A New Mexico Environment Department board on Monday voted to increase fees for developers seeking air quality permits in a move that environmental advocates said would boost much-needed funding for state inspections, monitoring and enforcement.
State law requires developers to apply for air quality permits if they plan to build something that emits pollutants above certain thresholds. Advocates say the current fee structure is partly responsible for a backlog among the state’s environmental officials – recent enforcement actions focused on complaints filed more than three years ago, Citizens Caring for the Future organizer Haley Jones said in a statement. The new fees are scheduled to go into effect June 1.
The department’s Environmental Improvement Board approved the measure after three days of hearings on the matter. Last month, more than two dozen state lawmakers co-signed a letter urging the board to update the fees in light of the state Air Quality Bureau’s “documented funding crisis.”
“Communities across our state – in the Permian Basin, the San Juan Basin, and beyond – live with flaring, odors, and air pollution from oil and gas operations that contribute to asthma, respiratory illness, and reduce our quality of life,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that permit and emissions fees hadn’t been “meaningfully updated in decades.” Meanwhile, the general construction permit registrations for oil and gas projects have increased by “roughly 2,100%.”
The lawmakers raised concerns about whether the state’s hotbeds for oil and gas operations are being properly monitored. For instance, they wrote that Lea and Eddy counties, which have thousands of oil and gas wells, each have just one ozone monitor. Some major production areas don’t have any, they wrote.
Environmental advocates praised the decision Monday and said that it was “fair and proper” for polluting industries to be responsible for costs upfront in the form of permit fees. Keeping the fees as they are places an unfair burden on taxpayers down the road, they said.
“New Mexico’s air quality permit fee structure has been flat for about 20 years, meaning that each year, the Environment Department has had to perform its increasingly complex public health and safety duties with fewer and fewer resources,” Western Environmental Law Center attorney Morgan O’Grady said in a Monday statement. “It is fair and proper for industry applicants to bear the true cost to ensure their enterprises do not endanger the communities in which they operate.”