Editor’s Note: The State Land Office manages state lands and funds public education and other institutions. Commissioner Garcia Richard is tasked with overseeing 9 million surface acres and 13 million mineral acres. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mark Allison: After more than a decade-long effort, we were pleased to see Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announce last year a 20-year administrative mineral withdrawal for Chaco Culture National Historical Park to prevent new leasing on federal public lands within 10 miles. We continue to work with our federal delegation to see legislation passed to make this permanent. Our readers remember that you, as state land commissioner, were the first by years to issue a mineral withdrawal for state trust lands around Chaco. I was hoping you could talk a bit about your thinking on this. What was that consideration like? Have commissioners used mineral withdrawals regularly in the past, and why did you feel it was important to take this action?
Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard: I was also glad to see the federal mineral withdrawal. And I know it was a difficult process, but I think in the end, a good one because, hopefully, we’ll get some ethnographic studies out of it and have an in-depth look at this area that’s so sacred to so many people in our state and across the region, not just in New Mexico. Mineral withdrawals are something we do here regularly. The difference with this one is that usually we sell them for consideration. So, a company, I’ll give Netflix as an example, wants to build their studio. They don’t want anyone coming in and mining the minerals out from under them, so they will pay for a withdrawal. The Chaco withdrawal, in order to make it permanent and last past my tenure, will probably at some point have to have some financial consideration with it. But it was brought forth by the community, really. I was approached by residents who live in the area and by Tribal members and it was their request that started this ball rolling. To remind your readers, we had a round of public meetings—some at chapter houses in the area, some at Pueblos in the area. And we signed it at the Counselor Chapter House, originally. So, we really wanted input from people who live in the region, live near impacts of the oil and gas industry to come and testify as to why this was important. I will say that while it wasn’t a mineral withdrawal, Commissioner Ray Powell, back when he was commissioner, did an MOA (memorandum of agreement) on Mount Taylor. It was an agreement between the land office and Tribes to say, if we’re going to do any development on Mount Taylor, we’re going to consult with Tribes who have cultural affinity to the area first.
MA: Was that primarily a concern about uranium mining?
SGR: Absolutely. So, while it wasn’t a withdrawal technically, it was a commitment to consult on any future development. If there were any Tribal interests that didn’t jive with future uranium mining, then the Land Office wouldn’t do it. And we have carried on that MOA; it still stands.
MA: My understanding is that you recently extended the moratorium on the Chaco withdrawal. How long does that last?
SGR: That’s going to go until 2043. And it’s at the mercy of whoever the administration is, unless it has financial consideration behind it. So that’s what we’re doing now is looking for a party or parties that would be willing to pay for that land use restriction mineral withdrawal so that it remains in place.
MA: Well, thanks again. What we saw is really bold leadership and being so out front and listening to communities and the vast majority of New Mexicans, and that gave that effort a lot of momentum. You really modeled the kind of leadership that we were looking for from all levels of government, so thank you.
Can you talk a bit about the State Land Office’s mandate to generate revenues for beneficiaries? What does that mean? Does that place any tensions or constraints on your ability to promote conservation or recreation on trust lands?
SGR: Absolutely. You can see in my previous answer how that tension naturally exists between wanting to conserve an area and this mandate that is statutory in nature—it’s actually lined out in our constitution as well—to raise revenue. I consider it less of a tension and more of a balance that needs to be struck. The mandate is actually dual. It’s to raise revenue, but not at the long-term expense of what is named “the trust.” The trust is those natural resources, land, wildlife, watersheds, ecosystems, that we at the Land Office steward on behalf of New Mexicans. We don’t want to impact the long-term health of the trust with our revenue-raising activities. For 100 years, revenue generation here at the Land Office was extractive in nature. It started with logging, then mining. When oil and gas was discovered 100 years ago, it went to that. We have taken a slightly different perspective, where we are looking at renewable forms of revenue—things that do not deplete the resource and things that may have a lower impact on the resource. Outdoor recreation is a prime example. But it has to be done with a management plan in mind. So, we have worked with stakeholders. We’ve got a couple of advisory groups—one is a conservation advisory group, and New Mexico Wild sits on that—to talk with folks about the appropriate level of activity on state land. Where are the gaps and barriers? The Land Office doesn’t have law enforcement, for example. We open most of our land to hunting in New Mexico, but we don’t have a way to help manage that unless we rely on New Mexico Game and Fish. When we’re looking at ways to open up state trust land, we need to do that methodically and with intention.
