New Mexico
An off-the-grid community in New Mexico offers insight into sustainable building
ABC News is taking a look at solutions for issues related to climate change and the environment with the series, “The Power of Us: People, The Climate, and Our Future.”
Near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Taos, New Mexico, a community built into the earth is living totally off-the-grid in mostly-recycled structures called Earthships.
ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee along with her team, Dan Manzo and Lindsey Griswold, traveled to Taos to stay with the community and find out what everyone can be doing to live a bit more sustainably.
“Everybody on the planet can wake up in the morning and be comfortable without fossil fuel. Everybody can grow food in their house, everybody can have electricity from the sun and wind,” Michael Reynolds, founder and creator of Earthship Biotecture, told Zee. “These buildings do that.”
Heating, cooling and powering buildings creates more greenhouse gas emissions than anything else in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Furthermore, construction and demolition create more than 500 million tons of debris each year in this country alone, the EPA said.
The community of over 100 Earthships in Taos is made of “living vessels” with gravel, old tires, concrete and other discarded materials like glass bottles.
Earthships are fully self-sustaining structures with timers for wifi and hot water use, according to Earthship Biotecture.
Reynolds said he uses rainwater four times over for different purposes in his home.
Michael Reynolds talks with ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee outside Taos, New Mexico.
ABC News
“I’m using five gallons — or three gallons of water to take a shower. That same three gallons of water waters my banana trees and my tomatoes,” Reynolds said. “That same three gallons of water is recollected to flush the toilet.”
Solar energy provides the homes with power, but it’s not used to heat or cool the structures. Earthships use trash as insulation to keep them comfortable inside.
Reynolds showed ABC News how Earthships are insulated with old tires filled with dirt.
“Each tire gets about four or five wheelbarrows of dirt pounded into them. So they’re basically like steel encased Adobe bricks,” Earthship Biotecture rental manager Hillary Hess told ABC News. “And the sun comes in and it hits that mass. And then the tire retains it. And as the temperature in here would drop, that heat would be released.”
“You know, on a cold February night, you walk in one of these and you go, ‘This is amazing.’” Reynolds said. “This is warm and it’s freezing outside and there’s no heating system here. So if you’ve put people in a position to be able to experience it, then that’s huge.”
An ABC News team stayed in one of the structures in Taos for three days to understand how they work and what it feels like to live in one.
Hess said structure the team would be staying in is 5,400 square feet. Two thousand square feet of that is dedicated growing space.
Outside Taos, New Mexico, a community of Earthships offers off-the-grid living claiming to be the answer to building sustainability.
ABC News
“In this house there’s two ponds in the greenhouse and we have tilapia out there,” she said. “So ideally, if you lived in this home, if you wanted, you could even be harvesting your own fish, chickens with eggs. And then you could catch a fish, pick your citrus, wrap it in a bag and leave and grill it out on the fire.”
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The small percentage of people living in Earthships aren’t the only ones saying traditional living and building arrangements need to change.
“The building industry currently is known to account for approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions,” Lola Ben-Alon, assistant professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation told ABC News. “It’s a really huge chunk of our industry in the world.”
Ben-Alon said there’s no one answer as to what makes up the most sustainable home.
“There’s no one solution,” she said. “It’s really a combination of principles and a combination of design thinking with the local environment and what is available and what is the climatic context, but also the material availability context and the labor context.”
Reynolds believes the principles of Earthships can be applied everywhere.
“Not everybody’s going to have an Earthship tomorrow,” Zee said. “If there had to be one thing from Earthships that we could apply to homes across America, what would be the most important?
News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee sits with Earthship Biotecture founder and creator Michael Reynolds outside of an Earthship near Taos, New Mexico.
ABC News
“I think it starts with comfort,” Reynolds replied. “In other words, you can add a greenhouse on the south side of your house, and that will hit those rooms that are near that. You can even in New York City, you can get an apartment with south facing windows. You can become aware of the fact that heat comes from that thing, and you can catch that heat.”
