TThe oil and natural gas industry wants to play a game of word-and-picture associations with you. Imagine four images: A brightly-colored backpack filled with pencils, smiling teachers with a tablet under their arm, glasses resting on pastel notebooks and a school bus welcoming a young student aboard.
What does each of these have in common with one another? An April 6th, Facebook postNew Mexico Oil and Gas Association, (NMOGA), was questioned. They are powered by natural gas and oil!
New Mexico has it all. fastest-warming Most water-stressedThe state in the US where wildfires recently ravaged over 120,000 acres and remain uncontained, is the latest to see the oil industry come out in force to increase the region’s dependence upon fossil fuels. Their latest tactic is to portray oil and gas as the patron saint for education. In an effort to make schools and children’s well-being under threat, powerful interest groups launched a campaign that lasted months.
In a Video spotThis strategy is exemplary Ashley NimanFourth grade teacher at Enchanted Hill elementary school, says that the industry is what allows her to do her job. She says that without oil and gas, we wouldn’t have the resources to provide an excellent education for our students. I am a better teacher thanks to the partnership with the oil-and-gas industry.
NMOGA’s Safer and Stronger PR campaign featured the video. It was released in September 2013. It’s one of many similar strategies that Guardian monitored across social media, television and audio formats. Social scientists refer to themselves asThe fossil fuel savior framework.
NMOGA, the oil and gas industry, are claiming that New Mexico’s public schools are being held hostage to their profit-motivated interests. Erik Schlenker Goodrich is the executive director of Western Environmental Law Center. There is an implicit threat.
New Mexico received $17 billion in the last year. $1.1bnMore than any other US state, mineral leasing on federal lands is a result of this. As officials deal with the issue, however, the tides could be turning for the fossil fuel sector. We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by halfThis decade. Prior to mid-April, the Biden Administration had halted all new oil & gas leasing and the number permit drilling on public lands. plummeted.
Pro-industry organizations are responding by pushing what experts call sky fall messaging. This conveys the impression the state’s education system would be in dire straits if it didn’t have oil and gas revenue. NMOGA didn’t respond to my request for comment.
NMOGA has been filling its social media channels with school-related themes since February. Buses BooksImages of empty, abandoned places are also included. ClassroomsThese reminders were accompanied with reminders about how states schools rely upon oil and gas production on federal lands for more than $700m of funding. This framing has been repeated by elected officials. This is a critical issue for everyone, but particularly for New Mexicos schoolchildren who have suffered greatly during this pandemic. Santa Fe New MexicanFebruary
Experts in tax, budget and public school funding argue that linking the federal lease pause to a grave, urgent risk to public schools is deceptive.
Charles Goodmacher, a former government- and media relations director at NEA (now consultant), said that any slight reductions due to pauses, or other so-called adverse action would have zero immediate impact on school funding overall. He said that the sale of leases does NOT lead to immediate drilling. Many companies hold onto leases for months to years before production takes place.
New Mexico has, as it happens. budget surplusRecord production.
IInndustry attempts convince New Mexicans that their public education system depends on oil and gas. This is a hard truth. Decades of steep tax cutsThey have indeed placed fossil fuels at the heart of Democratic-led New Mexico’s economy. In 2021 15%Royalties, rents, or other fees collected by the Department of Interior for mineral extraction on federal land contributed to the majority of the state’s general funds. Oil and gas activity on federal and state lands contributes approximately A thirdThe state general fund is $7.2bn and a third of its education budget.
Stephanie Garcia Richard, the commissioner of public lands, is a former teacher who has been at the forefront in efforts to diversify New Mexico’s economy since she was elected to manage the state’s 13m acres public lands in 2018.
We talked a lot about how school teachers really understand what every penny this office makes to a classroom when I was running for my first election.
Garcia Richard is proud to be the first Latina woman and Latina to be elected to the office that oversees approximately 200,000 people. $1b in RevenueEach year. Garcia Richard believes that the money raised from these activities will not be sufficient to cover oil and gas revenues. She has also launched a renewable energy office as well as an outdoor recreation office since 2019. I don’t want anyone to ever think that I believe that the revenue diversification strategies I am currently pursuing somehow make a million dollars.
Hector Balderas is a Democrat and New Mexico’s attorney general. He is also charged with overseeing the state’s energy and economic transition.
Balderas said that New Mexico’s geographic features make it a land of enchantment. This makes it well-positioned for national leadership in solar energy. However, four of the state’s major solar farms are in severe need of repair. behind schedule.
Balderas, who accepted $49,900According to campaign contributions from oil & gas over seven election cycles it was found that a sudden disruption or suspension in new oil & gas leasing, such the blanket moratorium that the Biden administration proposed in January last Year, would have a devastating impact on New Mexico’s most vulnerable.
He said that you would take out almost a third the revenue we rely upon to fund our schools, our roads, and our law enforcement community. I don’t think environmentalists really see that perspective. How progressives can have cleaner air, but then push original Americans into economic poverty like Native American pueblos?
SMany who are on the receiving side of oil and natural gas revenue stress that not every educator and student will accept money from the fossil fuel industry in public schools. Mary Bissell teaches algebra at Rio Rancho’s Cleveland High School. A letter was co-signed by two peopleIn November, more than 200 educators asked NMOGA not to use New Mexico’s teachers and children as excuses for oil and gas development.
Bissell claims that, despite the fact that many schools are cash-strapped, many of her fellow teachers don’t want to pay oil and gas money. She said that she would not teach her children how to find slopes based on fracking. Bissel called NMOGA’s attempt to portray educators in a single force that is dependent on oil and gas funding disgusting.
Some states allow for the inclusion of Rhode Island MassachusettsAs the top law enforcement and consumer protection officials, state attorneys general have taken it upon them to sue oil companies for misleading investors and consumers about climate change. Balderass office stated that it is not actively considering this strategy at the moment.
Seneca Johnson, 20 years old, is a student leader with Youth United for Climate Action(Yucca), hails from the Muscogee Nation, Oklahoma. Johnson was born in New Mexico and has first-hand knowledge of the state’s underfunded schools. She spoke of Chaparral elementary school in Santa Fe, where she said that we used to have a list in elementary school: Bring three boxes of tissues or colored pencils. Both as students and teachers. [youre]Purchase supplies for the classroom
Johnson recollects being told by her mother that the schools she attended were not suitable for her. Ranking Second worstIn the country. She said that if New Mexico’s education system is so bad, how can officials continue believing that accepting a funding structure that consistently delivers poor results is a good idea.
Johnson stated that at the end of it all, the system we have that is being paid for oil and gas does not work. Johnson stated that it is the Dont bite the hands that feed you mentality. This links the industry’s patronizing messages around support for schools to colonization’s direct legacy.
I don’t want to have to rely upon this outside entity. I don’t want to have to rely upon this broken system. I want better for my children and their kids, and my entire community.
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This story is part of Climate Coverage Nowa global network of news outlets that focuses on the climate story.
