SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 33

49th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2009

INTRODUCED BY

Carlos R. Cisneros

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING CONGRESS TO INCLUDE APPROPRIATIONS IN THE NATIONAL STIMULUS PACKAGE FOR, AND TO RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF, NEW MEXICO'S PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE NATIONAL ENERGY STRATEGY FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY.

     WHEREAS, all credible and irrefutable scientific evidence confirms that our planet is undergoing ecological overshoot of at least thirty percent, resulting in resource depletion, pollution and other effects; and

     WHEREAS, geological evidence points to the fact that we have already reached peak oil condition, and the current global economic recession and financial crisis can incontrovertibly be attributed to the inability and unsuitability of the current dominant petroleum-based energy regime to sustain current rates of economic growth; and

     WHEREAS, only solar-thermal and geothermal energy satisfy the requisite moral horizon as primary, stable and inexhaustible energy sources for innumerable generations to come; and

     WHEREAS, solving the energy storage issue for the transportation segment of the economy is a prerequisite for transition to the geothermal and solar-thermal energy regime; and

     WHEREAS, protection of the national economic space, including equalization of terms of trade, protection of trade and technological secrets and prevention of further capital depletion and flight, is a prerequisite for a structural recovery of the national economy; and

     WHEREAS, prioritization of aggressive development of the electric automotive industry should be the dominant and driving sector of the new energy economy; and

     WHEREAS, New Mexico possesses comparative advantages in natural resources in the form of abundant and inexpensive desert land and hot dry rock geothermal resources; and

     WHEREAS, New Mexico is second in solar irradiation nationally; and

      WHEREAS, New Mexico has the science research facilities in Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories; and

     WHEREAS, the establishment of the national renewable energy administration, with a mission separate from the United States department of defense and the United States department of energy, becomes necessary to evaluate and select methods and technologies and to manage and fund national energy-independence efforts and to succeed by 2020; and

     WHEREAS, the city of Santa Fe is centrally located, in proximity, to the institutions and national laboratories that are indispensable and complementary for research and for coordination of the plan to achieve national energy independence by 2020, and these institutions have sufficient resident technical and scientific expertise to accomplish this task most efficaciously, including Los Alamos national laboratory, Sandia national laboratories, the Santa Fe institute, the solar energy research park and academy in Espanola, the national renewable energy laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and Rocky Mountain institute in Snowmass, Colorado;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that congress be requested to:

          A. include an appropriation in the national stimulus package of seven billion dollars ($7,000,000,000) each annually to New Mexico's Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories to augment their current national security missions; and

          B. to assign the city of Santa Fe, la villa real de San Francisco de Assis, as headquarters of the national renewable energy administration and that an annual appropriation in the United States department of defense and the United States department of energy budgets include seven billion dollars ($7,000,000,000) annually for the operation of the national renewable energy administration headquarters and research facilities; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the New Mexico congressional delegation.

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