Environmental Improvement Board’s Conflicts of Interest in Petition to Impose Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cap

The Chair of the New Mexico Environment Improvement Board, Gregory Green, is plagued with apparent conflicts of interest that seem to undermine his impartiality in hearing a petition to impose a statewide, unprecedented cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Green works for a national environmental advocacy organization that seeks to persuade governments to impose caps on greenhouse gas emissions on the theory that such gases are causing global warming. He is also the registered lobbyist for a coalition of environmental organizations that includes some of the same organizations that have signed onto the petition pending before the EIB. “The citizens of our state cannot expect to receive unbiased, well-founded decisions when those in the decision-making position have an obvious bias,” says Marita Noon of CARE, Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy, a group that oppose the statewide emissions cap regulation. “The conflicts of interest in this story should shelve the EIB’s plans for a state-wide cap and trade.” The petition to have the EIB impose a statewide greenhouse gas emissions cap was filed in 2008 by New Energy Economy. It seeks dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases to 25% below 1990 levels. Hearings are finally scheduled to begin in March 2010. In November 2009, ten more organizations signed onto that petition. One of those organizations, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, has retained Green as its Santa Fe lobbyist. On January 16, 2009, The Albuquerque Journal reported that the NMWF had withdrawn its name from the petition because it would have created a conflict of interest for Green. Green also is under contract to serve as the New Mexico spokesman for the Pew Environment Group. PEG is a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the nation’s largest and most active funders of anti-global warming activists...read more