Transition from Coal to Renewables

Please consider this letter in favor of stringent regulations to reduce pollution at Public Service Company of New Mexico's (PNM) San Juan coal plant. PNM operates some of the dirtiest coal plants in the Southwest, including the Four Corners and the San Juan coal plants. PNM needs to put these deadly plants on a path toward retirement by making investments in clean energy.

PNM is responsible for half of all carbon emissions in New Mexico. PNM’s San Juan coal plant is spewing alarming amounts of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter, mercury, and many more toxins. This is causing asthma, lung cancer, stomach cancer, heart disease, stroke, neurological damage, and infant mortality, especially for the people who are living in the toxic shadow of PNM’s coal plants.

Everyday, the burning of coal for electricity exacts a staggering price. Including the waste of 9.5 billion gallons of clean water in an arid climate.

Of course, these terrible health threats from toxic pollution are not the whole sad story. Coal is also a primary driver of man-made climate change – the defining moral and ethical environmental challenge of our time. We must take action now to reduce the pollution emissions PNM produces if we are to avoid high temperatures, more wild fires and serious drought conditions in New Mexico.

I support regulations that reduce emissions, create clean energy jobs and diversify New Mexico’s energy portfolio. New Mexico residents deserve cleaner air and a healthier environment — and by investing in clean energy rather than padding its profits and maintaining dirty coal plants, we can transition to a new energy economy.
I urge you to require the best pollution-control technology or better yet to shut down units at San Juan Generating station to protect public health and stimulate a clean energy economy.