MA: We’re a conservation group, and that’s the lens through which we see issues. But we do very much value public access, and we see that as an equity issue as well. So outdoor recreation is important. Regarding recreation, for example, would you have to put in place a fee structure associated with the public’s use?
SGR: There is already a fee associated with the public’s use. It is what I consider to be a nominal fee. It has not been raised as long as I’ve been here. It’s $35 for a year-long permit, for New Mexicans and 10 of their family members to recreate on state land. What I’m talking about more is a structure almost along the line of a concessionaire. Someone to lease land and take over the responsibilities of maintenance, trash pickup, providing amenities like parking and bathroom facilities, that kind of thing. I’m talking about partnering with folks who can help us manage the use of the land.
MA: Can you talk about your Accountability and Enforcement Program and explain what that’s all about to our members?
SGR: There’s the mandate on raising revenue. There’s also the mandate on stewardship. I’m elected by New Mexicans to steward our public resources. For me, that means going back to the folks who are leasing this resource from us and ensuring that they are doing everything that they are contractually obligated to do to maintain, improve, remediate and clean up the resource. That’s where Accountability and Enforcement was born. In the fall of 2020, we started this program. Essentially, we used the terms in the oil and gas leases to ensure that oil and gas companies using state public resources were doing their duty in cleaning up. Since we implemented that program, we have plugged over 500 wells, not on the taxpayers’ dime, but on the industry’s dime. We’ve cleaned up tens of thousands of acres, remediated them and gotten rid of toxins. We have saved taxpayers about $50 million doing that because it costs about $100,000 to clean up a well. And we have taken about two dozen companies to court. The vast majority of folks clean up when they’re asked, but there are those problem individuals, and they have this cavalier attitude toward public resources. They don’t take us seriously when we say we really mean it. So, we’ve taken them to court, and we’ve had positive judgments come from the courts on our cases.
MA: Really remarkable results. It sounds so reasonable and so common sense. It’s just amazing we weren’t doing more of that in the past. Are there other rules or policies around oversight or accountability that you’re particularly proud of in your tenure as commissioner?
SGR: Protection of resources really is the way we see it. I’ll just give you a few examples. The first one was back in 2019. We stopped the use of fresh water from state land for oil and gas purposes. It’s that very typical thing that that we see in the West where scarce resources become this very valuable commodity. And on state land it was being used—I’m talking about millions of gallons of potable water for human consumption—was being sold for use in the oil and gas fields. That’s where the balance comes in, because it’s a lucrative commodity for the State Land Office. But it would damage the resource irrevocably into the future because the water becomes a waste product. So, we put forth an order to say that if you’re going to use water on state land, you can’t sell it to the oil and gas industry for that use. Another example is that we worked with state agencies promulgating the rule for methane capture on state land, because that’s a resource that has a monetary value that’s being wasted. So, we wanted to attach some monetary value to it and be able to either charge for it or have it be captured so that it’s not emitted. The third example is that, at the behest of advocates who came to us, we put forth what’s called a setback rule that no new oil and gas wells could be developed within a mile of any school, childcare or other type of educational facility.
MA: That’s a significant setback.
SGR: The State Land Office can lead the way. The person who sits in this chair has a lot of leverage for leadership and showing how things can be done.
MA: I’m curious about the State Land Office’s relationship with sovereign Tribes and Pueblos.
For many levels of government, there’s a formal consultation process. Can you describe what that relationship looks like?
SGR: Absolutely. This administration comes to the table with the premise that the land we manage is stolen ancestral land of New Mexico’s Tribes and nations. And not just New Mexico. Those state boundaries don’t mean a lot when it comes to people who have lived here since time immemorial. We are managing land that is ancestral, that is sacred to our Tribes and Pueblos and nations. We feel as though we should be in partnership on land management. We feel like we should do everything we can to repatriate that land back. My hands are tied in terms of giving all the land back—we need to work within the confines of the statutes—but we are able to repatriate through Tribal exchanges. Two Tribes have gotten ancestral land back so far, and we’re working on a third. We have implemented Tribal consultation into every area of decision making that we do here at the Land Office. And I can give some real-world examples about how that has played out. The large SunZia transmission line was set to go right through a site that was important to some Tribes, and we were able to help advocate to have it moved. We really use our weight to make sure that Tribal voice is always considered in every decision. We’re also one of the first state land offices in the country to require archeological surveys of cultural sites before any spade of dirt is moved on state land.
