Amid shutdown, U.S. Energy Department cuts $135 million for 10 energy projects in New Mexico

U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich announced Thursday the U.S. Department of Energy is terminating $135.2 million for 10 energy projects in New Mexico, including a large grid resiliency initiative by Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, largely in Taos County.

The revelation comes as the first federal government shutdown in nearly seven years grinds services to a halt and affects the operations of programs many New Mexicans depend on, with widespread worker furloughs. New Mexico has about 25,000 federal employees, many at national laboratories; military installations; and national forests, parks and monuments.

Along with Kit Carson, projects associated with the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Public Service Company of New Mexico and Navajo Transitional Energy Co. have seen funding terminations, along with tech firms Pajarito Powder and Solar Dynamics LLC. Federal funding makes up at least half the total cost of most of the projects.

The Kit Carson project, which had been set to receive $15.4 million from the federal government, involves deploying battery energy storage systems and microgrid capabilities to three locations — Picuris Pueblo, Taos Ski Valley and El Rito, according to a 2023 news release from the cooperative.

The project aims to allow the cooperative to maintain service during safety-related outages.

According to Luján’s office, $6.5 million has been canceled for a Navajo Transitional Energy project that would develop a full-scale, integrated carbon dioxide capture system for the Four Corners Power Plant on the Navajo Nation — an effort to reduce the climate impact of the coal-fired plant.

Also on the chopping block: a $42 million grant to New Mexico Tech to develop a storage hub at a commercial scale within the San Juan Basin to verify sites that can securely store 50 million tons of carbon dioxide. The project is known as CarbonSafe Phase III.

DOE targets blue states

Sending energy officials and politicians scrambling to determine what projects were affected, the Department of Energy announced it was terminating 321 financial awards nationwide supporting 223 projects, resulting in “a savings of approximately $7.56 billion dollars for American taxpayers.”

The vast majority of the projects with awards canceled were in states where Democrats serve as governors and U.S. senators.

The department said it has decided these projects did not “adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”

“Let me be clear: President Trump is using his own shutdown as a tool for political retribution — targeting energy projects that create good-paying jobs and help lower costs for families,” Luján said in a statement. “The president is taking jobs away from hardworking New Mexicans and jacking up costs for New Mexico families.”

The senator framed the move from the Energy Department as Trump seeking retribution against blue states and his political opponents, noting “the termination of these energy investments in New Mexico is a blatant political stunt and I will continue to stand up against this administration’s abuse of power.”

Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, had a similar reaction.

“The American people deserve a government that works for them, not one that plays politics with their lives,” he said in a statement. “This Administration is choosing to punish ordinary families just to settle scores — and that is as dangerous as it is un-American.”

‘New Mexicans deserve better’

The scale of the federal shutdown’s impact on New Mexico was not clear Thursday, as news agencies estimated hundreds of thousands of people would be furloughed nationwide.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement more than 20,000 federal workers in the state will not get paychecks during the shutdown, while others are being furloughed.

“Meanwhile, essential services will slow down or stop entirely — from processing small-business loans to issuing new Social Security cards,” Lujan Grisham said. “Political dysfunction in Washington causes real-life pain for New Mexican families trying to access the services they depend on and deserve.”

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle continued to trade blame for the shutdown. Democrats have demanded funding for health care insurance subsidies that are expiring for millions of people under the Affordable Care Act, spiking the costs of premiums through state insurance networks. Republicans have refused to negotiate.

New Mexico House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, wrote a letter Thursday to New Mexico’s congressional delegation, made up of five Democrats, urging them to support the continuing resolution to reopen the government.

She cited how the state Legislature had passed House Bill 2 during the two-day special session this week to ensure continuity of health care coverage by replacing funds for the federal enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.

“With our state having stepped up to cover these subsidies, there is no longer any legitimate reason for New Mexico’s federal delegation to oppose moving forward on the continuing resolution,” Armstrong wrote.

She continued, “Every day this federal shutdown drags on, the impacts are felt most acutely by the working families, small businesses, service members, and tribal communities across New Mexico that depend on the stability of government services and contracts. New Mexicans deserve better.”

Worries of park vandalism

Concerns intensified Thursday about access to federal lands and the potential for vandalism and other damage at unstaffed sites, including popular parks and monuments across New Mexico.

While the federal government early Wednesday had said national parks would remain open with limited services, several in New Mexico began to shut down, with the Valles Caldera National Preserve and Bandelier National Monument in the Jemez Mountains partially closed, and White Sands National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park in Southern New Mexico fully inaccessible.

The Pecos National Historical Park also appeared to be shuttered.

Trails in the caldera remained open, but the main entrance was closed to vehicles, creating some confusion. Tourists, travelers and some New Mexico residents were posing questions on social media about whether they would be able to access parks in the coming days, some pointing out they had purchased passes in advance or had campsites booked.

To the best of his knowledge, said Tom Ribe, executive director of the nonprofit Caldera Action, federally run parks in the region with gates that close at night — Bandelier, the Pecos park and the Valles Caldera — have traffic access blocked. It is still possible to hike into the caldera and at Bandelier.

Poor communication about what parks are open or closed, or what portions of parks are open or closed, has left some people feeling they are in the dark.

“I think there are two reasons for that. One is that they don’t have staff in the office to do this communication,” Ribe said. “But also I think the Trump people are purposefully being obscure about it.

“My opinion about this is the Trump people are trying to hide the fact that they are doing so much damage to the National Park Service,” he said.

Some national forests, parks and monuments across the U.S. relayed horror stories during the 35-day federal shutdown in 2018, such as the piles of trash and human feces visitors left at Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park and the destruction of a Native-made hut at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Georgia.

New Mexico’s forests and parks fared far better, but numerous projects were still put on hold, facilities went unattended, and minor vandalism was discovered at federally owned and managed outdoor recreational areas.

Ribe believes it’s better to keep public lands closed during the shutdown because it “risks vandalism if they are not closed.”

“The fact is, they do have law enforcement rangers on staff still, so those guys are out patrolling,” he said.