The ISC’s Rulemaking Hearing on New Mexico’s Water Security Planning Act
Record Closed
“Record closed.” Hearing Officer Felicia Orth declared it at the close of the Interstate Stream Commission’s three-day evidentiary hearing. The Commission now must decide what changes to make to staff’s July 17 proposal.
Closing the record means commissioners must rely solely on the evidence already submitted. Until deliberations are complete they may not discuss the rule with anyone, not even each other, except in an open public meeting.
The Act passed unanimously and was groundbreaking; will the rules be equally meaningful and unanimous? The Commissioners will decide. The Commission holds extraordinary power over how New Mexico will plan for its water future. Commissioners have a moral responsibility to ensure the regional water-security program they create fulfills its potential. The people who are working to improve the public welfare need nothing less.
Next Steps
The Commission outlined its next steps. First comes the court reporter’s hearing transcript. Next is the Hearing Officer’s report, described to the Commission at its September 18 meeting:
Commissioner Phoebe Suina: Please give an example of the report and how it would aid the Commission.
Hearing Officer Felicia Orth: Depending on what the record looks like, the report includes a summary of the evidence, a roadmap for deliberations, and maybe threshold questions to address before specific ones. In a rule with many sections, what other rulemaking bodies find useful is a compilation of the differences between sections—the “best and final offer” from each commenter, not interested parties—with citations to evidence in the record that support each version. My goal is to be helpful, not persuasive.
The Commission’s deliberations to finalize the rule will occur in December. The Commission must review the proposed rule line by line, identify what’s missing, and decide what to change or add. Hearing Officer Orth said she would be asking them to identify supporting evidence in the record.
Predictions:
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Deliberations will require more than one day, likely concluding in early 2026.
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The final rule will differ substantially from the staff’s July 17 draft.
Public Participation and Commissioner Engagement
Public comment and commissioner engagement were robust and well aligned. Pueblo Governors and officials from many Pueblos spoke thoughtfully and persuasively. I heard eloquent, rich statements of values and requests for inclusion and protection from acequias and parciantes, and land-grant officials and heirs. Professionals stressed the urgency of problem solving and the specific improvements required.
The public’s recommendations and commissioners’ thoughtful questions gave me not just hope but confidence. Hearing Officer Orth welcomed public comment, effectively disregarding the ISC staff attorney’s opinion that it should be limited. Commissioners were engaged, providing their thoughtful, diverse perspectives and asking many questions. I believe these exchanges of facts and values will strengthen the final rule so that regional water-security planning achieves its potential to confront the water crisis already underway—and the far worse conditions ahead.
Core Weaknesses of the Staff’s Proposed Rule
The staff’s draft rule misses the mark; it is unfinished, poorly written, and vague.
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No guiding principle: Staff showed no consistent method for turning legislative mandates into a clear, functional rule. Most requirements are ignored, others copied as lists, and none made operational except for its top-down membership provisions. One commissioner called it a “laundry list.”
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Violates drafting standards: The rule fails the plain-English and structural standards that all administrative rules are required to meet.
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No vision or framework: The draft lacks a coherent vision of the water-security program or the framework these rules must serve. It reads as a disconnected set of administrative steps rather than a roadmap to achieve the Act’s purposes.
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Inappropriate centralization: The draft makes a handful of ISC planning staff the indispensable gatekeepers for every regional effort, throttling progress and undermining regional responsibility and creativity that the 2023 Water Security Planning Act intends.
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Failure to implement mandates: The rule does not operationalize the Act’s core requirements:
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Commission responsibilities (§ 72-14A-4(C)(1) & (3)–(9)): including its duty to provide the best available science, data, and models, and to ensure regions utilize them and report the results with objectivity and professionalism.
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Council responsibilities (§ 72-14A-5(B) & (C)): undermining the law’s mandate by failing to require regional councils’ meaningful and reviewable “consideration” of public welfare and the needs of future generations, and councils’ statutory authority to select their members.
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Unless thoroughly rewritten and expanded, the final rule will fall short.
Next Steps and the Public Record
The record is closed, but the Commission’s work of agreeing on changes and additions remains to be done, transparently, in public. The Commission’s deliberations in December will determine whether the final rule honors the Legislature’s intent for science-based, community-centered water planning.
Every argument, citation, and recommendation the Water Advocates submitted is in the official record. These filings show how the Proposed Rule can be corrected to comply with the Water Security Planning Act and to produce a lawful, clear, durable framework for regional planning.
Readers can access the complete docket here, and the Water Advocates submittals for the record linked by name below.
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Prefiled Testimony & Public Comment – New Mexico Water Advocates
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Water Advocates Motion, ISC Response, Water Advocates Reply, and Hearing Officer’s Order on Rulemaking Procedural and Substantive Defects
Together with others’ testimony and comments, these documents form a consistent record: New Mexico needs clear, lawful rules grounded in science and reasoning. Vague rules are confusing—and therefore legally dangerous.
Summary
The Water Advocates appreciate Hearing Officer Orth’s welcome of public comment and her repeated insistence on transparency. The three-day hearing generated robust discussion and evidence that give the Commission strong guidance. Hearing Officer Orth will organize the record and propose a procedure for the Commission to do its job.
The Commission must transform the staff proposal into a clearer, less staff-centric, and more meaningful rule; one that advances planning with integrity and transparency accessible to all participants. The final rule must reflect local and regional hydrologic reality and give effect to the public welfare and the needs of future generations of New Mexicans.
I am optimistic they will together rise to the occasion.