PRC member's survey annoys board

Four public regulation commissioners Wednesday scolded a fellow commissioner from Tucumcari for sending an energy-related survey that inaccurately connected them to it.

Jefferson Byrd said he would send a message to the recipients making it clear the online survey was his and not the Public Regulation Commission’s.

Byrd is running for commissioner of the State Land Office.

He said he thought the cover letter indicated he was behind the survey.

“I will find out what we can do as far as making that correction,” Byrd said.

Some commissioners said they talked with Byrd before the survey went out and asserted they didn’t want to be associated with it.

Commissioner Stephen Fischmann of Las Cruces said Byrd had told him he was working with the Rio Grande Foundation on the survey. Fischmann said constituents who contacted him about it thought the survey was a “push poll” favoring fossil fuel.

Fischmann said the Public Regulation Commission looked like “the front man” for the Rio Grande Foundation.

“We should never be in that position,” he said.

The Rio Grande Foundation describes itself as a New Mexico think tank that favors free enterprise, limited government and individual freedom.

“We worked with Byrd on the survey,” foundation President Paul Gessing said Wednesday. “It was very much a collaborative process.”

Gessing said the foundation intended the survey to gather information and not to advocate for fossil fuel. He said the foundation opposes government setting renewable energy “mandates” and believes the state’s 2019 Energy Transition Act represented a “headlong rush into wind and solar” that needed to be more thought out.

He said the online survey went to thousands of constituents of all political affiliations.

Judith Amer, a commission attorney, said she had expressed concern to Byrd about the second paragraph of the cover letter, which read: “The NMPRC [Public Regulation Commission] has historically held public forums regarding controversial issues. However, in light of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we opted to conduct an online survey in lieu of an in-person forum.”

Amer said she had told Byrd he should place the survey on the commission’s agenda for approval if he wanted to send it.

It was on the agenda a couple of weeks ago, she said, but was tabled and not acted on.

The Public Regulation Commission has had a reputation for years for infighting and, about 10 years ago, corrupt behavior. New Mexico voters in 2020 agreed to turn the commission from a five-member elected body to a three-member, governor-appointed body beginning in 2023.

Commission Chairman Joseph Maestas of Santa Fe said these commissioners have worked well together and done good work, and that Byrd’s handling of the poll disappointed him.

“I was deeply saddened to see the poll. ... I’m not upset,” he said. “I’m saddened.”

Commissioner Cynthia Hall of Albuquerque said she wanted to know what Byrd was thinking when he ignored commissioners’ wishes and sent the survey anyway.

“It was misleading,” Hall said, and “has a risk of impinging on our reputation.”

Further, she said, one or more people who contacted her with concern about the survey said they would consider making a complaint to the Attorney General’s Office.

She said the subject line of the email through which the survey was sent was degrading. It read, “Are you ready for rolling blackouts?”

Public Service Company of New Mexico has expressed concern a deficiency of energy could lead to an electricity shortage this summer.

PNM and the commission appear to have reached an agreement to keep San Juan Generating Station open through the summer to avoid blackouts.

Maestas said pointed questions on the survey, such as, “Are you aware that the Energy Transition Act requires 50% renewable energy in New Mexico by 2030?” suggested opposition to the law. He said, “We shouldn’t be involved in interests contrary to legislative mandates.”

Commissioner Theresa Becenti-Aguilar agreed “these kinds of questions, messages, they intertwine with our work.”

She said Amer and the commission’s attorneys “should not be afraid to step up” and call a commissioner when something isn’t allowable.

Amer said she did.

“Our guidance was clear,” she said.