Climate advocates press Biden on fossil fuels during New Mexico visit
Climate advocates in New Mexico pressed President Joe Biden to quickly phase out fossil fuels during his visit Wednesday. The stop was part of a three-state trip out West to tout his administration’s work on climate change.
The New Mexico No False Solutions coalition said members unveiled banners Wednesday that read “Keep [it] in the Ground” and “Invest in Renewables” on the highway along Biden’s route to his stop in Belen, N.M.
“President Biden has approved more oil and gas drilling permits than President Trump, and more than half of those have been in New Mexico’s Permian Basin,” Alejandría Lyons, coordinator of the New Mexico No False Solutions coalition, said in a statement.
Lyons said the “fracking explosion” is causing a surge in oil and gas pollution in southeastern New Mexico that is impacting the region’s climate and “putting front-line communities at risk.” The coalition is calling on the president to end the era of fossil fuels and to “stop endorsing false climate solutions like hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).”
This is in reference to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) plan to use hydrogen energy to help the U.S. reduce its emissions by 2050, which would involve targeting hydrogen’s use in the chemical, steel, refining and heavy transportation industries. The Biden administration has said the hydrogen energy will use carbon-free sources, which it is calling “clean hydrogen.”
The decision sparked debate whether hydrogen plants must use new sources of energy or can take electrons currently on the grid. Opponents of using existing energy argue it might result in existing energy being replaced with fossil power, though supporters say requiring new energy would be overly burdensome.
New Mexico No False Solutions said it sent a letter to the DOE in June asking it to reject New Mexico’s application for federal hydrogen funding, citing research that found 95 percent of hydrogen production comes from fossil fuels like natural gas and coal.
“[New Mexico No False Solutions] warned that a hydrogen economy will lock in dirty fossil fuels in the state at a time when New Mexico needs to rapidly transition away from oil and gas,” the group’s statement said.
Biden delivered remarks on clean energy manufacturing in Albuquerque, N.M., on Wednesday afternoon and will head to Salt Lake City, Utah, that night for his final stop. He was in Arizona on Tuesday, where he designated a new national monument at the Grand Canyon and discussed his administration’s environmental record.
His visit comes as the southwestern U.S. has spent the past several weeks dealing with record-breaking heat waves, which many scientists say are being fueled by climate change.
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