The New Mexico Business Coalition (NMBC) filed a third complaint with the New Mexico attorney general on Thursday.
The complaint was about continued Open Meetings Act violations by the NM Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC).
NMBC is a statewide, nonpartisan, grassroots organization focused on improving the business environment, job growth, and quality of life for all New Mexicans, according to its website.
The complaint alleged that the NMPRC improperly held a discussion about the Public Service Company of New Mexico’s closure of the San Juan Generating Station behind closed doors during its meeting on June 28. The complaint noted that this procedure was outside of the compliance guidelines published by the NM attorney general’s office. Officials there said that public bodies cannot misuse the closed-door exception as a means of avoiding the requirement for open meetings.
This occurred after NMPRC allegedly violated the Open Meetings Act earlier this year on two separate occasions. They deliberated secretly on matters that should have been open to the public, New Mexico Sun reported.
"Not only are we asking the New Mexico attorney general to investigate a third Open Meetings Act violation by the commission in a matter of months, [but] the frequency of these violations warrants scrutiny to determine if there is an ongoing pattern and practice of the commission failing to meet transparency laws," NMBC President Carla Sonntag said, according to a press release.
Attorney General Hector Balderas in February committed to investigating the NMPRC's role as a bottleneck in greenlighting electric generation capacity needed to avoid rolling blackouts. New Mexico is set to close the coal-fired San Juan Generating System, and the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) revealed that solar projects meant to replace its capacity would not be completed by June 30, when the coal plant was scheduled to be shuttered.
Albuquerque Journal previously reported that this incident raises serious questions and risks about the best way forward, as the state races to transform the power grid to 80% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% non-carbon energy by 2045.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) in 2019 signed into law a revision of New Mexico's 2004 renewable portfolio standard (RPS). This move aggressively increased the state's required renewable energy targets. The 2019 law set new goals that 50% of electricity would come from renewable resources by 2030, 80% by 2040, and 100% by 2045, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
