Good Climate News: New Clean Car and Truck Standards for New Mexico

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Note: The following piece was posted in the national IPL website on Jan. 2, 2024.   

by Ileagh MacIvers
Clean Cars Organizer

Last month, our affiliate New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light won a huge victory when key state agencies adopted both the Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) and Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) standards– rules that help protect our communities, clean up air quality, and safeguard our Sacred Earth. These rules allow New Mexico to become a leader in transportation electrification and our collective clean energy future.

The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board were able to adopt the ACCII and ACT standards, which were originally created in California, because there are two agencies across the country that work together to establish federal and state vehicle emissions standards: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), California sought a special waiver from the EPA to set their own, more stringent emissions standards, as smog was already becoming a serious issue in the state by the mid-1960s, long before national clean car standards were created. Other states across the country, such as New Mexico, must follow at least the national standards, but can also choose to adopt the more stringent regulations.

ACC II requires all light-duty vehicles sold in states that have adopted the rule to be 100% electric by 2035, although New Mexico has partially adopted the rule to require 82% electric vehicle sales by 2032. In adopting this set of standards, New Mexico joins a host of other clean transportation leaders including Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Vermont. ACC II has two main components: the low emission vehicle (LEV) program and the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) program. The first LEV standards were adopted in 1990 and require automakers to produce gradually cleaner light- and medium-duty vehicles through emission controls. Types of pollutants covered by the LEV program include greenhouse gasses, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides. The ZEV program requires automakers to sell increasingly more zero-emission and partially zero-emission (plug-in hybrid) light-duty vehicles each year beginning in model year 2026. Sales requirements will begin that year at 35%, build to 68% in 2030, and reach 100% in 2035 (or in the case of New Mexico, 82% in 2032). ACT requires manufacturers to produce zero-emission trucks beginning in 2024 and sets gradually increasing requirements that zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales reach 55% of Class 2b – 3 truck sales, 75% of Class 4 – 8 straight truck sales, and 40% of truck tractor sales by 2035. ACT provides more flexibility through credits, trading, and other features than ACC II, namely because the development of electric heavy-duty vehicles is less advanced than that of light-duty passenger cars.

ACCII and ACT standards are critical to help mitigate air pollution from burning fossil fuels, which has significant climate and health implications. Fossil fuel pollutants have been linked to “early death, heart attacks, respiratory disorders, stroke, and asthma.” In 2018, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that fossil fuel pollution led to 350,000 premature deaths in the US alone. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the destructive impacts of this kind of pollution, as well as communities of color and low-wealth communities, which are more likely to be found near major roadways and freight corridors due to historically racist housing practices.

Clean air protections are especially important in New Mexico, as New Mexico is the third-highest oil producing state in the country. According to the American Lung Association’s 2023 State of the Air Report, New Mexico is in dire need of clean air action, particularly in oil-producing counties. ALA’s report gave Bernalillo, Dona Ana, Eddy, and San Juan Counties an F grade for smog, with Lea and Sandoval Counties receiving D grades. Rio Arriba county was the only county to receive a grade higher than a C. It is also important to note that while air pollution is somewhat localized to counties with oil and gas production sites, this kind of pollution is likely to travel across the state and even across state lines.

In addition, New Mexico is experiencing a major uptick in climate change-induced wildfires, which have had devastating impacts on local ecosystems and traditional communities. Alongside such events, the ever-present reality of historic drought and record-breaking heat illustrate that the climate crisis is already here. By limiting fossil fuel pollution, these regulations help mitigate the impacts of climate change-fueled extreme weather events and protect our communities from their effects.

Overall, the adoption of these robust standards is a huge win for all New Mexicans, and it is due in part to the tireless advocacy of our friends at NMIPL. Congratulations to NMIPL’s staff and volunteers for your moving testimonies at public hearings, strong organizing efforts, and for securing a cleaner air future for everyone. Read NMIPL testimonies here and watch faith leaders discuss their commitment to electric vehicles here.

Happy New Year from all of us at Interfaith Power & Light! We are reinvigorated to work for climate solutions and change the course of climate history across the country. Thank you for your continued support!

 

Clara Sims’ Podcast: Pilgrims Toward a Planetary Conciousness

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Clara Sims, Assistant Executive Dir., New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light, recently hosted a podcast, Pilgrims Toward a Planetary Conciousness: An Interfaith Dialogue on Faith and Action, while she was a student at the Yale Divinity School. Panelists discussed an interfaith perspective on climate change. Ms. Sims is also currently Assistant Minister, First Congregational United Church of Christ in Albuquerque.

