🚨 TODAY'S PUBLIC REGULATION COMMISSION ORDER UPHELD THE LAW AGAINST BLACKSTONE/PNM'S ILLEGAL TRANSACTION - BUT THE FIGHT IS FAR FROM OVER 🚨

Today, over 200 community members packed the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) meeting to show the public's overwhelming opposition to private equity's takeover of our energy resources and witness the Public Regulation Commission decision in the Show Cause Proceeding. If you missed it, it's worth a watch - folks gave amazing testimony. Checkout the YouTube recording HERE.

The PRC adopted the Hearing Examiners' Recommended Decision today, finding the $400 million purchase of TXNM stock without prior regulatory approval to be illegal and therefore void. Given this illegal transaction, the consequences on the merger application will need to be "unwound", the companies will be fined, and the impacts of this illegal transaction will need to be absorbed by the companies, while ratepayers are to be "held harmless".

The Hearing Examiners did suggest the applicants withdraw and resubmit their merger application but did not require withdrawal or rejection. Therefore, the application is still pending. 

This was a major victory- we won the battle in terms of the PRC upholding New Mexico law and adopting the Hearing Examiner's recommendation to hold the companies accountable, but we have not yet won the war.

Community members, ratepayers, and advocates from across the state have spent more than a year organizing to stop Blackstone's proposed buyout of PNM. While today's Public Regulation meeting should have rejected Blackstone's buyout entirely because the stock purchase and the merger application were inextricably linked, they did not. While this isn't the decisive action we were hoping for, this is still a major victory. Commissioners heard us loud and clear in the room today. They will continue to hear us advocate for our communities' rights and the regulatory protections we deserve in the decisions that affect our daily lives. We know that New Mexicans deserve far better than Blackstone and we will continue to fight to ensure that control of our essential services stay in the hands of the people who live here.

We will not allow corporate profiteers to treat our essential infrastructure as a commodity to be bought and sold for their profit.

We know this fight has never just been about Blackstone. As we keep up our fight for community power we hope you'll join us!

Photo: NM Climate Justice

Join us in the fight forward!