On January 28, advocates from Food & Water Watch assembled at the Roundhouse to urge New Mexico's legislature to halt the expansion of factory farms. These facilities are seen as significant contributors to climate change, consuming scarce water resources, causing pollution, harming animal welfare, exploiting workers, and threatening family farms.
The advocates specifically called for support of SB 99, known as the Methane Emissions Reduction Act (MERA). This legislation aims to address a loophole in the recently enacted Clean Transportation Fuel Standard. Closing this loophole would prevent factory farms from receiving incentives that allow them to profit from their pollution.
New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light expressed their support for this initiative. Rev. Clara Sims, Assistant Executive Director of NM & EP IPL, stated: “In New Mexico, we cherish the abundance of beauty and provision that the land offers to us and we celebrate the unique lifeways of tending the land reflected in every corner of our state. Climate change threatens these lifeways through unpredictable and extreme weather, and, of course, the far-reaching drought conditions that are already here. As people of faith and conscience we want the Clean Transportation Fuel Standards to be implemented with integrity to climate goals and that is why we support the Methane Emissions Reduction Act. If factory farms are incentivized to profit from pollution that adds more heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, the Clean Fuel Transportation Standard will fall far short of the climate goals for which it was originally passed. It is impossible to name the depth of beauty, dignity, and diversity we are called to celebrate in our state. Let’s pass the Methane Emissions Reduction Act for the flourishing future we have in equal measures the right and the responsibility to protect.”
Alongside gathering in Santa Fe to advocate for legislative support for SB 99, New Mexicans participated in various events over the past week aimed at urging officials into action.
