A New Mexico trial court denied State defendants’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that they violated the New Mexico Constitution by continuing to authorize and promote oil and gas production without assuring protection of the environment. The alleged harms to the plaintiffs included impacts associated with climate change. Although the court said it might ultimately decline to grant injunctive or declaratory relief based on the political question doctrine, the court found that at this stage the plaintiffs stated claims upon which relief could be granted, including claims of violation of the Constitution’s Pollution Control Clause and claims of violations of the plaintiffs’ inherent rights and substantive due process rights and their rights to equal protection (the civil rights claims). The court noted that analysis of whether the New Mexico Constitution guarantees “a fundamental right to a beautiful and healthful environment” or a fundamental right to pollution control was “ill-suited for resolution at the motion to dismiss stage.” The court dismissed the civil rights claims against the State Legislature, finding that it was entitled to absolute immunity from those claims. The court also granted the executive branch defendants’ request that it authorize interlocutory appeal.

Lawsuit asserting that the State of New Mexico and other State defendants violated the plaintiffs' rights under the New Mexico Constitution by continuing to authorize and promote oil and gas production without assuring protection of the environment.

Atencio v. State

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

Citing Early Stage of Litigation, New Mexico Trial Court Declined to Dismiss Environmental Rights Claims

Filed

United States of America

New Mexico

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

People who are less able to respond to the effects of climate change due to having limited financial or physical assets

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

The activities of industries involved in the production, distribution, and sale of energy, including electricity, gas, and renewables.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

Citing Early Stage of Litigation, New Mexico Trial Court Declined to Dismiss Environmental Rights Claims

Impacted group

Fossil fuel

Economic sector