I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
A New Mexico oil refinery has been fined $707,000 after state investigators found the company knowingly failed to correct safety problems before a deadly March 2 storage tank explosion and fire at the company’s plant in Artesia, N.M.
Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both California Democrats, said yesterday that they would soon introduce legislation on pipeline safety. The legislation will be modeled after the proposal sent to Congress by the Department of Transportation yesterday.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed an appeal Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s decision to allow (ISL) uranium mining in the Four Corners region of New Mexico.
That decision threatens the safety of…
In out-of-state money, in oil-and-gas giving, in the number of eye-popping contributions, Republican Susana Martinez beat Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish in the battle of dollars and cents. But a comparison of the reports Wednesday showed something else: Republicans from outside of New Mexico care big-time about winning the New Mexico governor’s race.
Just a week after a deadly pipeline blast in California, officials from Mountainair were disappointed to find PRC commissioners reluctant to approve what they had expected to be a routine regulatory waiver.
“There’s this pattern of companies doing something but not doing enough, not taking things seriously enough,” Commissioner Marks said. “It’s not that they don’t care. The problem is that the responses aren’t sufficiently large, given the scale of the dangers.”
Between 50 and 150 New Mexicans’ deaths each year in San Juan County are caused by air pollution from coal-fired power plant emissions, according to estimates in a study released Thursday by the Clean Air Task Force…
In the midst of a fight with New Mexico regulators over a proposed 20 percent electricity rate hike, PNM Resources is also seeking a 10.9 percent rate increase on its customers in Texas.
The company is asking the…
A national pro-business group is running a new ad attacking Democratic Rep. Harry Teague on the economy. The ad cites a story from The Independent, with a graphic saying “Harry Teague: “instrumental” in passing job-killing taxes.” But that’s not…
Funding for Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories helped New Mexico bring in more federal dollars per person than all but four other states, federal databases show for fiscal year 2009. Only Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Virgina received more money…
Although consumers, industry groups and governments are embracing renewable energy, the country isn’t yet delivering as much as it could because of a lack of transmission lines an other infrastructure needed to get the power from point A to point…
New Mexico’s gubernatorial candidates disagree over how often to test the state’s schoolchildren, the Associated Press reports.
The Santa Fe New Mexican profiles an Arizona high school graduate who is undocumented and recently came to New Mexico to…
The latest in a string of nationwide oil and gas industry-sponsored “Rally for Jobs” protests against government environmental and safety regulations is scheduled for Wednesday in Farmington. Sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and numerous other industry…
The City of Albuquerque is getting a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to turn methane gas from the Cerro Colorado landfill into energy that will power a glass recycling facility, Sen. Tom Udall announced Tuesday.
Some…
The state Public Regulation Commission (PRC) has scaled down the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM)’s proposed renewable energy procurement portfolio, which depended heavily on traditional photovoltaic solar electric facilities to meet state-mandated renewable energy requirements.
The…
New Mexico Oil and Gas Association President Steve Henke accepted gifts from an oil company and abused government travel funds when he was a U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) official responsible for regulating oil and gas production…
Susana Martinez isn’t the only big-ticket candidate in New Mexico’s fall elections who questions whether human society is the root cause of global warming. The three Republicans running for Congress expressed opposition to climate change legislation and were generally hesitant to acknowledge that human activity is having important negative effects on the planet.
New Mexico’s two candidates for governor clashed Wednesday on global climate change and its causes.
The back-and-forth began when Politico quoted Republican Susana Martinez in a story saying that she had “doubts about the role human activity plays in…
On Monday, the New Mexico Environment Improvement Board began hearing testimony from experts, citizens and industry concerning a rule change that could allow New Mexico to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and the oil and gas industry. The rule, proposed by New Energy Economy the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, would affect coal and natural gas power plants, as well as oil and gas facilities.
Campaign contributions to state Supreme Court candidates soared from $83 million nationwide in the 1990s to more than $206 million between 2000 and 2009, a new study reports. It’s a concerted push by special interest groups to influence judicial decisionmaking…
One way to slow the emission of so-called greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, is to pump them back into the ground, believes New Mexico Tech Associate Professor Brian McPherson.
Just last week, New Mexico Tech was awarded a…
