5 Minutes Of Your Time Needed: Defend 2 Important Victories Under Threat!

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the wildfire mutual aid efforts in solidarity with frontline Diné communities and our partners at Nihi K'é Baa'. Your support helped get critical supplies including clean air filters to elders, families with young children, and immunocompromised community members. This is what solidarity looks like: protecting each other when systems won’t. 

But while we come together to protect our people, the same polluting industries responsible for the climate crisis are back – trying to roll back two major victories we just fought for and won. 

We need to ask for 5 minutes of your time to sign these two petitions and tell the Water Quality Control Commission and the Public Regulation Commission they must stand up to industry and defend the protections we have won.

TAKE ACTION TO DEFEND KEY PROTECTIONS!

In May, we won a major victory at the Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC): after months of public pressure, expert testimony, and fierce organizing, the Commission passed a rule that prohibits the discharge of toxic, radioactive fracking waste into water bodies; Closes the dangerous pilot project loophole that could have allowed 84,000 gallons/day of treated produced water to enter the environment; Requires full permitting, public notice, and science-based review for any reuse project; Affirms that treatment byproducts must be regulated as hazardous waste. 

The Commission followed the law, reviewed the science, and honored the voices of frontline communities. Industry hates our victory against produced water reuse because they need to find an out to their mounting waste crisis.  

So now, just weeks after the rule was adopted, a small group of industry proponents is trying to undermine all of that by introducing a new rule petition—a backdoor attempt to bring fracking waste discharge back. They’re trying to wear us down. They’re hoping we won’t show up again. 

But we will be there tomorrow to defend our victory.  

Our legal partners have filed a Motion in opposition and we want to make sure that the grassroots voice is heard by the Commission too. A YUCCA spokesperson will be at the Commission hearing tomorrow to share our concerns and opposition to this new Rule.

Please click on the link below to stand with us and our partners!

The state’s Energy Department (EMNRD) is pushing the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to label hydrogen as a “zero-carbon resource” under New Mexico’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. 

That’s not just dishonest—it’s dangerous.

Hydrogen is a false solution pushed by the fossil fuel industry to greenwash continued extraction and delay a just transition. Most hydrogen is currently produced using methane gas, a climate super-pollutant, through a process that releases massive carbon emissions. Even so-called “green hydrogen”—made by splitting water using renewable electricity—is wildly inefficient, incredibly expensive, and dangerously water-intensive. 

To produce just one ton of green hydrogen, you need 9,000 liters of purified water—in a state already facing megadrought, fire emergencies, and water theft by industry. And despite years of hype and billions in subsidies, no green hydrogen project has proven to be economically viable at scale. It’s all still in the pilot phase—but the industry wants us to rewrite our laws as if it’s real.

We’re not falling for it. We have real renewable energy that needs to be deployed – these are the investments that should be made and the projects that should be counted under the Renewable Portfolio Standard. 

New Mexicans have already said no to the hydrogen hype. Since 2022, we've defeated multiple hydrogen subsidy bills in the legislature – including efforts backed by the Governor, major oil and gas interests, and out-of-state corporations. We did it through truth-telling, organizing, and relentless public pressure. Now we need to do it again.