Fact check: by any objective measure oil and gas does NOT run New Mexico’s Legislature

While the Rio Grande Foundation is proudly on the libertarian/conservative side of the economic debate in New Mexico, there are groups on all sides of the issue that we work (and often argue with). Some are more or less credible. One of the better-funded but less credible groups on the left is ProgressNowNew Mexico.

The far-left group recently offered a policy brief with the name “Oil-garchy: Big Oil Runs NM Legislature.”  The gist of their argument (as you might gather from the title) is that the oil and gas industry “rules our state by fiat.” They cite numerous bills that have been introduced in 2025 and in the past several years (all under Democrat rule) that failed.

It is hard to see how an industry that pays a mind-blowing $15+ billion in taxes to the State of New Mexico “owns” the Legislature, but that is what ProgressNow is arguing. Of course, if oil and gas truly “owned” the Legislature none of these bills would have been introduced in the first place. After all, most of the bills in question (such as those introduced in 2025) would regulate or tax the industry more. Despite record revenues and economic impact on New Mexico the Legislature just passed a tax hike in the form of increased royalty payments (SB 23).

ProgressNow, like many advocates who don’t get their way, claim that money spent on PR and lobbying have kept oil and gas from being taxed and regulated more, but the reality is that if the Legislature and Gov. acted in a concerted way to kill the industry or attack it in some concerted way (such as HB 35 which would have forced a mile wide barrier between oil and gas sites and any “school” or recreation area that could serve kids) would reduce state revenues dramatically.

The fact is that no industry or even group of industries could replace oil and gas revenues (at least until or unless the State makes a concerted effort to become more economically-competitive as a business relocation site). But, even if the Legislature and Gov. did nearly everything RGF asked them to do, tax reduction, education reform, deregulation, and much, much more, it would take a long time to bring in the kind of cash New Mexico receives from oil and gas. 

If ProgressNow would like to work on economic development strategies that would diversify our State’s economy in a sustainable way that is likely to succeed, we’d be happy to work with them, but we’re not holding our breath!