In Santa Fe New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham talked with ABC News about Earthships and other sustainability efforts in the state
“How important is it to experiment with sustainability like that?” Zee asked. “Because that’s extreme.”
“I think all of that has incredible value,” Grisham said. “It is not the No. 1 investment in sustainable living, but it is really powerful.”
“Just their water reuse and recycling in its last place, after using it four times, is to grow food. I mean, these are particularly for states in the Southwest arid states,” she added. “That innovation and knowing that you can live completely off the grid and have sustainable building materials all recycled, we can do more of that.”
For his part, Reynolds said the extremity is necessary.
“I used to try to tone it down because I know that I’m a fanatic about it, and I can’t expect other people to understand what I’ve been thinking about for decades,” he said. “So I try to water it down and tone it down, but now it’s like, ‘yeah, it’s not appropriate to tone it down.’ I mean, the solutions are the way forward on this planet. It’s going to have to be extreme.”
New Mexico
14 indicted in alleged Permian Basin crude‑oil theft scheme spanning New Mexico and Texas, prosecutors say
A federal grand jury in Lubbock has indicted 14 people accused of stealing crude oil in eastern New Mexico and hauling it into Texas to resell at cut‑rate prices.
Prosecutors say the scheme targeted the Permian Basin’s vast production network, the oil‑rich region spanning southeastern New Mexico and West Texas that covers more than 86,000 square miles and accounts for the majority of U.S. crude oil production.
All 14 defendants are charged with conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines, and several also face counts of interstate transportation and receipt, possession, or sale of stolen property, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Indictment outlines alleged operation
Returned April 8, the indictment alleges the group stole crude oil in eastern New Mexico, some stored on U.S. government-leased land, and resold it to co‑conspirators at prices below the standard U.S. market benchmark.
Prosecutors say the conspirators transported the stolen oil into Texas for resale at a profit, knowing it was stolen.
Texas, New Mexico defendants identified by prosecutors
Texas defendants are James Darrell Reid, 65, and Randell Wayne Reid, 41, owners of Texas-based Reidco Enterprises and both of Electra – about 25 miles northwest of Wichita Falls and 115 miles from Fort Worth – along with Christopher Frederick Harris, 22, of Seminole, about 80 miles west of Midland.
The remaining 11 defendants are from Lovington, a southeastern New Mexico community of about 11,690 people, roughly 20 miles west of the Texas state line and squarely inside the Permian Basin.
They include:
- Louis George Edgett, 68;
- Brenden Floyd Strickland, 25;
- Sixto Herrera-Estebane, 43;
- Gyardo Gonzalez, 47;
- Jesus Martin Hernandez-Borja, 51;
- Diana Marquez Rojo, 45;
- Jose Luis Rojo, 49;
- Jose Mario Rivas-Mendoza, 37;
- Miguel A. Soto, 41;
- Tavares Montrail Cole, 48; and
- Danny Dale Brown Jr., 42.
Potential penalties outlined by DOJ
According to prosecutors, the defendants face up to five years in prison for conspiracy and up to 10 years per count for interstate transportation, possession, or sale of stolen property.
The investigation was conducted by the Bureau of Land Management, the FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Investigation Division, and sheriff’s offices in Lea and Eddy counties in New Mexico.
CBS News Texas will provide updates as additional information becomes available.
New Mexico
Governor establishes Energy Affordability and Grid Reliability Council – 13-member council designed to protect ratepayers, modernize the grid – Office of the Governor – Michelle Lujan Grisham
SANTA FE — Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham today signed an executive order establishing the New Mexico Energy Affordability and Grid Reliability Council to address the rising cost of electricity in a rapidly changing energy landscape.
The Council will convene state agency leaders, utility executives and experts in rural cooperative utilities, tribal energy, consumer advocacy, and energy policy and infrastructure to develop strategies for keeping energy affordable while ensuring the grid can meet the demands of a growing, modernizing New Mexico economy.
