South ABQ News

U.S. Senate Republican candidate Elisa Martinez believes New Mexico's version of the Green New Deal is "total insanity."

Martinez said in her guest column for the Albuquerque Journal that New Mexico is oil-and-gas rich because of the Permian Basin and that the Energy Transition Act (ETA), which requires the state to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2045, threatens thousands of energy jobs and will cause utility rates to skyrocket.

"Is the carbon footprint of New Mexico, a poor, rural state, so great that we need this drastic change?" she wrote in The Journal. 

Martinez said the Permian Basin has helped build a cleaner environment and is a contributor to the country gaining energy independence.

"Today, our environment and energy industry are cleaner than ever," Martinez said. "We’ve made great progress."

She said air pollutants fell drastically between 1990 and 2017 and the air now contains 80 percent less lead, 77 percent less carbon monoxide and 88 percent less sulfur dioxide.

Martinez worries that proposals by far-left Democrats, like the Green New Deal, will not only eliminate the oil and gas industry but will gut the economy. She points to the Green New Deal's calls for universal healthcare and a guaranteed job program as problems with the proposal.

"Yet, Congress already has spent billions of tax dollars to make us greener – with little success," she said.

Martinez notes President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus plan that included $14 billion in renewable energy loans, in which the House Oversight Committee found problems and "no tangible progress" with. She said the state's energy industry is No. 1 in tax revenue for New Mexico and provides much-needed resources for infrastructure, schools and the state government, among other things.

"This threatens the jobs of thousands of energy workers in our state and will cause our utility rates to skyrocket," Martinez said.