Yes, the Energy Transition Is Coming. But ‘Probably Not’ in Our Lifetime.

The New Mexico Legislature began its 2026 session this week. Even-numbered years like this one are almost exclusively dedicated to budgetary issues, which puts the state’s oil and gas industry front and center, as revenues from the oilfields make up about a third of the state’s General Fund budget, and contribute millions more to its permanent funds. The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association sits at the middle of numerous political debates each legislative session as the biggest representative of the state’s most lucrative industry.

Missi Currier has led the group since 2023, as state legislators have pumped fossil fuel revenues into record state budgets. During that time, some studies have shown that oilfield air pollution emissions have risen as the Democratic-majority Legislature has passed little legislation to impose greater oversight or extract more tax dollars.

This interview was originally recorded Jan. 22 for New Mexico PBS’ weekly news program New Mexico in Focus.

This interview is presented in full. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Capital & Main: What is the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association hoping for this particular legislative session? What bills are you hoping to see come up?

Missi Currier: We’re really excited about this session and the possibility of what could come from it. First, we would love to see the Reclamation Fund pass. A bill recently filed by Rep. Mark Murphy [R-Chaves] and Rep. Debbie Sariñana [D-Bernalillo] would refund the Reclamation Fund. Oil and gas companies have actually been paying a conservation tax on every single barrel of oil produced in the state of New Mexico since the ’70s, and a percentage of that conservation tax has gone to the Reclamation Fund. What the Reclamation Fund does is if a bad actor or a company of some sort goes out of business and they didn’t clean up their well and they didn’t reclamate the land, the Reclamation Fund is there, which is funded by oil and gas to ensure that the land can be returned back to its native state. 

The Reclamation Fund does have a lot of money in it right now, not only from the oil and gas companies that are paying directly into it, but also some federal funds. But we’d really like to see the Reclamation Fund beefed back up, ensuring that the full percentage is going into the Reclamation Fund. A few years ago, some of the funding was lost because it was pulled from the Reclamation Fund into the New Mexico General Fund. So, just making sure that those dollars are going back for their original intent is something we’re excited about.

So, I was looking at that bill again, and I had a question for you, since I’m guessing you know this pretty well. The Oil and Gas Conservation Tax that oil and gas producers pay, that goes to a couple of different things. It goes to the Reclamation Fund, but doesn’t part of that also go to the operation of the Oil Conservation Division?

It does. It helps there. And there’s also funds there to help with education about energy throughout the state. So we’re primarily focused on the reclamation side of it and not changing where the rest of the dollars are.

But from what I read the bill says that currently about 20% of the Conservation Tax goes to the Reclamation Fund, but will bump to 50% next year, 75% in 2028 and 100% in 2029, which means all of the Conservation Tax will be going to reclamation. But what about the money that previously went to the Oil Conservation Division or to education? For our listeners at home, the Oil Conservation Division is kind of the main policing body for the oil and gas industry in the state. So it almost looks a bit like a defunding action there.

Not a defunding, just a shifting of the funds. We have worked with the Oil Conservation Division, and I believe Rep. Murphy as well as Rep. Saniñana are having conversations with their fellow legislators to better understand how we can ensure that the Oil Conservation Division doesn’t lose any money for the purposes that they’re in place for. Because we want a fully funded agency. That’s incredibly important for a lot of reasons, and that’s one of the reasons that there is a stair step in that bill so that we can incrementally work our way into not losing money from the Oil Conservation Division and ensuring other dollars are there to backfill it. In parts of the original legislation, you might’ve seen that the shift would’ve happened right away. This legislation allows for the stair steps so that those dollars don’t go anywhere.

So then where’s the makeup funding going to come from for the Oil Conservation Division?

So that will come, of course. The [legislators] will take a look at how they best want to fund from the General Fund, and there might be dollars that are shifted around there to ensure that there is not a loss of funding. And, of course, we all hope that production stays high so the state can continue to enjoy higher profits so that the dollars are there.

So you’re thinking that the funding would actually come from the General Fund instead of from the automatic taxation that comes in currently. I just want to make sure that I have that clear.

That is clear. And as you know, the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the Oil Conservation Division are funded through the General Fund and other places like the Reclamation Fund. So we do anticipate that the General Fund can absorb any dollars that are being shifted around knowing that that’s the purpose of the General Fund.

[Sidney Hill, public information officer for the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, clarified in an email after the interview that in past years, all money collected through the Conservation Tax that did not go to the Reclamation Fund went to the state’s General Fund and not directly to the Oil Conservation Division or other projects.]

Last session, it came up a lot both in advertising and from legislators themselves, mostly on the right side of the aisle, that the oil and gas industry was out of favor in New Mexico and out of favor with the New Mexico Legislature. But at the same time, last year we had the Oil and Gas Day at the House, which passed unanimously in favor of the oil and gas industry. And honestly, for the last several years, very, very few regulatory changes that would affect the oil and gas industry have passed — much less made it out of committee hearings. I’m wondering why you say that it is somehow out of favor.

Last session, we worked on 30 bills that would’ve had a direct and negative impact to oil and gas and, ultimately, the state of New Mexico. We understand that when we are one of the largest industries in the state, there will always be a large focus on us. We appreciate that and we understand that. 

What we do get frustrated by is, because of the legislative and regulatory burden that we’re constantly facing, it often feels as if we’re fighting a battle as opposed to finding ways to collaborate to move the state forward. And that’s something that’s incredibly frustrating for our industry.

