Nearly 900 people sign environmental groups’ petition for stricter New Mexico oil and gas rules

Hearings on the proposed rules continue through Nov. 7

By DANIELLE PROKOP
Courtesy of Source NM

A pumpjack between Hobbs and Lovington in the Permian Basin as seen on Aug. 7, 2025. A New Mexico rulemaking commission will hold hearings through Nov. 7 to consider stricter requirements for the amount of bond money oil and gas operators need to guarantee cleanup costs. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)

New Mexico environmental organizations on Monday submitted a petition with nearly 900 signatures urging a state board to adopt stricter rules for cleaning up oil and gas companies’ “orphaned wells.”

​The state faces ballooning costs to clean up such wells, which can pollute groundwater and surrounding air, and also reduce surrounding wells’ efficiency. New Mexico has already spent tens of millions of dollars to plug about 1,000 wells since 2019, with more than 1,400 remaining.

Legislative analysts in June recommended updating the state’s rules around the bonds companies guarantee to better reflect the costs for cleanup.

The proposed rules, introduced by regulators from the New Mexico State Land Office and the state Oil Conservation Division and backed by over a dozen environmental groups, would do just that.

Current law caps the financial assurance at $250,000 per operator for all active wells; the proposed rules would require oil and gas well owners to certify up to $150,000 per inactive or high-risk wells.

The Oil Conservation Commission, a three-member board that is considering the proposed rules, will hold daily hearings on them until Nov. 7. Members of the public can speak twice per day—between 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 5 p.m—until the end of the hearings.

The proposed rules would also increase the state’s authority during the transfer of well ownership, and ensure the new well owner has the money to clean up newly transferred wells.

Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Director Camilla Feibelman delivered the petition and additional comments to the commission Monday on behalf of an 11-member coalition of groups from across the state. In an interview with Source NM, Feibelman said the proposed rules will address the high costs of cleanup, but also prevent operators who can’t afford to plug wells or have a record of not following the state’s rules, from inheriting them.

“If there is an operator of oil and gas who cannot afford to properly make a security deposit to the state for eventual harm to the state, then maybe they shouldn’t be operating,” she said.

The bottom line, she noted, is that New Mexicans “are looking for the oil and gas industry to “be better neighbors. “People understand that when private companies are taking a natural resource, in many cases off of our public lands, for private profit, that they should insure against their own cleanups,”

Oil and gas industry groups, including the Independent Petroleum Association and the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, have attempted to dismiss the proposed rules, calling them an “overreach” by regulators that would harm small producers.

In addition to the signatures, the petition included polling from Maryland-based Voss Research and Strategy that surveyed 400 registered New Mexico voters and reported—with a 4.9% margin of error—that 55% of respondents wanted the state to “do more than it currently does to make corporations clean up.”