Please Donate Here!

All registered Democrats are cordially invited to attend any EJC meeting.

General Membership Meeting, September 9 7PM

Please join us for our next Membership Meeting on Monday September 9 at 7PM.


We'd love YOU to consider running for an officer position in the EJC. New people bring new energy and new ideas. Climate change remains the most serious threat to our future. Please consider stepping up to fill one of the positions listed below:


  • Chair
  • Secretary
  • Treasurer
  • At-Large Officer "A"


Come to find out how to run and participate.

Link to Membership Meeting Here

A Cloudy Future for Community Solar


Public Regulation Commission Hearing Examiner Issues

Recommended Decision on Community Solar Tariff

by Jane Yee



Public Regulation Commission Hearing Examiner Tatiana Perez-Valero issued her recommended decision on August 30 regarding important features of the Community Solar program. The Commission will ultimately decide these program characteristics, including subscriber bill credits, eligibility to receive these bill credits, as well as eligibility to participate in the program at all. The Commission will rely on Hearing Examiner

Perez-Valero’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, but these do not bind the Commission.


The Community Solar Program was one of the first issues addressed by the founders of the Environmental Justice Caucus in 2020. At that time, the EJC helped lobby for the passage of the Community Solar Act (CSA) because we saw it as an important tool in the democratization and decentralization of electricity generation. The Community Solar Program would allow people, who could not install their own solar panels because they were renters or could not afford the technology, to participate in the renewable energy economy. Such potential subscribers would buy their electricity from community

solar facilities instead of from investor-owned public utilities (IOUs). As such, these subscribers would receive bill credits from the IOUs.


Several years later, following the passage of the CSA in 2021, the rulemaking in 2022, and the current tariff case that began in 2023, potential Community Solar subscribers are still waiting for the first facility to start operations. In large part, the IOUs (the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), El Paso Electric, and SPS) have engineered administrative roadblocks to the commencement of this Program.


In the current case, the IOUs are proposing that the Commission lay the regulatory framework through which they can “recapture” the bill credits that they will be paying Community Solar subscribers. The IOUs falsely claim that they are entitled to “claw back” these credits because “lost revenues” should be counted as program costs. Such an assumption

would effectively wipe out subscriber bill credits; and produce an absurd result that the legislature could not have intended.


Hearing Examiner Perez-Valero does not completely rule out this overreaching IOU proposal, but instead recommends an additional rulemaking in which the Commission would make a final decision on this issue. This approach is unnecessarily deferential to the IOUs’ outrageous proposal. We will keep you posted as this saga continues to unfold.


Meanwhile, if you would like to submit public comment to the Commission please check the instructions here.

Your Email Can Help Save Lives

As our Albuquerque members know, the intersection of I25 and Comanche is under construction. Comanche is one of the few east west bicycle routes in the north part of the city. While we appreciate all the changes that they are doing to make the intersection safer for automobiles, we are appalled to find out that they made the intersection, which already caused the death of a cyclist in 2010, even more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.


Nothing in the plans for this intersection make it safer. While improving the safety under the interchange, the designs, in fact, make crossing the intersections and safety past the bridge, especially on the east side of the interchange (where the cyclist died), much more dangerous:


1)     The plan permits right turn on red. Studies show that, not allowing right turn on red reduces the number of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists by over 10%. With a speed limit of 40mph, this situation becomes even more dangerous


2)     The corners on all the right-hand turns are all rounded. ASHTO states that rounded corners allow motorist to turn at higher speeds Making the corners right angles forces drivers to take them with much more caution, making them much safer for pedestrians and cyclists. This also reduces the length of the street that a pedestrian and cyclist must cross, putting them in harm’s way for a shorter period of time.


3)     On the east and north side of the intersection, where a cyclist was killed, cyclists are put in a lane to the right of the turn lane, putting them in between cars with speed limits of 40mph. While this is standard practice for intersections with lower speeds, forcing a cyclist to move left into the bike lane and then to cross right, across the turning traffic, to reach the protected lane under the bridge is overly dangerous.


4)     On the east and south side of the intersection, the bike lane is removed completely, and cyclists must share the road, going up hill, with cars going 40mph. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)’s Bikeway Selection Guide states that if a street has more than 2,000 vehicles per day or speeds exceeding 20 mph, bicyclists need a dedicated lane. And when those number climb even higher—more than 30 mph and 6,000 vehicles per day—it is unsafe not to have a fully separated bicycling facility.


Therefore, we ask for the following:

1)     The intersection be posted no right turn on red at all right turns or add street lights, that pedestrians and cyclists can activate, that give them the right away at these crossings.

2)     Right corners be squared to force cars to slow when making turns.

3)     The barrier separated shared-use paths be extended on all sides of the intersection through the entire project area.


Please take action now by reaching out to the following people to demand that NMDOT make these easy changes to the intersection to save lives. Thank you! Alex


Take Action Now by contacting the following:

Albuquerque City Councilors (the interchange is on the border of Joaquin Baca's and Tammy Fiebelkorn's districts): https://www.cabq.gov/council/find-your-councilor


State Legislators with strong transportation safety records:


Senator Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez: a.sedillolopez@nmlegis.gov


Senator Michael Padilla: michael.padilla@nmlegis.gov


Representative Day Hochman-Vigil: dayan.hochman-vigil@nmlegis.gov


Representative Joy Garratt: joy.garratt@nmlegis.gov


CABQ Public Works Strategic Program Manager Valerie Hermanson: vhermanson@cabq.gov

Project contractor AUI Inc. https://auiinc.net


If you have any questions, contact Alex

Renewable Energy Working Group

Meetings of this working group are on Zoom every month on the fourth Wednesday at 7PM Get updated about Community Solar and other public power issues. The next meeting date is September 25.

Join Zoom Meetings Here

Water Working Group

Meetings of this working group are on Zoom every month on the third Monday at 7PM The next meeting date is September 16. Contact Zlata for more information and to receive the Zoom link.

Zlata's Email

Transportation and Housing Working Group

The Transportation and Housing Working Group will meet on September 11 at 7 PM. The group will discuss supporting a resolution on the adding an Idaho Stop to New Mexico. We will also discuss how to fight the horrible bike infrastructure plans at I25 and Comanche.



Email Alex here if you want to attend, and he will send the Zoom link to you.

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