Biting the Hand That Feeds You: How New Mexico's Leaders Are Weaponizing Rigged Science Against the Industry That Pays Their Bills

A bombshell investigation published this week by The Daily Wire has exposed what critics are calling a coordinated effort to rig the science used by federal judges in energy lawsuits — and New Mexico sits squarely in the crosshairs. While Governor Michelle Luján Grisham headlines press releases about universal childcare and Attorney General Raúl Torrez files lawsuits against the federal government over greenhouse gas regulations, both are gambling with the one engine that makes every one of their policy promises possible: New Mexico's oil and gas industry.

The political irony isn't subtle. It's staggering.

The Rigged Playbook in Federal Courts

At the center of the controversy is the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence — a taxpayer-funded guide co-published by the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, used by federal judges across the country to interpret complex scientific claims in litigation.¹

Its climate chapter, written by Columbia University professors Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, presents "attribution science" — the practice of linking specific weather events directly to human-caused climate change — as effectively settled law.² Both authors have publicly advocated for phasing out fossil fuels and have worked to train judges on climate litigation strategy.²

The American Energy Institute's report on the guide put it plainly: this wasn't an objective scientific resource. It was a litigation roadmap, placed in the hands of every federal judge in America, paid for by the American taxpayer.³

The House Judiciary Committee is now investigating whether the Environmental Law Institute's Climate Judiciary Project coordinated an effort to use the manual to influence federal judges presiding over climate cases — including the exact kind of cases targeting oil and gas producers.² The Federal Judicial Center has already pulled the climate chapter under pressure from Republican attorneys general.⁴ But the National Academies — which receives over $200 million in annual federal funding — refuses to remove it from its website.²

If attribution science becomes entrenched as accepted legal doctrine in federal courts, Permian Basin operators in southeast New Mexico become exposed to the same billion-dollar liability suits that are threatening energy companies across the country.⁴ That's not a hypothetical. That's the point.

New Mexico Is Already in the Legal Fight

This isn't an abstract Washington story. It's playing out right here.

On March 20, 2026, AG Raúl Torrez joined 23 other Democratic attorneys general in suing the EPA — demanding it restore the so-called Endangerment Finding, the regulatory trigger that classifies carbon dioxide as a public health threat and underpins virtually every major climate lawsuit against energy producers.⁵ Torrez called it "a cornerstone of our nation's efforts to protect the environment."⁵

Simultaneously, the New Mexico Supreme Court has agreed to hear Atencio v. State of New Mexico — a landmark constitutional lawsuit brought by environmental and Indigenous groups arguing the state has failed to protect residents from oil and gas pollution, targeting the governor, legislature, and state agencies directly.⁶

This is the legal architecture being constructed around New Mexico's energy economy: federally funded science guides conditioning judges to accept attribution claims, a sympathetic state attorney general filing suit to preserve regulatory hammers, and a state supreme court case that could set a constitutional precedent forcing New Mexico's own government to crack down on its largest revenue source.

Deb Haaland's War on New Mexico Energy

No discussion of federal pressure on New Mexico oil and gas is complete without examining Deb Haaland — a Laguna Pueblo member, former Albuquerque congresswoman, and Biden's Interior Secretary from 2021 to 2025.

Her record at Interior reads as a methodical campaign to constrict New Mexico's energy economy from above:

• Day one: Haaland implemented Biden's executive order pausing new oil and gas leases on all federal lands — immediately rattling New Mexico operators dependent on Permian Basin federal leases.⁷
• Permit slow-walking: Interior under Haaland doubled the average processing time for drilling permits compared to the prior administration — a bureaucratic chokehold that cost operators time and capital even when permits were technically being approved.⁸
• Chaco Canyon withdrawal (June 2023): Haaland personally signed an order withdrawing 336,404 acres of BLM land in northern New Mexico from oil, gas, and mining development for 20 years, framing it as Indigenous land protection — a cause she had championed as a congresswoman long before she had the authority to act on it.⁹
• Placitas withdrawal (April 2024): Just before leaving office, she withdrew an additional 4,000+ acres in Sandoval County from oil, gas, and mining for 50 years.¹⁰
• Interior's own self-authored report in November 2021 declared "significant shortcomings" in the federal oil and gas leasing program — a document that served as bureaucratic cover for restricting future New Mexico leases.¹¹

