Air Board asks to halt legislation that would end hearing on environmental rule

The Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board is pushing back against a City Council vote intended to pause an ongoing hearing on an environmental justice regulation.

Board attorney Antoinette Sedillo Lopez on Tuesday filed a motion asking the 2nd Judicial District Court to delay two pieces of legislation from going into effect: one, which would issue a moratorium on board hearings until February, and another, which would pull the four city-appointed members of the board. The moratorium officially went into effect Tuesday; the second law is expected to go into effect next week.

Despite a Monday vote to override Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller’s vetoes of the two pieces of legislation, the board continued the third day of hearings on Wednesday.

“We were appointed to do a job,” Air Quality Control Board Chair Maxine Paul said in an email to the Journal. “We are doing that job.”

The board, made up of four city-appointed and three county-appointed members, had the authority to continue the hearing, a spokesperson for the Environmental Health Department told the Journal on Tuesday. Once the moratorium was enacted on Tuesday, however, city staff were unable to continue participating in the hearing.

The City Council also voted on two resolutions to create a working group between the city and county to improve the board. One — the mirror of a Bernalillo County Commission resolution — failed, but another was ultimately adopted.

One county commissioner said she was “disappointed” by the Monday vote, after the hearing on the proposed Health, Environment and Equity Impacts (HEEI) rule had already been advertised to the public.

“We have a contract between the city and the county of operating this board jointly,” said County Commissioner Barbara Baca, who spoke at the Monday meeting. “The city departed from that agreement. So we’re going to be looking at our ordinance and what we can do moving forward.”

The HEEI rule has been scrutinized for its potential impact on economic development, if adopted. In a statement, City Councilor Dan Lewis, who sponsored the legislation, said the decision “ensures that the Air Board is prevented from enacting regulations that could make it exceedingly difficult or impossible for companies to obtain air permits in Albuquerque.”

Baca said it was “encouraging” to see stakeholders, including those representing business, seemingly open to future air quality regulations.

“I’m hoping that the different sides of this issue, we’ll be able to keep their eye on that for the future,” Baca said. “Because we all know that we cannot ignore the air quality of our community.”