“At a time of dramatically rising energy prices, it’s imperative that we do everything we can to protect New Mexico ratepayers while ensuring abundant clean energy supply,” said Governor Lujan Grisham. “The experts I’ve appointed to the New Mexico Energy Affordability and Grid Reliability Council are well-positioned to make smart, insightful recommendations and I look forward to their findings.”
The Council will evaluate and recommend strategies across four interconnected areas:
- Ratepayer protection: Ensuring that large-load growth — including data centers and onshore manufacturing — does not disproportionately increase costs for residential, rural, tribal and small business customers.
- Grid modernization and reliability: Recommending rate designs and financing strategies that enable prudent infrastructure investment while minimizing long-term rate escalation.
- Clean energy progress: Advancing New Mexico’s net-zero goals under the Energy Transition Act by expanding zero-carbon generation and storage while maintaining affordable access.
- Permitting efficiency: Identifying opportunities to streamline and coordinate state and local permitting for electricity infrastructure — accelerating deployment of clean energy projects without compromising environmental review, tribal consultation, or regulatory safeguards.
The Council will deliver a final report — including legislative, regulatory and administrative recommendations — to the Governor and the Legislature by November 1, 2026.
The Council consists of 13 members representing state government, utilities, rural cooperatives, tribal communities and independent experts:
- Erin Taylor, acting secretary, Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department
- Rob Black, secretary, Economic Development Department
- Cholla Khoury, chief of staff, Public Regulation Commission
- Lynn Mostoller, executive director, Renewable Energy Transmission Authority
- Sunalei Stewart, deputy commissioner for operations, State Land Office
- Don Tarry, president and CEO, TXNM Energy (PNM)
- Kelly A. Tomblin, president and CEO, El Paso Electric
- Zoe Lees, regional vice president, regulatory policy, Xcel Energy
- Vince Martinez, CEO, New Mexico Rural Electric Cooperative Association
- Javier Bucobo, vice president of markets and regulatory affairs, Avangrid (grid infrastructure expert)
- Joseph Yar, attorney, Velarde & Yar (consumer/ratepayer advocate)
- Sandra Begay Keeto, retired, Sandia National Laboratories; member, Navajo Nation (tribal energy expert)
- Rep. Meredith Dixon, New Mexico House of Representatives, District 20 (energy policy expert)
The Council is administratively attached to the Department of Finance and Administration. Members will serve without compensation, other than per diem and mileage as permitted by law.
The executive order can be viewed here.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Republican candidate for governor Duke Rodriguez is suing Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham over her executive order that started universal free child care before a new law takes effect.
The governor enacted the program through executive order in November.
Lawmakers passed a universal child care law during the past session, but that law does not take effect until May 20.
Rodriguez says he objects to some of the rules and to how the governor started the program. The suit asks the Second Judicial District Court to prohibit further enforcement of any regulations tied to the program.
“You could understand an outgoing governor trying to do it for political capital, for expediency just to say, I’m first in the nation.” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez says he is confident he will win and that the rules he is challenging will be struck down.
“We also now have what we call pre emptive eligibility, which means you don’t even have to prove you’re eligible and you’re covered the moment you walk in,” Rodriguez said. “All of those things individually and collectively that have been proposed and changed probably invite fraud, waste and abuse and you know it.”
The governor’s office responds
The governor’s office sent a statement saying the program was properly implemented and that the governor is confident the lawsuit will be rejected.
A spokesperson for the governor sent KOB 4 the following statement:
“This lawsuit makes clear that Mr. Rodriguez has a fundamental misunderstanding how state government works. He states that ECECD did not have the authority to undergo rulemaking regarding universal childcare. They do. He states that ECECD did not have the funding to implement the program when they did their rulemaking. They did. That is why the program was operational in December – before the 2026 Legislative session started. Perhaps more importantly, the lawsuit ignores that the legislature passed SB 241, which codified the program and its future funding into law. The governor is confident that the courts will reject his meritless claims.“
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