For Immediate Release

Santa Fe, NM – New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham released a statement today announcing her intention to compete with Utah, Colorado and Wyoming for federal funding to go towards fossil hydrogen projects. The announcement follows widespread criticism among environmental, Indigenous and community organizations opposing the development of hydrogen. 96 percent of all hydrogen production in the U.S. is powered by fossil fuels. 

Producing fossil hydrogen releases 20 percent more carbon emissions than burning natural gas, and is even worse than burning coal for the climate. Hydrogen as well as the carbon capture occasionally used alongside it not only prop up the oil and gas industry, they could increase pollution near these facilities which are overwhelmingly located near communities of color and/or low-income areas.

Food & Water Watch Southern Organizing Director Jorge Aguilar released the following statement:

“Governor Lujan Grisham is grasping at straws to prop up a fossil hydrogen market that New Mexican communities neither want nor need. There is nothing clean about a fuel whose production can increase carbon emissions and pollution in disadvantaged communities, and that is why the governor’s efforts to pass a hydrogen hub bill in the legislature have failed. Seeking federal funds for a fossil hydrogen hub is a reckless kowtow to the fossil fuel interests driving New Mexico’s politics and holding the state back from a transition to truly clean, renewable energy accessible to all.”

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Contact: Jessica Gable, (202) 683-2478, [email protected]