Text version of the Closing-Opening Remarks from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) at the DOE Hydrogen Shot Summit, August 31, 2021.
Well, Deputy Secretary, that was an incredible, generous introduction and I don't know that there's anything now left for me to say about New Mexico or our incredible, enthusiastic excitement about the leadership in the Biden-Harris administration and the collective efforts by putting together this conference and the international community to collectively work on innovations, research and development, best practices, and coming together to address climate change and being really clear what our energy needs are so that in the transition we are doing everything we can.
And it's exactly this kind of scientific expertise that continues to enable states like New Mexico to position themselves to be part of this new energy economy and to be really clear about meeting our own aggressive climate change goals and decarbonizing both our utility and transportation sectors, moving as quickly as we can into agriculture and every other aspect so that we beat our statutory efforts at having a 45 percent reduction by 2045, at least 45 percent in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We know we can do better than that. We sort of set the floor so that we would do no worse than that, but your work collaboratively and our partnership already with the Department of Energy puts New Mexico in a position where we can meet, exceed, and beat all of those standards and showcase that when we put the best and brightest minds together we are in an incredible position and opportunity to both engage in these new economic ideas and to also combat climate change in the most aggressive fashion possible.
I think most of your panelists and participants know that in 2019 New Mexico as a large oil-and-gas-producing state set to make sure that our environmental goals were significant, that we were really clear about moving into a clean energy environment, that we've hit already and are exceeding our renewable investment strategies, and we required to do that, that we decarbonized our utility – major utilities in the state. And while we didn't quite get our clean fuel standards out, which will add $40 million to our economy, that bill's going to get upstairs to me as one of the first order of business of our next legislative session, which quite frankly is around the corner.
But in the meantime, because of your work and our platform and setting an aggressive agenda we are now really positioned, we believe, to be the hydrogen epicenter for the United States and are going to create a statutory framework to be a hydrogen hub. We are already working with incredibly robust private sector partners, including a partner that's moving a coal-based power plant into a hydrogen plant. We believe that they are ready and are demonstrating that they're putting together your ideas, your innovations, your technology, and putting that to work so that we're keeping our energy sector employees but we're advancing our clean energy investments. It is exactly the work that we ought to be engaged in and we think that we can replicate that in a county that is known frankly for our natural gas production. And we know that we can put that together in a larger retiring generating station and we are hopeful to get new innovations, new ideas from this group to make sure that our efforts there are working.
We have a private company in Albuquerque called Bayer Tech that – the rapid growth in its partners and orders for equipment so that we can decarbonize using hydrogen the transportation sector frankly exceeds by any margin we set our expectations, not only for investments, job growth, and research and development but the interest globally for partners to want to engage in that effort, which means that we know we're going to be successful in decarbonizing the transportation sector.
Frankly, I could talk to you a lot longer, including that we're moving away from figuring out what the hydrogen colors are and really looking at the carbonization issues related to hydrogen so that we're following the benchmarks that you set every single day for doing this work effectively. My takeaway, I hope, is two things – and thank you for letting me go on so long. It's such an honor to participate today. One, New Mexico is ready. We are poised and positioned because we followed – right? – not only that pattern of expertise and put it to action, we demonstrated that your framework works. It's working right now in real time in New Mexico, and we know unequivocally that we can continue to be outstanding partners with the private sector and with the federal government. And we look forward to an incredible relationship with the Department of Energy. This conference, your work goes a long way to not only continue our exciting efforts in the State of New Mexico, but to make sure that we take advantage of every partnership, every opportunity, and we lead the way for this country to address climate change in a more robust fashion by reducing our greenhouse emissions even faster than anticipated or expected and by leading the world in these transition efforts, including hydrogen.
So, thank you all so very much for having me. I'm delighted that I got to participate. And just know that you can count on New Mexico to do its fair share and then some.
[End of Audio]