Thank enviros for PNM 12% rate hike — and more hikes to come

With the 2015 legislative session around the corner, things have been pretty busy at the Rio Grande Foundation, but we didn’t miss the announcement by PNM that the company would be asking for a shocking 12 percent rate hike for residential customers. Of course, this is just a down-payment on what the radical environmentalists and the Obama Administration would like to do to your utility bills.

PNM (now the only publicly-traded company in NM) won’t blame them outright because they already have to deal with these well-funded groups and their allies in Santa Fe. The reality is that the Obama Administration is out to bankrupt the coal industry with its costly new regulations. And New Mexico’s policymakers have previously saddled us with a costly renewable portfolio standard mandate which will get more expensive as it is fully-phased in by 2020.

Environmentalists (and New Mexico’s Senators) only express public support for wind and solar. Coal, oil, natural gas, and even nuclear (the fuels that actually work to provide reliable, affordable power) get nothing but scorn.

As motorists celebrate newly-inexpensive gasoline, we better take note that if we don’t stand up to the radical environmental groups, those savings will be more than wiped out by higher utility costs that will do nothing to reduce global warming.