Panelists discussed an interfaith perspective on climate change.

Ms. Sims is also Assistant Minister, First Congregational United Church of Christ in Albuquerque.

EPA Announces Methane Rules to Care for Communities and Climate

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The environmental and climate justice communities in New Mexico celebrated the Environmental Protection Agency’s revised rules on methane emissions, which were posted on Saturday. The announcement was made in conjunction with this year’s global climate summit, known as COP28, in Dubai.

The strengthened rules seek to  

  • Ensure frequent leak detection and repair inspections at all wells, including regular monitoring of small, leak-prone wells. 
  • Stop the wasteful and polluting practice of routine flaring of associated gas from oil wells. 
  • Allow community monitoring data collected from frontline communities and other third parties to assist EPA in the implementation and enforcement of the methane safeguards. 
  • Require monitoring and plugging of abandoned wells that are leaking methane. 

“People of faith and conscience in New Mexico and El Paso Interfaith Power & Light have worked to support strong EPA methane rules for nearly a decade. After countless hearings, faith letters, and public comments we are grateful for the ethical and moral leadership the EPA is taking. Over the years alarm and concern for community health, environmental justice, and caring for our sacred climate have grown and we must continue to act.” said Sister Joan Brown, osf, Executive Director, Interfaith Power & Light New Mexico & El Paso.

When implemented and enforced, these rules will keep the U.S. on track to meet its global promise of reducing methane 30% by 2030 and 80% by 2038!

The climate-heating gas first became a widely known issue in New Mexico in 2014 when NASA satellite images showed the methane hotspot over the Four Corners area of New Mexico.

Peer-reviewed science indicates that living within half-a-mile of oil and gas production facilities is clearly correlated with negative health impacts including cancer, respiratory illness, fetal defects, blood disorders, and neurological problems.

According to those same scientific studies, the health of almost 7 percent of our residents (primarily in southeast New Mexico, but also San Juan County) is threatened by emissions and leaks from oil wells and other facilities.

Kayley Shoup, an organizer with Citizens Caring for the Future, said in a June 2023 interview that every time she hears about a child or teenager in the Permian Basin being diagnosed with a rare cancer or leukemia, she’s made it a point to find out how close they live to oil and gas facilities. She said nine times out of ten, the children are living within close distance to an oil or gas facility.

“I really think that it can’t be understated just how much of a health risk these things pose when they’re close to schools, or they’re close to homes, and that distance really does make a difference in what health impacts folks are dealing with,” she told the New Mexico Political Report.

NM faith leaders monitor emission levels in Permian Basin

New Mexicans Speak Out

Over the past decade or so, thousands of New Mexicans have spoken out in favor of strong methane and ozone rules in the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.

“It is the responsibility of each of us to protect the planet with every small action that affects it. This is why I’m grateful for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent steps to regulate methane and other dangerous emissions from oil and gas facilities across the country,” Rev. Nick King, a Mennonite pastor in Carlsbad, NM, said in an opinion piece in the Albuquerque Journal in January of 2022, during the comment period on the proposed rules.

Additionally, Gov. Lujan Grisham’s administration has passed nation-leading methane and ozone safeguards that have provided a strong model for the rules the EPA is releasing. And importantly for families in New Mexico’s Permian Basin, federal protections will apply to extraction in Texas, where methane emissions are nearly unregulated.

“Reducing methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is the fastest, most cost-effective way to slow the rate of climate change and avoid the further escalation of unpredictable, severe, and catastrophic weather events like those we’ve seen in New Mexico including the wildfires and subsequent floods that ravaged the northern part of the state and the heat dome we experienced this summer,” said a press release posted by coalition of environmental and climate justice organizations working on cutting emissions.

“People of faith and conscience, with a shared commitment for stewardship of our Sacred Earth, applaud the EPA for these rules to address harmful methane pollution.  At a time when nations are meeting for the international climate conference in Dubai, the final EPA rules show the U.S. is serious about its moral responsibility to reduce methane pollution. The rules will help address the climate crisis by decreasing methane in our air, and it will help protect the millions of people living on the frontlines of oil and gas development across the country,” said Rev. Susan Hendershot, national IPL President.  Read the national IPL press statement.