New Mexico Mercury

From the author: The following account is fiction. It takes place in the near future. The star of the story is a completely make-believe New Mexico gubernatorial candidate and three invented climate change activists. None of these characters are intended to represent any actual people, living or dead. Nevertheless, this story is inspired by actual conversations about climate change among activists, scholars, businesspeople, lawyers, policy experts, and public officials.

“This is never going to happen,” the candidate began. 

The three visitors stared back at him from across the table. “Well,” the representative from the environmental organization replied, clasping her hands together, “we realize it’s an ambitious proposal – ”

The candidate slammed the loose-leaf binder full of paper down on the table, jolting his wide-eyed guests.

“It’s impossible,” he spat.

The room fell silent.

The candidate was a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a liberal. He should have been a natural ally. He was virtually certain to be the next Democratic nominee for governor of New Mexico, making environmental issues and renewable energy a centerpiece of his economic development platform.

At the table in the Santa Fe hotel conference room he faced the head of a state environmental group, the executive director of a solar energy trade association, and a climate scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, who also served with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

Last month, the candidate had invited recommendations from the environmental community for specific actions he should take upon his inauguration as governor. The invitation had spurred a month of coffee-drenched late night meetings and writing sessions at the offices of local climate activists.

They put together a briefing folder laying out a go-for-broke climate change policy for the state. It would end all fossil fuel use in New Mexico by 2030 and fortify the state against the expected onslaught of heat waves, wildfires, and drought. The initiatives represented input not just from environmentalists but a coalition of green businesses, plus technical experts at the national labs and state universities. Even insurance industry executives contributed, projecting the likely financial impact of climate change damage to New Mexico in the coming decades. The report wasn’t just a wish list from the tree huggers. Everyone called it “the game changer.” A blueprint for bold, dramatic climate action in New Mexico, at last.

And yet the candidate had just thrown it back in their faces.

He thumbed to the table of contents. “Shut down every coal and natural gas power plant. Convert all electric power generation to solar, wind, and geothermal. In sixteen years. Outlaw the sale of gas and diesel powered vehicles within a decade. Retrofit every building in the state for electric efficiency. Oh. And a carbon tax. Seriously?” He looked at them like they’d just proposed to outlaw the common cold.

The solar energy representative nodded. “Converting the state to an infrastructure based on renewable sources will result in net job creation,” he said. “A carbon tax on energy companies will help get us there and will channel financial assistance directly to consumers. EPA is already regulating carbon from heavy vehicles and big industrial sources, and they’re getting ready to regulate power plants and cars too. Whoever follows Obama in the White House will be a Democrat and have a chance to win back the House. There will be political space for EPA to go beyond power plants to smaller industrial sources. And support is building on Wall Street for Congressional action, too. Even for a carbon tax.”

The environmentalist interjected. “Our friends in the insurance industry are hinting they would support one,” she said. “And they have a lot of campaign money to offer.”

“We know,” the climate scientist added, “that the federal government is eventually going to force states to regulate carbon emissions, from every source. Every new hurricane and forest fire brings that day closer. That, and renewables are taking off, too, just like the Internet in the 1990s. It will be the biggest economic boom since the end of the Cold War, just when we need it most. New Mexico has to get ahead of the curve, work out our own solutions, or else Washington will do it for us.”

“My friends in utilities and the oil and gas industry see it differently,” the candidate replied. “They’re only staying off my back because I’ll give them a piece of the action on energy policy, couple renewables with natural gas and that kind of thing. They’re going to challenge the EPA power plant regs in court. It will be years before a single plant has to comply with them. EPA won’t have the resources or political capital to regulate anything else.”

“Industry challenged the last round of EPA regs and lost, and that only took two years,” the environmentalist shot back.

“Alright,” the candidate said. “Alright. Suppose EPA manages to get its emission limits for power plants and cars within the next few years, and the limits survive all the court challenges, and once they’re in place, EPA actually moves quickly to enforce them instead of doing what they normally do, which is knuckle under to Congressional committees who hear a lot of bitching from businesses back home about federal storm troopers threatening what few jobs are left. Suppose that wind and solar really are the next Internet boom, like you all seem to think.

