ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico properly prepared for President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut greenhouse gases from power plants and won’t be among the many Republican-led states expected to fight the plan, state Environment Department Secretary Ryan Flynn said Monday.
Flynn told The Associated Press that because New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez had previously brokered an agreement, the state is in position to adapt to the new rule.
“I think we can look back at the decisions we made three years ago and say they paid off,” Flynn said.
Martinez moved to comply with the rule to allow the state to craft its own path to compliance. Flynn said New Mexico could have faced a federally imposed implementation plan.
That brokered agreement targeted haze-causing pollution at the San Juan Generating Station, but carbon dioxide emissions will also be reduced by half as a result.
PNM already has plans to replace some of the lost electricity from San Juan with nuclear-generated power and another 40 megawatts of solar.
The new Environmental Protection Agency rule call for nationwide carbon reduction mandates.
It seeks to reduce U.S. carbon emissions from electric power plants by 30 percent by 2030.
Many Republican-led states have said their states simply won’t comply. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has encouraged Republican governors to take that step, vowed to use legislation to thwart the president’s plan.
Flynn praised Martinez for “putting politics aside” in an effort to fight climate change.
In a statement, PNM CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn said the utility was still reviewing the plan.
“But we are encouraged that EPA’s emission rate for NM is not significantly different from the proposed rule and that EPA has provided additional time for states to submit plans and for utilities to comply,” Vincent-Collawn said.
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