SEPTEMBER 19-22, 2019

Trends for Renewable Energy
in the States:

Transition to a Clean Energy Future

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Sarah Cottrell Propst

Cabinet Secretary
New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD)

Sarah Cottrell Propst serves as the Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD). By 2030, her Department’s goals include: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across state government and expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy in government facilities.

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Holly Borgman (ADT) and Sen. Bill Rabon (NC) listen intently to the discussion on renewable energy opportunities.

As the third largest oil-producing State in the US, New Mexico’s development of an enforceable regulatory framework to ensure methane reductions from the oil and natural gas sector and to prevent waste from new and existing sources required involvement of all stakeholders, Secretary Propst said. The State’s inclusive process started with public meetings, whose insights then guided technical discussions between environmentalists and industry to develop a sensible, actionable, and effective environmental policy, which was adopted by the legislature as the Energy Transition Act. The Act calls for renewable sources to contribute 50% of the State’s energy needs by 2030, creates jobs, reduces carbon pollution, and diversifies the economy in communities impacted by coal plant closures.

The State’s inclusive process started with public meetings, whose insights then guided technical discussions between environmentalists and industry to develop a sensible, actionable, and effective environmental policy, which was adopted by the legislature as the Energy Transition Act. The Act calls for renewable sources to contribute 50% of the State’s energy needs by 2030, creates jobs, reduces carbon pollution, and diversifies the economy in communities impacted by coal plant closures.

Secretary Propst reported other key advances toward environmental stewardship:

● The Department’s Energy Conservation and Management Division (ECMD) received the “Race to the Top” award from the Energy Services Coalition, for certifying $111,300,000 worth of projects that are saving the State an estimated $1 million per year.

● The National Governors’ Association selected New Mexico as 1 of 4 states to partner on modernizing electric power grids.

● The State joined the United States Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to reducing GHG emissions by at least 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and to accelerate new and existing policies to reduce carbon pollution and promote clean energy deployment at the state and federal level.

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Sen. Greg Treat (OK) comments on the renewables discussion with Craig Mischo (Bayer Corporation).

Speaker Biography

Sarah Cottrell Propst  

Sarah Cottrell Propst was appointed to serve as the Cabinet Secretary of the Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department in January 2019. From 2012 to 2018, she served as the Executive Director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a non-profit trade association that represents the nation’s leading companies in the renewable energy industry, bringing them together with non-governmental organizations in the West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). She is the founder of Propst Consulting LLC, specializing in energy and environmental policy. Propst was Deputy Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department after serving as Energy and Environmental Policy Advisor to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. She earned a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, with a concentration in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy. She worked as a Research Fellow for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, VA, and was a magna cum laude graduate of Davidson College with Honors in Political Science.

Development of an enforceable regulatory framework to ensure methane reductions from the oil and natural gas sector and to prevent waste from new and existing sources required involvement of all stakeholders.

— Sec. Propst