SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Court of Appeals has upheld regulations aimed at cracking down on emissions in one of the nation’s top-producing oil and gas states.
The case centered on a rule adopted in 2022 by state regulators that called for curbing the pollutants that chemically react in the presence of sunlight to create ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog. High ozone levels can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration has long argued that the adoption of the ozone precursor rule along with regulations to limit methane emissions from the industry were necessary to combat climate change and meet federal clean air standards.
New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said the court's decision on Wednesday affirmed that the rule was properly developed and there was substantial evidence to back up its approval by regulators.
“These rules aren’t going anywhere,” Kenney said in a statement to The New Mexican, suggesting that the industry stop spending resources on legal challenges and start working to comply with New Mexico's requirements.
The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico had argued in its appeal that the rule disproportionately affected independent operators.
“The administration needs to stop its ‘death by a thousand cuts’ hostility to the smaller, family-owned, New Mexico-based operators,” the group's executive director, Jim Winchester, said in an email to the newspaper.
The group is considering its legal options.
Under the rule, oil and gas operators must monitor emissions for smog-causing pollutants — nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — and regularly check for and fix leaks.
The rule applies to eight counties — Chaves, Doña Ana, Eddy, Lea, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Juan and Valencia — where ozone pollutants have reached at least 95% of the federal ambient air quality standard. Some of those counties include production hot spots within the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and the Permian Basin, which straddles the New Mexico-Texas line.
The industry group had argued that Chaves and Rio Arriba counties shouldn’t be included. The court disagreed, saying those counties are located within broader geographic regions that did hit that 95% threshold.
FILE - Pump jacks work in a field near Lovington, N.M., April 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Prince Johnson, the Liberian former warlord and senator whose brutal tactics shocked the world, has died at the age of 72, authorities said Thursday.
Johnson, who infamously videotaped himself drinking Budweiser as his men cut off the ears of the nation’s former president, remained active in politics after the civil war ended and was elected senator in 2006.
He died on Thursday at a local hospital in Paynesville, a suburb of Monrovia, said Siafa Jallah, deputy director of press relations at the Liberian senate.
Liberia's civil wars, marked by mass killings, torture and sexual violence, killed an estimated 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003. Johnson was named one of the “most notorious perpetrators” by the country's post-war truth and reconciliation committee, and was accused of killing, extortion, massacre, torture and rape among other charges.
Neither Johnson nor the other seven people that the committee listed as leaders of warring factions were ever tried in Liberia. But a handful were convicted overseas, including Charles Taylor, a former president, who is serving a 50-year-sentence in the United Kingdom.
Mohammed Jabbateh, a rebel commander who witnesses said sliced a baby out of a pregnant woman’s stomach, killed civilians and ordered his soldiers to rape young girls, was sentenced to 30 years in the U.S.
Earlier this year, President Joseph Boakai signed an executive order to create a long-awaited war crimes court to deliver justice to the civil wars' victims, but the court hasn't begun operating.
Adama Dempster, a Liberian human rights advocate, expressed regrets that Johnson was unable to testify before the proposed tribunal before he died. “It’s sad and has a deep meaning for an accountability process,” he said.
In 1990, the then-38-year-old Johnson led a rebel faction that invaded Monrovia, captured former President Samuel Doe and tortured him in front of a rolling camera. Johnson is seen kicking back in a chair, his feet up on a table and a bottle of beer in one hand. He taunts the former ruler as his men strip the president to his underwear then cut off his ears, as blood streams down his temple. The president later died, and according to one witness’ testimony in front of the nation’s truth and reconciliation commission, Johnson later showed off Doe’s head on a platter.
Around the same time, Johnson executed a relief worker wearing a Red Cross bib after accusing him of profiteering from rice sales. An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the scene reported the crumpled victim briefly lifted his head and asked “Why, why?” before Johnson finished him off with a burst of AK-47 fire.
After the end of the war, Johnson became a born-again Christian and ordained preacher, before being elected senator representing Nimba County. The country banned the sale of Doe's notorious torture tape that had once been widely available at streetside stalls.
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FILE - In this photo taken Wednesday Feb. 17, 2010, Liberian Senator Prince Johnson, gestures during an interview in Monrovia, Liberia. (AP Photo, File)
