January 15, 2015 – DENVER, CO. A New Mexico woman, two New Mexico landowners, and a New Mexico trade association today urged a New Mexico federal district court to reject arguments made by Mora County and its officials as to a 2013 civil rights lawsuit charging that a county ordinance violated their constitutional rights by barring energy development. Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) for Mary L. Vermillion, JAY Land Ltd. Co., Yates Ranch Property LLC, and the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) charge Mora County’s ordinance violates their rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and corresponding rights under New Mexico’s Constitution. The ordinance also denies them their right to invoke state laws that preempt the county’s ability to enact or enforce its ordinance. The plaintiffs seek both declaratory and permanent injunctive relief from Mora County’s unconstitutional actions. In November 2014, the plaintiffs filed a motion arguing there are no factual issues and that they should prevail as a matter of law.

“The court must reject Mora County’s revisionist historical narrative and its arguments as to the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, and controlling legal precedent,” said William Perry Pendley of MSLF.

New Mexico has been a major producer of oil and natural gas since hydrocarbons were discovered in the State in the 1920s; they are a lynchpin of the State’s economy and are essential for its continued fiscal health. In 2012, New Mexico derived more than 27 percent of its general fund revenues from taxes and royalties on oil, natural gas, and carbon dioxide production, which, through the years, have contributed over 90 percent of the principal in the Severance Tax and Land Grant Permanent Funds, the earnings on which are used to fund the common schools, specific education or charities and institutions, and other state governmental operations. Other petroleum tax receipts go directly into the State’s general budget. More than 88,000 New Mexican citizens are employed directly by the oil and gas industry.

In 1978, New Mexico passed the New Mexico Oil and Gas Act, which created the Oil Conservation Commission and Oil Conservation Division that are vested with complete “jurisdiction, authority and control” regarding the development of oil or gas. The Division regulates oil and natural gas activity within the State so as to protect, among other things, fresh water, public health, safety and the environment and issues rules for “safety procedures for drilling and production of oil and gas wells.”

Asserting a “local bill of rights,” despite the preeminence of State law as to oil and gas, Mora County passed its ordinance on April 29, 2013.


Diane L. Patrick
Assistant to the President
MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION
2596 S. Lewis Way
Lakewood, CO 80227
303/292-2021, Ext. 27
mountainstateslegal.org

Mountain States Legal Foundation, founded in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in suburban Denver, Colorado.