New Mexico & El Paso
On March 21, President Biden announced the designation of Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada and Castner Range in Texas as the country’s newest national monuments. The designation provides permanent protection for roughly 514,000 acres of Nevada and Texas landscapes.
March 25-April 1, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas (Esto’k Gna) is holding a youth-led, week-long run and walk from the Permian Basin to the Rio Grande Valley to bring awareness to the harmful, exploitative and unjust impacts of extractive industries on their sacred lands. The event, titled Bridge to the Ancestors, will start with an opening ceremony on March 24th at Monahans Sandhills State Park in Monahans, TX. Over the next 10 days, tribal members will visit eight communities, culminating in a celebration on April 2 in Port Isabel, Texas.
Diane has lived in New Mexico since 2007 – when she received orders to Kirtland AFB. She served 25 years as a medical service corps officer, beginning in the Navy and finishing in the Air Force. When she retired in
Derrick Toledo, from the Pueblo of Jemez, is a congressional staffer for Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández currently based out of Santa Fe. He previously served as a tribal official in Jemez and now works closely alongside the tribes in natural
The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter issued the following statement in response to an economic report issued by the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, which failed to include the industry’s well-documented economic costs and harms to New Mexicans’ health, water, and air quality. The Sierra Club is also supplying science-based facts to give the public a more complete understanding of oil and gas impacts in our state.
See a list of priority bills for the current session that the Rio Grande Chapter is for the 2023 legislative session.
Thanks to all of you who voted and volunteered in the 2022 general election! Your thousands of calls and door knocks resulted in climate champions winning up and down the New Mexico ticket, and perhaps made the difference in a priority state House race our candidate won by just 30 votes. Across the country, progressive, pro-environment candidates defied the pundits and historical voting patterns, though Democrats will barely lose control of the U.S. House. And Democrats increased their paper-thin Senate majority to 51.
2022 was a wild and wacky year. There are some wins and some losses. Review our successes and failures.
It is no secret that New Mexico is in a water crisis. In fact, the whole Southwest is in the driest two decades it has seen in at least 1,200 years. And the hard truth is climate projections tell us conditions will only get more challenging from here. We can expect temperatures to increase 5-7 °F over the next 50 years, with a 25% decrease in our overall water supply, increasing demand and competition across the state for this precious resource even as it slips through our fingers. The Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force is tackling these challenges head on. Established by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over the summer and led by New Mexico’s State Engineer, the Task Force has brought together a diverse array of members to identify solutions that have broad consensus to some of our toughest water challenges.
This year is a “long” 60-day legislative session starting January 17, and there will be many exciting opportunities for Sierra Club members to provide input and participate (sometimes late into the night!) in the process. Here are a few of the bills we are expecting and will be advocating for or against in the coming session.