![\"Joseph](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Cervantes-Joseph.jpeg\")
Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>
Joseph Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n
The Las Cruces Democrat this week introduced a bill that would require publicly owned electric utilities to choose the least-costly alternative when proposing purchases of new energy sources.<\/p>\n
“This begins with the recognition that the price for renewable energy is falling dramatically,” Cervantes told The New Mexican on Friday<\/span><\/span>. “So the goal behind this legislation would be to try to encourage a competitive market, which is emerging with renewable energy.”<\/p>\n Currently, Cervantes said, investor-owned utilities “are relying on their own generation of electricity.” His bill would encourage them “to open up and shop for alternatives that may have lower prices from renewable energy and, ideally, pass those savings on to consumers.”<\/p>\n Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy, a Santa Fe-based clean-energy advocacy group, has for years been advocating for such a change.<\/p>\n In recent utility cases before the Public Regulation Commission involving the state’s largest investor-owned electric utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico, Nanasi and other critics raised questions about whether PNM had seriously considered replacing coal and nuclear power with significant amounts of solar or wind energy. These cases included last year’s rate increase request and PNM’s plan to shut down two coal-fired units at the San Juan Generating Station near Farmington and replace the energy with other sources.<\/p>\n “I’m more convinced than ever that an open, competitive and transparent process will yield a cleaner, fairer, cheaper energy mix,” Nanasi said Friday<\/span><\/span>. “And that means the creation of jobs, improved health and protection of the environment. This is the standard in more than half the states, with positive results to show for it.<\/p>\n