Current Situation
New Mexicans for Utility Safety (NMUS) has successfully opposed smart meters in the state of New Mexico for health and environmental reasons since 2016. As a result, many of New Mexico’s cities and towns, including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Silver City, Deming, Rio Rancho, Belen, Alamogordo, Tularosa, Ruidoso, Los Ranchos, Las Vegas, Tirjeras, Madrid, Tesuque, Galisteo, Pinos Altos, Tijeras, Cochiti Lake, and elsewhere do not have smart meters. New Mexico is one of the last states in the U.S. where most of the population does not have smart meters.
On October 3, 2022, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) filed its third application for smart meters with the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC). In 2016-2017, NMUS helped to defeat PNM’s first application for smart meters. In 2020, NMUS helped to defeat PNM’s application for a trial deployment of smart meters.
PNM’s third application for smart meters, Cast No. 22-00058-UT, is presently pending before the NMPRC. Unlike in the previous two smart meter cases, the new Hearing Examiner has prohibited NMUS from presenting evidence of harm to health or environment.
NMPRC Proceedings
On March 17, 2023, the NMPRC held a public hearing and heard five hours of oral testimony from an outraged public, all but one person opposing smart meters for health and environmental reasons. Here is the video of this hearing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGkE-qKkbU
The record of this case also contains 431 written comments submitted by members of the public, testifying to severe injuries, deaths, homelessness, and environmental devastation caused by smart meters:
https://cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/public-comments-as-of-5-25-24.pdf
From March 20-24, the NMPRC held evidentiary hearings, illegally excluding any evidence related to health or environment. On April 20, 2023, all parties to the case filed their initial briefs. Here is the initial brief filed by NMUS:
https://cellphonetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NMUS-Brief-in-Chief.pdf
On April 23, 24, and 30 the NMPRC held more hearings, this time on the Cost-Benefit Analysis that PNM was ordered to conduct. Costs to health or environment were excluded. On June 11, the parties filed briefs on these hearings. Here is the brief filed by NMUS on the cost-benefit analysis: