Stewart's remaining climate bills await House hearing
Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) has two bills to infuse millions of dollars to address climate change pass through their final committee and await a hearing on the floor. Stewart said she wouldn't give up on legislation she sponsored to codify New Mexico emissions reduction goals into law, which stalled earlier this session. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)
Two bills that would funnel hundreds of millions for climate change adaptation into communities and state government advanced Tuesday night through the House Appropriations and Finance Committee along party lines. The bills now head to the House floor, but time is running out as the session ends at noon Saturday.
Sponsor Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque) told Source NM the House could consider Senate Bill 48 as soon as Wednesday.
Senate Bill 48, also called the Community Benefits Fund and would make available $210 million for communities and the state to: train workers in the oil and gas industry for other jobs; reduce oil and gas emissions; improve the electric grid; develop renewable energy projects; modify public buildings to be more energy efficient; reduce the impacts of climate change on human health, agriculture and the environment; purchase electric vehicles and develop charging infrastructure.
'The idea behind this is that our communities are struggling with the results of climate change,' Stewart said during the hearing. Stewart noted impacts from the historic flooding in Roswell and the fires in Ruidoso in 2024 along with ongoing rebuilding in San Miguel and Mora Counties from the state's largest wildfires in 2022.
Stewart said the fund offers communities a chance to prepare against disasters, which are more frequent due to the warming planet fueled by the extraction and burning of oil and gas.
'The climate impact to the Southwest is intense already,' she said. 'It's hotter, drier, more intense weather.'
In response to questions about the financial cost to New Mexico from climate change, co-sponsor House Majority Floor Leader Reena Szczepanski (D-Santa Fe) said in 2024,the state spent over $141 million in emergency state funding, while the damage from the Hermit's Peak-Calf Canyon fires, flash floods and mudslides has totaled more than $900 million, and will ultimately cost billions of dollars.
Stewart noted the original $340 million ask was whittled down during the budget process to $210 million, but noted some of the funding in the bill was transferred to state agency budgets instead.
'It's just the process, and I'm happy with $210 million, if that's where we're at,' Stewart told the committee.
Senate Bill 83 allocates $10 million in funding for seven state agencies — the largest pieces going to the New Mexico Environment Department and the New Mexico Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department.
The budget contains funding for both bills, but does require SB 48 and SB 83 to pass.
Stewart said the funding will be used to continue the work the agencies must do on climate change and adaptation and mitigation, but to also help the communities that might apply for climate change funding through the Community Benefits Fund.
'This just charges them with continuing that work, with increasing that work and having the ability to help these communities who want to do their own work on climate adaptation and mitigation,' Stewart said.
Advocates have confidence the bills will make it across the finish line, Camilla Feibelman, the director of the Rio Grande Chapter of Sierra Club, one of the environmental nonprofits supporting the bill, told Source NM Wednesday.
'These two bills make unprecedented investments in not just attending to the global climate crisis and projects that can help reduce emissions, but they also invest and in the people and communities who can help bring in the transition in, and are also most impacted by the effects of climate change or the transitioning economy,' Feibelman said.
Stewart brought the bills as part of an expansive package to enshrine climate action into state law. The linchpin Senate Bill 4, Clear Horizons Act, which would have enshrined greenhouse gas emission reduction goals into law, stalled in Senate Finance earlier this session.
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