MA: I’d like to hear from you about renewable energy development. We talked about your charter and generating revenue for beneficiaries. SunZia is a good example of the tremendous economic development potential for energy generation siting and transmission, including on state trust lands, and for combating climate change. But it also has a potential for adversely impacting cultural and ecological resources. I wonder how you are thinking about that and of that balance that you’ve spoken of between conservation values and energy development. What are your thoughts about how you approach those projects?
SGR: Renewable energy, for all of the great things that it brings us—we can lessen our reliance on fossil fuels, and it’s a renewable resource that we don’t have to worry about being finite—it still has an impact on the land and has an impact on the resource. So that’s the first step in determining what’s going to move forward and what’s not going to move forward, and where. We’ve spent a long time and lots of resources, and we have specialists here at the Land Office, like a wildlife biologist who works on state land. We have a rangeland ecologist who works here. We have experts in forestry who work here. They all play a part in designing the policy under which any land impact occurs, including renewable energy. The nice thing about renewable energy is that our hands are not tied in lease agreements like they are with oil and gas. Remember that oil and gas leases are set in statute. Renewable energy leases are not. So, there are provisions that go into a renewable energy lease, like “You’ve got to use best management practices around bird habitats that have been vetted by the federal government in your design and development plans.” We can put that kind of term into a renewable energy lease where we can’t in an oil and gas lease. We’ve got a whole clause that has to do with remediation and bonding of the project for when it’s deconstructed and taken down and decommissioned. All of those pieces that protect wildlife and protect the resource can be built into the lease itself and become contractual terms.
MA: I can see that as a powerful tool. New Mexico Wild is thinking about how we might help counties that are considering transmission lines with community benefit agreements, especially rural counties and Tribes and Pueblos, which might negotiate and partner with industry so that it’s a benefit for them as well.
SGR: We would love to help with that in any way we can. We agree that these communities that play host to this infrastructure absolutely should have either quality-of-life benefit or monetary benefit.
MA: Getting back to fossil fuels for a bit. You’ve tried several years in a row to pass the oil and gas rate increase so that New Mexicans receive the same amount as our neighbor Texas charges. This year, the bill finally passed through the House and then got stalled out in the Senate. What can New Mexico Wild do and what can our readers do to help make sure that in this upcoming session, that bill also passes in the Senate?
SGR: Fortunately, we are starting much earlier this time around. After that stall out that you mentioned in the Senate, we sat down with Senate leadership to figure out why that happened. I think we were not on folks’ radars early enough. It was recommended to us that we start with the interim process. So, if you’ve got readers who are attending interim committee hearings, they could have conversations with legislators they have relationships with around this commonsense measure. We are trying to beat back this notion that somehow this is an industry-killing bill. Natural resources are publicly owned. Our minerals are publicly owned by New Mexicans. What we are asking for is market value for those resources. The company gets to keep 75% of anything they develop. We’re asking for 25% for the mineral owners, which are New Mexicans. That becomes a tax savings for New Mexico taxpayers, because we use that 25% to pay for things taxpayers would otherwise have to pay for like public schools, public universities and hospitals. So, we actually see it as a tax savings for New Mexicans. We’re trying to change the narrative; to us it seems like common sense, but we are still making that case.
MA: We have staff who are very engaged with the state Legislature and the administration, and certainly our folks attend the interim committees. Our membership is really good at responding to action alerts, and because we’re statewide, whatever legislator you want to reach, we have constituents in their district. I think that makes a big difference in getting their ear. So, we’re eager to help you with that this year. On the topic of royalty structure, do you feel like we have a good audit system for making sure that industry, even at the current rates, is paying consistently?
SGR: I’ll tell you a little story, Mark. Soon after I was elected, in December of 2018, I attended the budget hearing for the prior commissioner at the state Legislature, and he was trying to make the case that the audit function at the State Land Office should be contracted out to a third party. He had all kinds of reasons why he thought that should be the case. I came in to a 25% vacancy rate in the audit division. It had been decimated. But, in my view, it’s part of our job as the State Land Office to ensure that we have a strong and robust audit function that makes sure people are paying based on what they’re making. There’s this common story people tell in the industry that the numbers that people give to their shareholders and the numbers they report are two different things because they’re trying to tell the shareholders they’re so lucrative. But then they’re trying to tell their royalty owners, “Oh, we’re not making so much.” We’re wanting to make sure that the number that folks are bragging about is actually what they’re paying to us. So, we do have a robust audit department. Auditors go out and do field audits, they go into these companies and open up their books. That’s on the royalty side.
