Kathi Bearden, president of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NMFOG) Board of Directors, recently criticized the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission's (NMPRC) repeated practice of holding public meetings behind closed doors.
She claimed that this violates the state's Open Meetings Act and said these actions spread distrust.
The New Mexico Business Coalition (NMBC) on Thursday filed a third complaint with the New Mexico attorney general. The complaint was about continued Open Meetings Act violations by the 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 (OMA) earlier this year on two separate occasions. They deliberated secretly on matters that should have been open to the public, New Mexico Sun reported.
"The PRC tackles issues that are important to every New Mexican and it's vital that the PRC, like every government entity, follow the law," Bearden said in a press release. "Closing a public meeting in violation of the OMA spreads distrust. The public has the right to know that its elected officials are acting in the public interest."
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) announced 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 raised 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.
The NMFOG is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to helping citizens exercise their rights to transparent and open government, its website noted.
