Housing Gaps and Pollution in NM After Fed Shifts

This week on New Mexico in Focus, we zero-in on two pressing issues facing our state: a housing crisis and threats to our air, water and soil. 

Late last month, President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency proposed rescinding the “endangerment finding” — an Obama-era addition to the Federal Clean Air Act of 1963 that recognized the dangers of climate change. Host Nash Jones sits down Camilla Feibelman, director of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, and Ben Shelton, deputy secretary of the state’s Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, to discuss what the EPA’s proposal could mean for greenhouse gas regulations in our state. Later, the two discuss the EPA’s decision to extend deadlines for states and the oil and gas industry to comply with methane standards set last year by the Biden administration, and how millions of tons of pollutants that would have been capped now won’t be. 

Investigative journalist and author Mariah Blake has spent years reporting on the ways PFAS, commonly referred to as forever chemicals, have posed a threat to our environment. Senior Producer Lou DiVizio recently sat down with Blake to talk about her new book: “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.” 

In July, Trump signed an executive order directing two federal agencies to shift their resources away from housing and instead towards forced mental health and substance abuse treatment, as well as criminal enforcement against unhoused people. Two leaders of a local nonprofit tell Lou how that executive order will restrict housing access to a growing population of people living on the streets. 

Host: Nash Jones

Segments:
EPA Proposes Rolling Back Greenhouse Gas Regulations 
Correspondent: Nash Jones 
Guests: 
Ben Shelton, Deputy Secretary, NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department 
Camilla Feibelman, Director, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter   

Journalist and Author’s New Book on Dangers of ‘Forever Chemicals’ 
Correspondent: Lou DiVizio 
Guest: Mariah Blake, Author, Investigative Journalist 

How the EPA’s Delay of Methane Regulations Would Spur Air Pollution  
Correspondent: Nash Jones 
Guests: 
Ben Shelton, Deputy Secretary, NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department 
Camilla Feibelman, Director, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter   

Nonprofit Says Executive Order Will Widen Housing Gaps in NM 
Correspondent: Nash Jones 
Guests: 
Serge Martinez, Co-founder, New Mexico Center for Housing Law 
Allison Freedman, Co-founder, New Mexico Center for Housing Law