Senator John Barrasso, ranking member of the Senate Energy Committee, called her record "disturbing and lawless" in a formal rebuke in May 2024.¹²

Haaland didn't just oppose fossil fuels in the abstract. She used her office — and her identity as a New Mexico Native — to lock up New Mexico land, slow-walk New Mexico permits, and systematically constrain the industry that funds New Mexico's government. At the same time, the court-influencing network she was ideologically aligned with was laying the legal groundwork to finish the job in the judiciary.

The Math They Don't Want You to Think About

Here's what makes this political theater so reckless:

New Mexico's oil and gas industry doesn't just fuel pickup trucks. It funds the state.

• 35% of New Mexico's entire general fund comes from oil and gas revenues in FY2026 — approximately $4.7 billion out of a $13.38 billion budget.¹³
• A $1-per-barrel drop in oil prices costs New Mexico $50 million in state revenue.¹⁴
• The Early Childhood Education and Care Fund — the engine behind universal childcare that Luján Grisham has branded as her signature achievement — was seeded with $300 million in oil and gas proceeds and has grown into a $10 billion permanent fund.¹⁵
• The Land Grant Permanent Fund, amended by voters in 2022 to channel earnings into early childhood programs, is built on mineral rights revenue — meaning every Pre-K classroom, every subsidized daycare slot, every childhood literacy program in this state runs on the same fossil fuels the governor's allies are trying to strangle in court.¹⁶

Fortune magazine noted in February 2026 that Luján Grisham is a "progressive governor who initially set out to rein in the industry" — now proudly claiming credit for programs her own ideological agenda was designed to defund.¹⁵

New Mexico's own Department of Finance and Administration has stated in budget documents that the state has become "increasingly more reliant upon oil and gas revenues to finance state operations."¹³ That's not an industry talking point. That is the state's own admission, buried in the budget documents Luján Grisham signs off on every year.

The Wind Farm Fantasy

For those wondering what replaces oil and gas revenue if the climate litigation network gets what it wants — take a look at what the "clean" alternative actually involves.

Wind turbines are not clean infrastructure. They are industrial machines requiring hundreds of gallons of synthetic lubricating oil in their gearboxes. When seals fail — and they do — that oil contaminates surrounding land and groundwater.¹⁷ A documented real-world case saw a single turbine gearbox leak contaminate 1,800 square meters of land and threaten a nearby drinking water supply.¹⁸ An Iowa wind farm in 2025 had turbines leaking lubricants that "coated towers and blades and spit onto gravel pads and surrounding land."¹⁹

Then there's disposal. Wind turbine blades are made of fiberglass composites that cannot be recycled. When they expire — typically after 20 to 25 years — they go into landfills, where they will persist for centuries.²⁰ The U.S. is projected to generate 2.2 million tons of turbine blade waste by 2050, the bulk of it dumped in Great Plains and western states — states like New Mexico.²⁰

In 2024, a blade failure at the federally backed Vineyard Wind project sent 57 tons of fiberglass and resin into the Atlantic Ocean.²¹

Oil and gas operations are regulated, permitted, bonded, inspected, and taxed. Wind farm waste gets buried in the ground, on the public's dime, with no remediation plan in sight. The environmental math doesn't add up — and neither does the economic math for a state that has built its entire social infrastructure on mineral revenue.

Leadership Failure — and What Better Looks Like

Let's be direct about what's happening here, because New Mexico voters deserve leaders who are.

Governor Luján Grisham and AG Torrez are executing a political strategy that appeals to a narrow ideological base while quietly depending on the industry that same base despises. They cut the ribbon on childcare centers funded by Permian Basin royalties, then file briefs in court to make Permian Basin operations legally untenable. They announce climate lawsuits for the national press and cash the oil and gas royalty check when the cameras leave.

