Font ResizeSANTA FE - Six Republican lawmakers marched out of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Monday, the first skirmish of what could turn into a war over environmental and energy legislation this session.
Provoking the GOP lawmakers' ire was the committee chairman, Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, whom they accused of playing political games by dressing up propaganda as facts during what was billed as an informational session on the state's oil and gas industry.
"This is something for the chairman of the committee to give a black eye to the industry," Rep. William Gray, R-Artesia, said of Monday's meeting.
Egolf responded in turn, accusing the GOP lawmakers of overdramatizing the pique they felt.
"They're doing a little show for you," Egolf said of the GOP walkout. "This is not real. This is just them trying to feed into this absurd notion that we're unfair on the committee. It's ridiculous."
Monday's drama served to illustrate the potential for combustible debates, and also for partisan gridlock, on a key legislative committee that is likely to hear important as well as controversial pieces of legislation during this year's 60-day legislative session. A similar walkout in the future, for example, could stymie legislation on the 12-member committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Based on Monday's theatrics and the legislation likely to wind up before the committee in coming weeks, future conflict seems assured.
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In addition to the tough topics likely to come before lawmakers, the House Energy panel also boasts a geographical diversity that breaks along political lines and that could impede the passage of controversial legislation. The Republicans on the committee, for the most part, come from oil and gas-producing areas such as Farmington, Hobbs and Aztec. The Democrats on the committee, on the other hand, hail from non-oil and gas-producing regions such as Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos and Las Cruces.
"Every one of them on our side has oil and gas production in their districts," Gray said. "On the other side they don't have a barrel of oil or a BTU of gas."
Monday's walkout punctuated an otherwise quiet meeting, and was unexpected. House Minority Whip Donald Bratton, R-Hobbs, interrupted another lawmaker during a question-and-answer session to question the credibility of Kim Sorvig, one of two speakers Egolf had invited Monday to make presentations on the oil and gas industry.
Egolf cut Bratton off, saying he was out of order.
Bratton then stood up, packed his briefcase and left the committee room. Five other GOP lawmakers packed up their belongings and followed Bratton out the door.
Sorvig is a research associate professor at The University of New Mexico's School of Architecture and Planning. His presentation Monday before the committee spanned several topics, including new technologies the oil and gas industry is using; the tax breaks the industry receives in New Mexico; and the state's pit rules, controversial regulations adopted during Richardson's tenure regarding to storage of drilling waste.
The pit rules have emerged as a perennial flashpoint between environmental advocates and oil-and-gas industry supporters. Supporters say the rules protect groundwater near oil and gas wells from contamination. Critics say the rules scare away oil-and-gas jobs.
In his presentation, Sorvig appeared to challenge a central tenet held by critics - that the extra cost companies must cover to comply with the new rules is what drives business away.
The market price of oil and gas, much more than the pit rules, affects the number of industry jobs in New Mexico, he said, pointing to a graph he created showing the price of oil and gas rising in unison with rig counts, which are often cited as an indicator of oil and gas employment.
The pit rules protect public safety "without driving out the industry," Sorvig told the committee.
Sorvig also came in for criticism for another chart he put together that appeared to show that New Mexico recovered faster than neighboring states after the 2008 economic crash, despite the pit rules. The chart compared the number of rigs in New Mexico to those in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Kansas.
But Republicans wanted to know where were statistics for Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, three big oil-and-gas states nearby.
"Two of the very most important states that he did not cite any statistics from were Texas and Oklahoma," said Rep. Candy Spence Ezell, R-Roswell.
Bratton said later Monday that what gave him pause about Sorvig's credentials as an oil-and-gas expert was that he is a professor of architecture and planning.
"To bring forth someone like that under the guise of trying to educate new members I think is paramount to moving the agenda toward propaganda as opposed to using credible testimony to elevate the knowledge of the members," Bratton said.
But Egolf, who is the great-grandson of the founder of the American Petroleum Association of America, said the facts presented in Sorvig's charts spoke for themselves.
"When you show the amazing correlation between rig count and price, you don't have to be an expert to understand it," Egolf said. "These presenters didn't create that data. The state of New Mexico created the data and the Baker Hughes company provided the rig count."
Contact Trip Jennings at (505) 986-3050 or at tjennings@