“Suppose all of that happens. Somehow. How does that help me get your bullshit proposal – ” he jabbed his finger at the briefing binder – “through the Roundhouse? You think a senator from Artesia is gonna vote to get rid of all of those oil and gas wells on state lands? Replace them with wind farms and hope that’ll make up for the lost jobs? And the lost revenue for schools? Really? You think House members from Albuquerque are going to vote for expensive new green building codes on the commercial developers that donate to their campaigns? You think voters want only $40,000 electric cars available to buy at the dealership? Or that the car companies won’t sue to overturn that kind of restriction?”

The solar energy representative shook his head. “Congressman, with respect, that’s not the whole picture here. A program to convert the state to renewables by 2030 will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the construction phase and tens of thousands of permanent jobs after that. The business activity generated by the program will pull in hundreds of millions of dollars in private earnings and in revenue for the state. All of that will outweigh any loss of jobs and revenue from eliminating fossil fuels.”

The environmentalist jumped in. “It’s a political winner, Congressman. Jobs, money, prosperity. You won’t be the governor who wants to cut off fossil fuel funding for our schools, you’ll be the one who made New Mexico an economic powerhouse. We’ll be on our way to exporting so much electricity from solar and wind, the treasury will be drowning in money and renewable energy companies will hire more people than all the military bases and national labs ever dreamed.”

“A governor who can pull it off will look presidential,” the Los Alamos scientist murmured.

The candidate scowled. “Come on. Your economic miracle would take years to show any results, and I’m not convinced it ever would, with all the lawsuits and regulatory snafus along the way. Just look at Obamacare. You know what’ll happen in the meantime? Super-pac money will flood this state. The goddamn attack ads will run 24/7. Those a.m. talk radio assholes will say I’m killing jobs and drowning mom and pop’s small business in red tape and, oh, by, the way, the governor is taking money away from your kid’s school. Nobody in the Roundhouse in their right mind is going to stand with me against that. The bill would choke to death in committee if I could even get someone to introduce it.

The environmentalist took a deep breath. “You won’t be alone,” she said. “You’ll have money from the national environmental groups, and the insurance industry, and the renewables industry. You’ll be able to fund a savvy, effective media campaign of your own. You’ll have volunteers on phone banks, at the Roundhouse – “

“How many?” the candidate demanded. “Maybe a couple of dozen on any given day during the legislative session? Because that’s what you guys usually turn out, if that. The usual suspects that, frankly, everyone in Santa Fe is tired of seeing. How many phone calls and letters can you get? A couple of hundred, mostly from the blue districts in Albuquerque and Santa Fe? That doesn’t mean shit.”

He leaned forward, his eyes hardening.

“None of it will mean anything against a single lobbyist from the utility industry or a natural gas extraction company. Those lobbyists stand for billions of dollars from around the planet. Billions. You can’t match that. Even with insurance money or renewable energy money. You just can’t.”

The environmentalist started to speak, but the candidate cut her off with a sweep of his hand. “No. Unless you tell me you can get 5,000 people from every county in the state to show up at the Roundhouse every day of the session, I don’t want to hear it. Unless you tell me there will be thousands of phone calls and letters and emails from the ranching districts and the oil patch down south and the acequia country up north, I don’t want to hear it. Because that’s what it will take to get the members to listen to you instead of fossil fuel money.”

Silence descended again.

“We’ll get there,” the environmentalist whispered.

The candidate looked down at the table and seemed to compose himself. “I hope you do,” he said. “We need it. I know we do. I read the climate data, too. This state might lose half its population by mid-century.”

The three visitors stared at him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I get it. We’re going to lose too much water. The infrastructure won’t be able to stand the heat waves and the floods. And the fires. Or the refugees coming up from the south when the mass starvation hits in Mexico. The only growth industry we’ll have left will be the infantry divisions deployed along the border.”

He stood up from the table. “None of that changes the political realities that I have to deal with today. I hope you can change them. But you’ve got a lot of work to do. And not a lot of time.”

And then the candidate walked away.