Oil Money for a Progressive Agenda: A Moral Dilemma in New Mexico

Pumpjacks in Loco Hills area. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)

In 2018, New Mexico ranked 49th in the country for education and 47th for economy. While revered for its natural beauty and scenery, New Mexico has long suffered from fiscal hardship. However, since Donald Trump took office in 2017, New Mexico has experienced an upturn in economic earnings. In 2018, Bloomberg News named New Mexico the “top performing state economy since Trump took office.” Many New Mexican residents have expressed surprise at this ranking; a large portion of this economic prosperity is a result of increased oil and gas production. Despite its recent economic surge, New Mexico still suffers from a failing education system. The state has ranked one of the worst in education for several ongoing years. In measuring scores of academic performance, New Mexico had the lowest national percentage of pupils scoring at or above levels of proficiency as defined by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Throughout America, the average graduation rate for high school students is an average of 81.4 percent. In New Mexico, that rate is shockingly low at only 70.3 percent, which is 11.1 percent below the national average. Recognizing this dilemma, the New Mexican government has made multiple recent attempts to better the current state of education. Its current agenda includes plans to increase teacher salaries, improve early childhood programs and, most shockingly, implement free tuition at New Mexico’s public universities. However, the money required to execute these programs would come from the massive economic profit of New Mexico’s oil industry. In 2018, New Mexico, historically a Republican state, voted for Democratic candidates; many of these candidates oppose the oil industry due to its negative environmental effects. New Mexico therefore faces the dilemma of funding a progressive, Democratic agenda with oil money; this contradiction presents multiple future issues for the state. 

New Mexico is currently the eighth largest producer of energy in America. The state produces mainly crude oil, natural gas and coal. The production of these forms of energy has been largely debated recently within the conversation of climate change. Oil and coal production have repeatedly been linked to many of the negative effects of global warming. In recent years, the conversation has moved into the world of politics. A major platform of the Democratic party is banning nonrenewable energy sources, such as oil and gas. Therefore, the large amount of oil produced in states like New Mexico and Texas has become a large topic of debate across the country. Massive amounts of oil like that found in New Mexico are increasingly hard to come by. New Mexico is able to produce such large amounts of oil due to its unique geographic location. The Southeastern portion of the state sits atop the Permian Basin, one of the largest petroleum-producing basins in the country and the world. New Mexico alone makes up five percent of the country’s annual crude oil production. 

The extraction of oil in New Mexico comes from “fracking”, which has repeatedly been linked to several negative environmental effects. The process of fracking includes two major steps. First, the oil well drills down to shale rock. Then, a high pressure water mixture is then sent down to the shale rock, where it releases natural gases and oil. Although there are no scientifically proven negative effects from fracking, there are several suspected links between fracking and negative environmental impacts. Increased rates of fracking have been correlated with the occurrence of earthquakes. Fracking can also cause unintentional radioactive pollution of underground aquifers, which depletes natural water resources and poses a significant health hazard to those ingesting the water.

Historically, New Mexico has always been a major oil producer. However, in recent years the state has undergone a massive increase in its oil production. From 2010 to 2018, oil production increased by 400 percent, effectively making New Mexico the country’s third-largest oil producer. Although the state has experienced recent growth in the past two years, it remains one of the most impoverished states in the nation. The unemployment rate currently sits at 4.9 percent, one percent higher than the national average. New Mexico also has a significantly lower income per capita, at $25,257 vs the national average of $31,177. As such, the growth of the New Mexican oil industry has created a welcome influx of cash. At $2.2 billion, 32 percent of the state’s general funds came from the oil industry in 2018. In 2019, the state is expected to make another $1.9 billion from oil alone. This massive increase in funds offers hope for New Mexico’s bleak economy. 

With the money coming from the oil industry, New Mexico plans on spending to improve public education. These proposals came from New Mexico’s newly Democratic administration elected during the 2018 elections. Beyond education reform, New Mexico has proposed other progressive goals with the money from the oil industry. After Democratic victory, the state government quickly put a “mini Green New Deal” in place, based off of the controversial environmental plan created by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. New Mexico’s version of this plan aims for a complete switch to renewable energy by 2045. As a state largely funded by the oil and gas industry, the mini Green New Deal has created intense controversy throughout the state. The oil-producing, Southern regions of the state resent the idea of removing oil from the economy. Those who work in the oil industry, mostly in the southeastern tip of the state, provide New Mexico with nearly one-third of the state’s money while the northern, more Democratic regions decide how to spend it. The Republicans in the south of New Mexico feel as though they are experiencing unfair treatment and have been largely overlooked. Additionally, the change to renewable energy would remove thousands of job opportunities. By using oil money to support a progressive agenda, New Mexico is conflicted between Democratic and Republican ideals. This issue has manifested within the state and has also created a larger conversation throughout the nation. 

As funds from the New Mexico oil industry seemingly have no impending end, the state faces a difficult moral decision. While the majority of Democratic presidential candidates are seeking an end to fossil fuels completely, New Mexico has been able to significantly enhance their economy and education from the oil industry. Senator and Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren has already called for a total ban on fossil fuels on public lands: “on [her] first day as president, [she] will sign an executive order that says no more drilling — a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands.” Changes like those that Warren has proposed would have major impacts on states like New Mexico, where 90 percent of land is public. Seeing as around 33 percent of the state’s economy comes from the oil and gas industry, progressive environmental bans on fossil fuel could lead to massive downturns in the economy and in turn, educational systems. Similarly, as the state itself moves further left, the government must decide if the potential environmental harms caused by fracking outweigh the economic prosperity provided by the oil industry. As the United States moves forward in its attempts to stop global warming in its tracks, New Mexico faces a deeply difficult and controversial decision between environmental safety and economics.