back to where we started and where we ended 30-days later.

Obviously we just spoke with Jerry Redfern a lot about the Clear Horizons Act.

Why did you talk a little bit about your Democratic colleagues who aren't on board?

Yeah, well, it's interesting.

I mean, everybody's got a hometown employer, and that hometown employer has a story to tell.

And ultimately, I think the opponents of this bill, did a good job activating local industries, unfortunately, polluting local industries, because that's all that this bill would have dealt with, where our big polluters to say that, this bill would have hurt them.

And, to the point of getting their local representatives to vote against the bill.

Enough of whom, Democrats, that we join with the Republicans, of course, who unanimously voted against this bill to defeat it.

To be fair, I want to say we reached out to Senator Joseph Cervantes, (Jeff) Ok, who was one of those, seven and asked for comment.

We also invited him to join, Your Legislators during the session, but hadn't heard back yet, so we hope to hear back from him soon.

But that obviously, reminds us as well of the large data centers, certainly Project Jupiter here in southern Doña Ana County.

There are others that we're gonna be looking to around the state, more and more popping up in our region, El Paso as well.

You introduced some legislation to try to rein in, something that happened in the last legislative session that would allow these data centers to create their own microgrids and pretty much operate outside of the Public Regulation Commission.

And I'm not sure how optimistic you were at the beginning of this session.

But I guess it must have felt pretty good to actually get that call, right?

Well, I mean, I, I knew it was David versus Goliath, and I knew also that, chances were our governor was a tough sell because she had help bring Project Jupiter to the state.

There were powerful legislators who I knew were a tough sell.

Who, who, would not want to do this and possibly jeopardize any project and, believe that maybe even Project Jupiter couldn't meet what we were recommending and putting in a statute in our bill.

So I knew it was David versus Goliath.

I, it was a, it was a kind of an inside baseball story of how I ended up getting a message from the governor.

And it was, you know, there was a desire to not see us attach my legislation to the Clear Horizons climate bill.

And, and ultimately, we were it was looking like we were going to do that.

And I was very supportive of doing that, because if we're going to have real climate legislation in the state, how can you not deal with these microgrids in these data centers that single handedly would double our state's carbon emissions in the electrical sector?

So, so the governor ultimately, wanted to separate these and, offered me a message, as an alternative track, and I accepted that.

And in that set the Microgrid Oversight Act loose, so then it could start moving through the legislative process.

And that's how that happened.

And we ultimately, you know, passed it through the Senate by one vote, which was just kind of an epic moment to do that, but very empowering to do that for my community, who really didn't feel like we had had much of a voice in this issue up until then and, and got it to two committees prior to that.

But yeah, ultimately it was never given a hearing in the House and, and died through lack of hearings, which was really disappointing.

And but having said that, the issue, doesn't go away.

It's more important than ever that we close this loophole, and I will continue to be working on that.

This is that is for sure.

Well, let's talk about some of the wins that you're coming away with.

What would you define, how would you define this session in terms of its successes?

So, you know, that's a great question because you have to kind of look at the session in totality.

There's so many different things we're fighting for, not just different pieces of legislation, but also different funding objectives we have to bring home to our district and to our state.

By and large, I think it was a really successful session.

And, you know, some of the big wins, you know, we're sitting here at New Mexico State University, something I've been fighting for for over a decade is to reform the way we pick our university regents.

I believe that, there's just far too much cronyism in, in how these, the Regents are a board of directors for a university who get to hire and fire university presidents.

They set tuition, they decide what buildings they're going to demolish.

I mean, they really set policy for that, for the, for the university with the president.

And I've just felt that we have far too much cronyism in those picks.

and so I've been advocating that we create nominating commissions for each university to actually interview anybody who wants to be a university regent and then recommend the best names to the governor for selection.

And it's been a tough fight, another one of those tough ethics battles.

But this year we finally accomplished it and passed it through the legislature.

