All Roll Calls
Yes: 68 • No: 41
New MexicoSB 212025 Regular SessionSenate
POLLUTANT DISCHARGE ELIMINATION SYSTEM ACT
Sponsored By: Peter Wirth (Democratic)
Signed by Governor
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
11 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 8 mixed.
Responsible parties face retroactive cleanup costs
Responsible parties can owe cleanup costs for actual or threatened contaminant releases, including releases before the 2025 law's effective date. Liability includes state cleanup, others' necessary response costs, natural-resource damage and assessment costs, and qualifying health studies. Parties must prove listed defenses, including acts of God or war, qualifying third-party conduct, permitted acts, or qualifying purchaser, lender, owner, or fiduciary status. People paying costs under a department-approved cleanup plan can seek contributions from other liable parties, with courts dividing costs fairly. The department can recover costs or settle; approved settlements protect covered matters from contribution claims and generally reduce others' liability by the settlement amount.
Communities get cleanup funding and input
The law creates a fund for investigating and cleaning up water, soil, and soil-vapor contamination. It receives appropriations, gifts, grants, donations, department receipts, and specified contamination-related recoveries; unused money remains available. The law sets no total funding amount. The Environment Department investigates contamination, identifies responsible parties, and prepares a written report. Before cleanup, it must prepare a work plan, give public notice, and allow public comment and participation.
Communities get notice of water permits
The commission must set notice procedures for groundwater permit applications and drafts covering new permits, changes, and renewals. Surface-water draft permits also require public and affected-agency notice. Groundwater notices include newspaper ads in English and Spanish. Notice methods must consider recipients' languages and access to communication. General surface-water permits are exempt from the specified nearby-landowner notice and posting requirements.
Applicants pay fees for water permits
The commission must set fees for discharge permits and general permit coverage under the water-quality programs. Fees pay for rulemaking, application review, permits, enforcement, compliance help, monitoring, inspections, records, and legal or administrative work. The law does not set fee amounts. Fees generally enter the Water Quality Management Fund, including specified facility operating and maintenance fees. The Environment Department uses this fund for water-quality administration, and unused money stays in the fund.
Discharge permits have fixed time limits
Most permits have fixed five-year terms. Surface-water discharge permits can last up to 10 years. For a new discharge, the term starts when the discharge begins. That permit cannot extend beyond seven years after its issue date.
Dischargers face state water permit rules
Pollutant releases from a point source into federally covered waters require a state permit, with farm, forestry, and uncontaminated-runoff exceptions. The state cannot issue a permit over a written federal objection. The commission can also require permits for water-contaminant discharges and disposal or reuse of septic waste or sludge. Rules can require operating plans, staff training, financial responsibility for corrective work, monitoring, sampling, records, and reports of contaminant changes. Permits grant no property rights and do not excuse violations of other rights or laws.
Land projects get limited fill exemptions
Dredged or fill discharges with federal approval do not need a separate state permit, but harm must be avoided and minimized. Remaining harm can require compensating restoration or other mitigation. Listed exemptions cover routine farming, forestry, ranching, structure repairs, ponds, acequias, ditches, qualifying sediment basins, and roads using water-protection practices. Those exemptions do not cover rule-listed toxic pollutants or new farming that brings surface water into previously unfarmed areas. Exemptions based on other enforceable permits are barred when they risk health or environmental hazards or prevent water-quality standards from being met.
Permit applicants get safeguards and limits
Agencies must justify each permit condition as reasonable and needed, considering the site and applicable industry rules. Applicants can review and comment on added conditions and must receive a written explanation. Agencies must deny permits, general coverage, or federal certifications for discharges violating applicable requirements, including downstream state or tribal standards. Specified fraud, convictions, willful environmental violations, or permit revocations within the previous 10 years also require denial. Agencies can change or end permits before expiration for violations, false or missing information, or changed conditions requiring reduced discharges.
Some dischargers avoid extra water permits
Discharges with a qualifying federal or state pollutant-discharge permit do not need a separate Water Quality Act permit. Other exemptions cover return flows entirely from irrigated farming and listed forestry runoff following standard industry practices. Mining and oil-and-gas stormwater qualifies only when it consists entirely of precipitation runoff without contact with specified materials or waste. Discharges covered by other enforceable state or federal permits can also qualify. That last exemption is barred when it risks a health or environmental hazard or prevents state water-quality standards from being met.
Water users get limited regulatory exceptions
The law preserves water-property rights and limits rules for pollution confined to one property when the water never mixes with other waters. Activities under specified other-agency powers have exclusions, but these do not block pollution cleanup or septic-waste and sludge controls. Oil-conservation exclusions do not cover surface-water discharges requiring a permit. Reasonable water-quality decline from beneficial use must be allowed without exceeding standards, except where federal law or permitted surface-water discharges rule it out. Numerical temperature, dissolved-solids, oxygen, sediment, and turbidity standards exclude natural changes and reasonable operations of irrigation or flood-control facilities not subject to pollution permitting.
Water violators face daily financial penalties
Agencies can issue compliance orders, suspend or end permits, assess penalties, or bring court actions for Water Quality Act violations. Permit-related violations covered by the specified permitting section carry penalties up to $15,000 per day. Other violations carry penalties up to $10,000 per day. Continued failure to follow a compliance order after its correction deadline carries penalties up to $25,000 per day. One operational event violating several standards counts as one violation, and collected penalties go to the state general fund.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsor
Peter Wirth
Democratic • Senate
Cosponsors
Kristina Ortez
Democratic • House
Roberto "Bobby" J. Gonzales
Democratic • Senate
Roll Call Votes
House vote • 3/19/2025
Final House Vote
Yes: 43 • No: 25
Senate vote • 2/26/2025
Final Senate Vote
Yes: 25 • No: 16
Actions Timeline
Signed by Governor - Chapter 112 - Apr. 8
4/8/2025SenatePassed in the House of Representatives - Y:43 N:25
3/19/2025HouseHENRC: Reported by committee with Do Pass recommendation
3/11/2025HouseHAAWC: Reported by committee with Do Pass recommendation
3/4/2025HouseSent to HAAWC - Referrals: HAAWC/HENRC
2/27/2025SenatePassed in the Senate - Y:25 N:16
2/26/2025Senatefl/aaaa
2/26/2025legislatureSFC: Reported by committee with Do Pass recommendation
2/21/2025SenateSJC: Reported by committee with Do Not Pass but with a Do Pass recommendation on Committee Substitution
2/13/2025SenateSCONC: Reported by committee with Do Pass recommendation
1/30/2025SenateSent to SCONC - Referrals: SCONC/SJC/SFC
1/21/2025Senate
Bill Text
Final Version
4/9/2025
HENRC Committee Report 3/11/25
3/11/2025
HAAWC Committee Report 3/04/25
3/4/2025
Senate Floor Amendment 1 2/26/25
2/26/2025
Senate Floor Amendment 2 2/26/25
2/26/2025
Senate Floor Amendment 3 2/26/25
2/26/2025
Senate Floor Amendment 4 2/26/25
2/26/2025
SFC Committee Report 2/21/25
2/21/2025
SJC Committee Report 2/13/25
2/13/2025
SJC Committee Substitute 2/13/25
2/13/2025
SCONC Committee Report 1/30/25
1/30/2025
Introduced
1/21/2025