Follow the Money: What the 2025 Legislature Funded—And What It Didn’t
The final version of the 2025 General Appropriation Act tells a clearer story than the session itself: when the dust settled, the Legislature prioritized water infrastructure and dirty water development projects over science-based management and environmental stewardship. While critical needs in clean water access and infrastructure received attention, both the Governor and the Legislature shortchanged programs focused on protecting, conserving, and managing New Mexico’s water resources.
Advocates pleaded, to no avail, for multi-year appropriations to implement the very laws the Legislature has already passed.
The House adopted one-time (non-recurring) water funding allocations—many of which were later slashed by the Senate. These cuts disproportionately affected programs grounded in science, water data, and environmental cleanup.Many of those cuts targeted programs rooted in water data, science, and environmental cleanup. The result: funding levels fell tens of millions of dollars below both the House budget and the Governor’s official budget recommendation. Click the graphic to download a larger copy.
The Legislature also transferred $200 million of General Fund revenue to the Water Project Fund for specific water and wastewater infrastructure projects authorized by HB206.
Key Cuts Included:
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NMED cleanup of contaminated sites: Cut by $30 million by the Senate, leaving $20 million
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NMED River Stewards Program: Entire $7 million request eliminated by the Senate
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NM Tech Aquifer Mapping Program: Cut by a total of $22 million in the House and Senate, leaving $7.5 million
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NMED low-interest water and wastewater loans: Cut by $5 million by the Senate, leaving $15 million
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Governor’s ‘Strategic’ Treated Brackish Water Supply: Cut by $25 million, leaving $40 million for a project that remains unvetted, undefined, and controversial
Other critical science and management-focused programs were already reduced in the Governor’s budget before the session even began—and then further cut by the House:
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OSE Water Rights Enforcement, Middle Rio Grande: Cut $0.5 million in the House, leaving nothing.
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Indian Water Rights Settlement Matching Funds: Cut by $15 million, leaving $25 million.
The Legislature’s priorities are clear: funding flowed to infrastructure, water quality enforcement, and so-called ‘new water’ concepts more than stewardship, enforcement against illegal water use, and data and science-driven water resources management and planning. Large appropriations went to the New Mexico Environment Department for water quality assurance and clean-up programs, infrastructure, and brackish water development for high water use industries.
The 2025 Legislature gave little attention—or funding—to the Office of the State Engineer and the Interstate Stream Commission to:
- Plan for adapting to a future with much less water,
- Establish effective water data systems, and
- Enforce against illegal water use and protect against the impacts of Middle Rio Grande overuse
The Legislature has already passed three major laws to support these purposes. Two—the 2019 Water Data Act and the 2023 Water Security Planning Act—passed unanimously. The third law, which requires the State Engineer to administer water to prevent interstate stream compact violations, was upheld unanimously by the New Mexico Supreme Court, along with the detailed rules it authorized.
The political will to prioritize New Mexico’s adaptation to a future with far less water has not yet emerged. The Governor’s and Legislature’s funding choices still fall short of the understanding and leadership our water and economic security urgently require.