On the tax side, because oil and gas companies pay taxes as well, that is a little bit more of an honor system, quite frankly. I don’t believe those numbers are audited as frequently. We just recently ran into a situation in Rio Arriba County, where the county was trying to get the Tax and Revenue Department to look into oil and gas activity in the county because they were seeing a lot more activity than they were actually generating. So, on the tax side, I don’t know that that function exists, and on the royalty side, it depends on how prioritized that audit function is by the administration here at the Land Office. So, if your readers take nothing else away from this story, they should take away that who we put in this office matters.
MA: Yes! Sticking with the state Legislature, do you have plans to move any bonding legislation in the upcoming 2025 session, and are there other state legislative priorities that you have that we might be helpful with?
SGR: We are going to go through rulemaking on bonding. You can look for public meetings we’re holding, one in the Permian Basin, one in the San Juan Basin up in the Farmington area. And then we’ll have our rulemaking hearing Santa Fe. We are going to do rulemaking on bonding because we have that administrative authority. It would be lovely if the Legislature could then take that amount and put it in statute so that it can’t be messed with by a future commissioner who may think that the amounts are too high. (Editor’s note: Find out more about these meetings at the link at the end of the interview.)
MA: What are the barriers to allowing permanent protection of our highest value watersheds and ecological state land heirlooms, and what changes would make those protections easier? Is the State Land Office thinking about using conservation leases more in the future?
SGR: The biggest barrier is money. We need someone who is willing to give financial consideration for that conservation and to be a responsible leaseholder. I’m going to give you a perfect example of something you’re probably already watching and your readers already care about, and that is the 212-acre bosque property. Right now, it’s under state control. It’s in the middle of the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park. It is proximal to the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge. But it’s still state land.
I don’t know if you remember when the (Wyoming) State Land Office tried to sell off to the highest bidder the state land in the Grand Tetons. You could have a land commissioner come in and develop those acres in a way that does not jive with the community, with the nearby wildlife refuge. So, we set out on this process to look at transferring it to federal control. What came up is that the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District runs right through that property. They need a portion of the property for a levy project they’re doing. This state land is crucial to this levy project that derailed for the moment our attempt to transfer the land, because we want to ensure that there is an easement for the levy through state land. It underscores the importance of responsible stewardship. The land being key to something larger, in this case the flood plain and the watershed through this area. I believe that if we hadn’t done our due diligence around public meetings and outreach, I don’t know that we would have made this connection between the dam and levy project and the state parcel. All that to say that responsible land managers, responsible stewards and financial consideration are the biggest barriers to conserving a piece of land.
In terms of conservation leasing, I was happy to go and testify to Congress about the new (U.S. Bureau of Land Management) Public Lands Rule and their attempts to start conservation leasing because we’ve already started piloting that at the State Land Office. We really believe that is a valid means of conservation. We’ve done conservation leasing with oil and gas lessees. They have a portion of land that they’re working within that has an endangered plant and they’re paying to conserve that that area. That’s a financial consideration and the area is being conserved. We are piloting those conservation leases right now.
MA: For this property adjacent to the Valle de Oro, what do you see as the next steps to make that determination, and do you have any thoughts about timeframe for that?
SGR: Ensuring that we’ve got all the pieces in place, like an easement for the conservancy district to be able to do their work. In any kind of transfer that we do with the federal government, those easements will be retained. It’s an encumbrance on the land and all encumbrances travel with the land when it when it gets exchanged.
MA: What big lessons or surprises would you like to share about your tenure so far?
SGR: I think this job is much more vast than was ever described to me or than I ever imagined.
We have a saying here: All roads run through the Land Office. You cannot do much without going through the Land Office first. That makes it an incredibly powerful tool. If you have a drive towards conservation, if you have a drive towards ensuring we have the proper tools to confront climate change and create climate-resilient landscapes, the Land Office is a powerful tool for that.
MA: We certainly agree with that. Anything you can share with us about your future plans, once you’re done with the land commissioner job?
SGR: You want the breaking news to be here, Mark?
MA: Exclusive interview!
SGR: I think everyone is focused right now on November, but I will tell you that I do want to stay in the mix. I want to continue policymaking. I spent six years in the state Legislature. Hopefully, a full eight years here in the State Land Office. And I just want to continue this work. I feel like I’m not finished.
MA: Thanks, Stephanie, for all your leadership. We really appreciate it.
