Atencio v. State

Plaintiffs filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the New Mexico Supreme Court seeking review of an intermediate appellate court’s June 2025 decision ordering dismissal of their claims under the New Mexico Constitution that the State’s system for regulating pollution from oil and natural gas violated the plaintiffs’ rights. The plaintiffs’ petition argued that the New Mexico Constitution’s Pollution Control Clause creates a “positive constitutional right” that must be enforced by the courts and that deeming claims under it nonjusticiable would make New Mexico an outlier. In addition, the plaintiffs argued that the intermediate appellate court erred by concluding at the motion to dismiss stage that the State defendants complied with the Constitution; misconstrued and limited the power of the Declaratory Judgment Act; erred in concluding that substantive due process was not applicable; and erred in concluding that the New Mexico Constitution’s equal protection clause “can never protect classes of people disproportionally harmed by state actions permitting oil and gas pollution.”