House Bill 2, the 2025 General Appropriation Act, favors dirty water clean-up over good water stewardship. It passed the House Appropriations and Finance Committee on Feb. 21 and the full House Floor on Feb. 24. The Senate Finance Committee will amend the bill and add the spending supported funding reserved for the Senate to allocate.
The Water Advocates hoped the House budget would include adequate funding to implement the good water bills the Legislature has passed in recent years, two of them unanimously. But the House Appropriations and Finance Committee put the nonrecurring money that it controls into things other than grants to regions for water security planning, the State Engineer’s water data act compliance, and Middle Rio Grande compact compliance funding for emergency measures to prevent new SCOTUS water litigation with Texas. House Bill 2 directs state attention and funding in this year of extraordinary revenue away the essential underpinnings of governing our water so that it sustains life here for the long haul. The color coded table compares HB2’s budget support for dirty water to support for work I judge to be essential beginnings of improved New Mexico water stewardship.
Numbers in the purpose description refer to the appropriation line items in House Bill 2, Section 5, Special Appropriations or Section 7, Information Technology.
The comparison of non-recurring appropriations totaling $48 million for brackish and produced water development and totaling $31 million for management, planning, conservation, and stewardship of New Mexico’s diminishing freshwater shows misguided priorities.
The Water Advocates’ sought large special appropriations as described in House Bill 423 for the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission to implement the 2019 Water Data Act, the 2023 Water Security Planning Act, and the 2012 Active Water Resource Management Program in the Middle Rio Grande. The bill died in the House Appropriations and Finance Committee after unanimously passing its first committee.
The Water Advocates’ are now requesting the Senate allocate $6.9 million to cover “shovel-ready” implementation work by New Mexico’s two water resource management and planning agencies. Some in Senate Leadership think that was a mistake that the House didn’t fund more vigorous implementation of these water laws because of their importance in problem-solving. Now it’s up to the Senate Finance Committee, which has a share to allocate.