OK, I get that. But you essentially won. You say there were 30 bills roughly that came up last session that you were fighting against, and I think there were maybe two that passed. And I think I’m being a little generous there. The oil and gas industry has an extremely strong track record of keeping those sorts of bills from passing. I shouldn’t say keeping them from passing, but they don’t pass.

We can certainly have detractors, but that doesn’t mean that we’re always losing.

Well, let’s put it this way. Back on Tuesday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in her State of the State speech was calling for working across the aisle, people working together. And then, I have to admit, I was a little surprised. Less than an hour after she finished her speech, I got an email in my inbox from the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association saying that “Santa Fe [the state capital] needs a reality check.” And I was kind of surprised by this. 

I’m wondering what the reality check is that you’re talking about, considering — as just said — that you actually have a pretty good track record of getting what you want passed, passed and what you don’t want passed, not passed. What is the reality check that you think Santa Fe is missing?

We are, and we’re very proud of this, but New Mexico is currently the No. 1 emission reducing state in the country. That’s really cool. That’s something that we should all be proud of, but it also means that we are one of the worst states for education. We’re one of the worst states for crime. We’re one of the worst states for health care. So when there continues to be an incredibly large focus on industry, when we’re doing our part, we just want to continue to remind our legislators and others that there are big problems in this state that we would hope that we would focus on and find bipartisan ways to move those forward without it constantly being a battle over the industry that does so much for the state, not only economically, but even environmentally.

I think most legislators truly appreciate the money that comes in from industry. They say so. I have to believe what they say, sometimes at least. 

But to back up a bit, I just happened to come across a study by a group called the Rhodium Group, which is a big international group that tracks energy production across the planet, but particularly here in the United States. And last September they came out with a big study, state by state, showing greenhouse gas emissions across sectors. And it was very clear that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry in New Mexico have dramatically increased between 2020 and through the end of 2024 and projected up through 2028. 

So I’m not sure where the idea that emissions are diminishing comes from. The numbers that they had were 24 megatons of CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions in 2020 and 41 megatons released in 2025. And again, these sorts of numbers are reflected in emissions that have been tracked here in the Permian Basin in New Mexico. So I’m not sure that’s quite accurate.

Well, I haven’t seen the study, Jerry, and if you have time, please send it to us because I’d like to look it over. But what I can speak to is since 2020 production has actually increased in New Mexico, so with an increase of production, of course there might be an increase of emissions. We’ve also found ways to further diversify the economy in the Permian. We also have several other industries that also have emission emitters. Even Bernalillo County, for example, can have emissions that sometimes make them look just as bad as the Permian. 

So with that in mind, I’m very proud of the companies and the work that they’re doing. As you know, the governor’s executive order that came out in 2019 that says that 98% of gas has to be captured at the wellhead, all of those changes have to take place by 2027 and over 95% of our companies are already achieving that a year ahead of the goal. There’s been several studies that show that while emissions in production are up in the Permian, it also shows that emissions are coming down, especially on the New Mexico side because of innovations in technology. 

So are there emissions? Yes, because we live in an industrial society. But that certainly doesn’t mean that vast improvements haven’t been made and that our companies do better each and every day to ensure that we’re doing the best that we can.

I will just point out again, the study from the Rhodium Group. So that’s just one. Another one is numbers collected by the New Mexico Environment Department at their air monitoring stations in the Permian Basin and by other groups that have worked down there that show at the very least, flat emissions or problems with ozone in that region. Or increasing. That’s been going on for at least a half-dozen years or more. We’ll leave it there. We apparently disagree on this.

Absolutely. The only thing that I’ll end with there is that as Environment Department Secretary James Kenny has said, so many of the reports that he’s showing indicate the numbers are improving in the Permian. So let’s visit more, Jerry, when we’ve got time to compare reports and see if we can get more on the same page. I’m happy to have that conversation.

Your ads regularly tout the amount of money that the oil and gas industry pays toward the state economy, with emphasis on education and child welfare. But I think we can both agree that burning these same fossil fuels leads to a warmer climate for those kids in the future and more difficult times for them to live in. So how do you square that particular circle of the oil and gas industry — yes, helping pay for things in the state that help kids — but at the same time make it more difficult down the line?

I don’t think it’s a circle to square. I think it’s very obvious that technology, science and innovation are the answer to that question. We will absolutely get to an energy transition one day, and we are working toward that. But to get to an energy transition, you must first go through an energy expansion. We believe in oil and responsible oil and gas production. We know that renewables like wind and solar and others are going to be incredibly important. And with the demands that we have on the electric grid right now, which are continuing to grow, we need all of those energies to ensure that New Mexico remains a stable place to live, work and play. 

So will we transition from oil and gas one day? Yes. Is it going to happen in our lifetime? Probably not. And until innovation, technology and science allows us to move completely away from oil and gas, we will continue to produce in affordable, reliable and sustainable ways.

I hear what you’re saying. Unfortunately, we have to wrap up. I will make a quick note though, that I think that if you say a thing’s not going to happen, it probably won’t happen. It will be more difficult for it to happen. So I’d like to say that perhaps in our lifetime things will change, but I guess that will be another discussion for another day. Missi Currier of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, thank you so much for taking the time.

Thank you. I appreciate you.

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