Yesterday at the New Mexico Legislature, House Leader Nate Gentry introduced a bill (HB 366) on IPANM’s behalf. HB 366 seeks to clarify the jurisdiction of the NMOCD as the primarily regulatory authority over the extraction, production, drilling, completion operations, transportation and processing of oil and natural gas in New Mexico. This bill is vitally important in the discussion with counties and their authority to regulate our industry. The language and intent of the IPANM bill have been carefully crafted to follow the recent decision in the SWEPI v. Mora case wherein Federal District Judge Browning held there is conflict preemption between the laws establishing NMOCD’s authority and Mora County’s desire to ban all oil and gas operations. However, he also stated that because the NMOCD does not regulate all issues that might arise regarding an oil and gas operation, such as noise, dust or neighbor nuisance complaints, that the state cannot have express jurisdiction over all oil and gas operations. Thus, it is the goal of HB 366 to express the intent of the legislature that the state is the sole regulatory body over a specific list of oil and gas activities including siting, drilling, completion, production, processing and transportation thereby preempting counties, municipalities or other political subdivisions from regulating in those specific areas. HB 366 is a necessary and substantial clarification from the existing law which gives the NMOCD the authority over the conservation of oil and gas and the prevention of waste. The bill was referred to House Energy and House Judiciary. We hope to see the bill in committee within the next week or so.
HB 366