So it will be a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

And I encourage everyone to vote for it.

That is, November is going to be a big, a big election.

Obviously, lots of tough decisions to make.

Yeah.

Let's get back to some of the other wins from this legislative session.

Obviously, many would point to medical malpractice reform.

Right.

Yeah.

That was that was a huge issue.

Obviously, one of the biggest things we accomplished this session was reforming, reforming some medical malpractice issues, largely reining in punitive damages, that could result from lawsuits and other issues involved in litigation, that I think people felt tilted this pendulum too far to the benefit of, you know, malpractice attorneys and were driving up insurance costs, making it, maybe not competitive to practice medicine here in New Mexico.

So we, we passed a bill that did that.

And, I know the doctors are very excited about it.

It was bipartisan, but it was acrimonious.

I mean, I won't it was a very tough political battle because of the pressures on both sides, you know, very compelling arguments to dealing with patients rights and their recourse for damages.

And so it was not an easy vote, but it was, it was one that I made in support of that bill to ultimately think about the assignment of rightsizing our judicial system as it relates to these cases so that it wasn't, you know, basically crippling to our medical industry.

And so I supported the bill.

I think a lot of people going in thought maybe it was going to require a special session, maybe even at the midway point.

What do you think, pushed that legislation through?

You know, I got to give a shout out to, to, to doctors and to patients.

I think, like never before, the medical community really mobilized.

They realized that they were not active in Santa Fe.

They were not active in the legislature in the same way that, frankly, attorneys have been.

And, the trial lawyers specifically, and that they needed to have their voice really be heard.

And so they, they've activated in a very muscular way and having not just themselves, but patients reach out to us in every single venue constantly and high volume.

And ultimately, really, I think my colleagues and I really came to understand just on a very personal level, how, how much, how much distress our medical system is in with, not having enough providers here, maybe having some that are wanting to leave the state.

And so we, felt like we need to take action.

We really got the assignment.

I think a lot of people talk about creating, you know, a place where people want to move to.

Yes.

And, maybe universal child care would be among the things that, would maybe draw some other folks in.

Talk about the ways that the legislature went about making sure that universal child care could be solvent through into the future.

Yeah.

So we, you know, we set up a very large, fund, early childhood fund that has now almost $10 billion, and it's amazing.

I mean, I remember when we made an initial deposit of 300 million and it has literally grown into the billions.

So we took a chunk of that money to fund, this early childhood system.

And now and this was, I would say, the governor.

I'm sure she considers this her big triumph.

One of them is that she proposed this last fall, universal free child care for New Mexico families that, we were able to ultimately deliver on that.

And, the one caveat is we built in, I believe, in, financial sustainability, provision of requiring co-pays.

If your income is above, well over $100,000, then you would have to pay a co-pay.

And we did this to ensure that the program was financially solvent, knowing that sometimes budgets and revenues get flat and take a downturn.

And so you can't, spend beyond your means.

So we we put in a little bit of a safeguard there.

But outside of that, it's going to be free for most New Mexicans, which is just huge, I'm sure will be such a difference maker, and many people being able to work and, add to the economy and live to the way they want to live their life so.

There's another one for the win column.

How about let's get back to that loss column and talk about the Lobbyists Disclosure Act.

Frustrating.

You know, that continues to be massively difficult legislation.

And of course, I've been working and now working on the last two years with Representative Sarah Silva to require full disclosure of all lobbying in the state of New Mexico to where, lobbyist employers would have to report every bill they lobby on and the position they take on that bill, so that for the first time, we would actually know who are, who, what are the power centers trying to pass, or defeat legislation, with one click.

And, that bill died on a tie vote on the House floor.

And it was kind of surprising.

Again.

Well, I'll say again, but it may be new to people listening.

Every single Republican, for some reason, has been enlisted to vote against this bill, passionately.

I think by corporate interests that they listen to a lot, that that want to be able to have influence and do it in the shadows.

