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Retake's Letter in Response to PNM Ad

Hello Ms. Collawn,


PNM is building upon a well-deserved reputation for misrepresenting the truth at the PRC, the Roundhouse and now in the media with your (as usual) inaccurate portrayal of your position and the opposition as relates to SB 47.

I'll be brief because I am sure you are very well aware of just how intentionally duplicitous your claims are that SB 47 was PNM's genuine desire to seek a just transition for San Juan and Four Corners. The irony of your claiming to want to lead the nation in the transition to renewables after a decade of undermining every single effort to advance that transition is not lost on those paying attention. That your focus in the ad congratulating New Energy Economy was to demonstrate how you are seeking ways that you can profit on the transition was also not lost on us.

But what really is offensive is your claim that PNM had negotiated with environmental groups for months to develop SB 47 and then to suggest (without really saying it) that all of them were on board with this bill and if not for NEE all these wonderful benefits would have become reality. This is just another example of PNM, as usual, playing very fast and loose with the truth. Not one of the environmental organizations with whom you were negotiating would agree to support the resulting legislation. Not one. What's more, 45 faith, health, environmental and community organizations signed letters to Senator Wirth and Senator Cervantes indicating their staunch opposition to SB 47. Thousands of emails and petitions were submitted opposing the bill. This is not the opposition of a single organization. The reason the bill couldn't even get out of one committee is because of how transparently the bill was designed to benefit PNM at the expense of ratepayers and in the end at the expense of those living in the impacted communities.

You are a very smart person. You know the difference between what you publicly pronounce and the reality behind your dissembling. My question is: how do you plan to explain to your kids and their kids how you extended the coal era in NM for as long as possible and used every resource at your command to deceive the public to make that possible. What will the millions you leave to them mean to them when you have also given them an almost uninhabitable world? You are too astute to not realize that moment will come.

If instead of using misinformation to inflame, you were genuinely interested in negotiating a good securitization bill, you would have used the funds used for that hit ad to publicize an invitation to all environmental groups to assemble and begin working on a securitization bill that:

  • Is balanced, with shared financial responsibilities among ratepayers and shareholders,

  • Provides assurances of the most cost--effective approaches with competitive bidding for generation; and

  • Fosters a just economic transition for impacted communities with guarantees related to job development, property tax loss replacement; and complete rendition of sites and surrounding environs.

Quite obviously PNM has resources, how about PNM organizing and funding a statewide conference and planning session in Farmington and invite ALL environmental groups, and local, labor, faith, and tribal groups and other local stakeholders to collaboratively design a just transition and a securitization plan with PNM's role in the event to fund it and not be present, allowing the impacted communities and their organizations to come up with a different version of SB 47.

I am a shareholder and ratepayer. Your hit ad against NEE has rankled more than a few of us.

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