It’s truly frightening that our Public Regulatory Commission might approve acquisition of a Public Service Company of New Mexico, despite clear statutory language requiring such an acquisition to be in the public interest.
Consistently increasing energy costs to increase distant shareholders’ profits is inequitable; and many, many New Mexicans are especially vulnerable. There’s a lot of poverty here. Higher electricity costs could harm kids’ health and nutrition, as parents make hard choices. Can we heat the home this winter? Can we keep lights on as long as kids need to study? Which food items can we cut this week to pay Blackstone. That’s frightening, and our governor should help protect citizens.
It’s also about our future. Voters here care about the environment and the threat of climate craziness. Our Energy Transition Act mandates a major switch to renewable energy; but Blackstone, has major investments in fossil fuel companies. Blackstone would have a motive to deal with companies it owns, as it has elsewhere. Why not? Maximizing investor profit is its duty to shareholders. Blackstone already has a long rap sheet.
Nor could the PRC police that. A committee of non-experts overseeing many areas – is way overmatched by Blackstone. Compare PRC’s $29.3 million 2026 annual budget with Blackstone’s overall annual take of #13.2 billion. That’s 683 times the PRC annual budget. That gives it huge and undesirable influence on decision-makers – and Project Jupiter has just reminded us how unappetizing and powerful such influence can be. Blackstone’s size means both that we’ll need a far bigger enforcement staff and that the staff would be handicapped by Blackstone’s ability to fight forever in court or buy officials who’ll wink at enforcement or even change laws. As we’re seeing with Jupiter.
A huge company slyly gouging us by dealing with its own partners just ain’t in New Mexico’s interest.
Further, none of this is necessary.
PNM’s claim that it needs Blackstone’s capital is nonsense. PNM wants the enhanced price per share Blackstone will pay to acquire PNM. Logic tells you the only reason for paying such premium is to make it back, and more, in profits – from electricity bills paid by New Mexicans. PNM could obtain capital by the usual means of loans, bonds, and other maneuvers companies routinely use.
If PNM must be obtained by someone, why not by New Mexico? (New Mexico’s State Investment Council already invests with Blackstone.) We could buy PNM for a small fraction of what we have in New Mexico’s Permanent Fund . Advantages are obvious. Profits from the New Mexico utility would go to New Mexico; and the utility could honestly consider the public interest in its decision-making. New Mexico doesn’t operate myriad other private enterprises that could make higher profits through sweetheart deals with the electric utility. Further, if there are problems, and required investigations, our transparency laws would make those routine, whereas Blackstone’s extreme secrecy would make investigations nearly impossible.
By law, the PRC must decide based on whether or not the acquisition is in the public interest. To say it is would require a pretty absurd lie. If our Governor’s employees adopt that lie, I hope she has no future political plans this side of Greenland.
Blackstone claims its wealth means long-term financial security for PNM. But a regulated utility is already secure, guaranteed a nearly ten per cent return on investments.
In May, the PRC should decide this. Before then, speak up!
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 1 March 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
