WildEarth Guardians

Friday, December 2, 2016
New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Seeks Handout From United States

Plan would likely result in more oil and gas drilling in New Mexico
Contact: Chris Krupp, 206-417-6363, ckrupp@wildearthguardians.org

Additional contact:

Jeremy Nichols, 303-437-7663, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org

Santa Fe, NM–New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands, Aubrey Dunn, is speaking today at an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference to discuss his plan to have federal mineral rights in New Mexico given to the state at no cost. He will also be meeting with members of New Mexico’s Congressional delegation, as his plan would require Congressional action.

Under Dunn’s plan, the Early Childhood Education Land Grant Act, the United States would give up to 6.5 million acres of unleased mineral rights beneath private land to the state. New Mexico would then lease the mineral rights to generate revenue to fund early education programs in the state. That Dunn is presenting his plan at the ALEC conference suggests that it could be used as a model for similar legislation in other states.

Transferring federal mineral rights without compensation to a state is part of the ongoing demand by several western states that they be given title to the public lands within their borders. These states are insisting they be given a share of America’s commonwealth so that they can more easily exploit these resources.

“Commissioner Dunn’s plan is the height of hypocrisy,” said Chris Krupp, Public Lands Guardian at WildEarth Guardians, a conservation organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Libertarians and conservatives are constantly preaching about the evils of handouts, but this is plainly a scheme to take federal mineral rights, which are assets belonging to all American people, and hand them more easily to corporations.”

ALEC is an extreme-right organization of corporate lobbyists and state legislators that regularly sponsors conferences to develop model bills. The conferences are paid for by ALEC’s corporate members. Legislators return home from the conferences and introduce the model bills in their statehouses. The model bills often benefit the corporations that helped write them.

The fossil fuel industry, including corporations such as Peabody Energy, ExxonMobil, and Koch Industries, is a primary funder of ALEC. ALEC and ExxonMobil are currently being investigated by the IRS after having been accused by of running an illegal scheme to promote climate change denial policies and legislation.

“Exxon and their cronies would be overjoyed if this plan is enacted,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “Americans are demanding to keep their fossil fuels in the ground and this plan would take their rights away and give them to a commissioner who’s cozy with the fossil fuel industry.”