But unfortunately, they were joined by a handful of Democrats who voted against the bill.

And, and then there was on this particular day, it was later in the session, I mean, it was literally the last five days of the session.

There were about 4 or 5 people not in the room at the time who are excused, Democratic members of the legislature.

So, I think we came very close to passing it this time, but we didn't quite have enough votes.

And the work continues.

And even then we still had literally like three days to get it through the Senate, had it passed that House vote.

So, and then the governor, of course, veto this bill last year too.

So no guarantee on her.

So it's like a lot of tough things we do in the legislature.

There's no guarantee like the microgrid bill.

But you go for it.

And yet you just sometimes things break your way.

Any big surprises we should watch out for?

Like the reason that you needed the microgrid bill?

When, when you say surprises, I'm sorry.

So the amendment that created the, you know, the microgrid.

Of course.

That seemed to get, caught, catch people by surprise.

Absolutely.

You know, it's sometimes issue, you find issues, issues come to you, you don't, I never could have anticipated the world of the data center, coming in New Mexico, and the policy ramifications and what we did to set the stage for a bad environmental outcome.

But now, we're called to try to fix it, so.

Something we didn't get to in your last appearance (Jeff) Yeah.

going into the session was the legislation to increase the statute of limitations for sexual crimes (Jeff) Yeah.

against children.

I wanted to spend the last few minutes on that and and how it relates maybe to the Epstein Truth Commission.

Well, I think it's, it's, it relates a lot.

But, I mean, we've had other scandals in our lifetime, in the last decades, high, equally high profile, more high profile scandals involving institutional sex crimes against kids.

I had an advocate here in Las Cruces named Abrianna Morales, who now is a Rhodes Scholar.

I'm very proud of her.

Who, had a situation happened to her.

She was a victim of abuse.

She came in, approached me at an event, this was, 6 or 7 years ago saying, what can we do to effect New Mexico's statute of limitations?

There too week.

We started researching it and came to find out that for a certain sector of young, young people, for certain sex crimes, the statute is way too shallow, like it's it's, six years after they turn 18, and we, in one of the shortest in the country.

So, we just know that, more and more research comes out that people aren't able to talk about these things sometimes well into their 40s or 50s.

And so the statute of limitation that runs out when you're 24 years old is inadequate for justice and to meet the data.

So we began working to try to pass it.

And, I've introduced bills probably three times.

We'll flash forward this session.

We have a brand new State Senator, Angel Charlie, who's just an incredible dynamo.

And she just said, I want to champion the bill this session.

And I, And I was like, go for it.

And she did a brilliant job organizing the state.

Of course, now we do have Jeffrey Epstein.

We've got more, awareness again or refocus on these, youth victims.

And, Angel was an incredibly effective organizer and messenger, and I'm going to give her the credit.

She got the bill passed this year and, eliminated the statute of limitations for both the crimes of CSC and CSP.

Ill, encourage people to Google that, but really heinous crimes and, and she limited the statute of limitations.

Now, the bill goes before the governor, who still does have to sign it.

So we're not there yet, but we're very, very close.

All right.

With the minute remaining, what do you hope to see come out of the Truth Commission?

The truth.

I hope they're able to find out documents, or documents, other if there's forensic evidence of, I've heard of bodies on the ranch.

I don't know if that's true or not.

There is some suggestion that it may be the case.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I hope that they're able to get to whatever needs to be disclosed about what happened there so we can continue to bring justice.

District 36 State Senator Jeff Steinborn, thanks so much for coming back and joining us for the finale of Your Legislators.

Thanks for having me again, KC.

And thanks again to Jerry Redfern, investigative journalist with Capital & Main.

And thank you for joining us for this season of Your Legislators.

You can catch episodes of this program and all our local programing at KRWG dot org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Friday News Wrap, become a member and support programing like this, and catch up on news from the region and around the world anytime.