That is not leadership. That is managed hypocrisy.

A leader who genuinely cared about New Mexico's long-term fiscal health would:

• Be honest with constituents about the state's dependence on fossil fuel revenues and resist the temptation to signal climate virtue at the expense of economic stability
• Oppose, not join, multistate climate litigation that uses disputed science to expose New Mexico's core industry to existential liability — especially when that science was shaped by advocates with a declared agenda
• Hold the federal government accountable for actions like Haaland's Chaco and Placitas withdrawals, which took productive federal lands off the table for New Mexico communities and operators with no offsetting economic plan
• Demand transparency about who is funding the climate judicial influence campaign — and whether New Mexico taxpayer dollars flowing to the National Academies are being used to build a legal case against New Mexico's own economy
• Develop a serious transition timeline rather than pretending wind turbines are a 1:1 replacement for oil and gas — one that acknowledges the fiscal reality that no renewable portfolio currently generates the tax and royalty revenue New Mexico's social programs require

New Mexico is not a prop for national climate politics. It is a sovereign state with real families, real budgets, and a real economy that someone has to protect. Right now, the people charged with that protection are the ones holding the knife.

Why aren't you hearing this from NM mainstream media or elected leaders? Think about it.

Sources

1. Federal Judicial Center / National Academies, Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, 4th Edition, fjc.gov
2. Drew Berkemeyer, "EXCLUSIVE: Taxpayer-Funded Science Guide At Center Of Court Cases Under Fire Over Who Shaped It," The Daily Wire, March 23, 2026 — dailywire.com
3. American Energy Institute report on Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, via The Daily Wire, March 2026
4. Reuters, "US judiciary scraps climate chapter from scientific evidence manual," February 9, 2026 — reuters.com
5. The Journal / KUNM, "New Mexico AG joins lawsuit against EPA over refusal to regulate greenhouse gases," March 19–22, 2026 — the-journal.com
6. The Candle, "New Mexico Supreme Court To Hear Landmark Oil, Gas Pollution Lawsuit," November 2025 — thecandlepublishing.com
7. PBS NewsHour, "Interior Secretary Haaland revokes Trump-era orders on energy," April 15, 2021 — pbs.org
8. Inside Climate News, "A Guardian of Federal Lands, Lambasted by Left and Right," September 2025 — insideclimatenews.org
9. AP News, "Protest derails planned celebration of 20-year ban on oil drilling near Chaco Canyon," June 11, 2023 — apnews.com
10. E&E News, "Interior shields New Mexico land from new mining, drilling," April 18, 2024 — eenews.net
11. U.S. Department of the Interior, "Interior Department Report Finds Significant Shortcomings in Oil and Gas Leasing Programs," November 25, 2021 — doi.gov
12. U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, "Barrasso: Secretary Haaland's Record is Disturbing and Lawless," May 1, 2024 — energy.senate.gov
13. New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration, FY2026 Executive Recommendation Budget in Brief — nmdfa.state.nm.us
14. Yahoo Finance / Associated Press, "New Mexico poised for short-term budget boost as oil prices surge," March 10, 2026 — finance.yahoo.com
15. Fortune, "New Mexico's historic move to give universal child care to parents," February 20, 2026 — fortune.com
16. Straight Arrow News, "Oil and gas fuel free child care in New Mexico," September 17, 2025 — san.com
17. LAIIER, "Oil Leaks in Wind Turbines: The Dirty Side to Clean Energy" — laiier.io
18. Seed Environmental, "Case Study: Wind Turbine Leak" — seedenvironmental.ie
19. Times-Republican, "MidAmerican Energy to address Vienna Wind Farm turbine lubricant residue," January 5, 2025 — timesrepublican.com
20. Okon Recycling, "Discover the Challenges of Wind Turbine Blade Recycling in the US," July 29, 2025 — okonrecycling.com
21. WorkBoat, "Offshore wind's first 'spill,'" August 20, 2024 — workboat.com