Colleague Claims NMED Secretary Jim Kenney is “Environmentalist Who Really Wants to be an Economic Developer”
Environment Secretary Jim Kenney Provides ‘White Glove Service’ to Energy and Data Industry
“I mean, one of the things that’s fun with Jim is he’s an environmentalist who really wants to be an economic developer, and I’m an economic developer who’s really an environmentalist.”
So said Rob Black, Secretary of New Mexico’s Economic Development Department, in mid-November of last year, about Jim Kenney, the Secretary of the state’s Environment Department, when they both sat down for a podcast interview with Stephen Lacey, a host of the Latitude Media’s “Catalyst” podcast series. Latitude Media is a company dedicated to “storytelling and marketing services at the intersection of climate, energy, and technology.”
Latitude Media’s clients includes companies like Bloom Energy, Energy Hub, Kraken, Halcyon, J.P. Morgan, and other energy and technology businesses.
In the written narrative from the webpage linking to the audio presentation of the interview, Latitude Media explains that Kenney and Black “are helping redefine how state agencies work with industry. Their model blends speed, access, and careful environmental oversight to help companies build more quickly without cutting corners.”
The narrative continues with,
“Together, they’re using that model to attract billion-dollar fusion and geothermal projects, expand water and infrastructure investments, and deploy the state’s $65 billion sovereign wealth fund directly into advanced energy and deep-tech manufacturing.“
At the end of that written introduction, in a disclaimer of sorts, the podcast is described as “a partner episode, produced in collaboration with the New Mexico Economic Development Department, which works to expand opportunity through innovation, infrastructure, and investment across the state.“
(It’s not clear if the state of New Mexico paid for part of the production, all of it, or any of it.)
Jim Kenney’s White Glove Service
“At the center of their approach is something they call white glove service,” podcast interviewer, Stephen Lacey, announces in the interview.
He explains further, “It’s the government as concierge, fast, personal, and hands-on. If you need a permit, someone will walk you through it.
“If you’re visiting the state, someone might literally meet you at the airport.”
Rob Black, is more specific describing his partner Kenney’s approach,
“An example of Jim’s white glove service – we had a company coming in, the energy company from Australia. He, the cabinet secretary, picked them up at the airport and drove them around. That’s the level of engagement that New Mexico brings to the table.”
To which Kenney added, “And if people are looking for government to be a verb, then that’s New Mexico.”
Black and Kenney – Economic and Energy Development Policy Soulmates
Rob Black found a policy partner in Jim Kenney, the secretary who is supposed to be the state’s protector of the environment and natural resources – like water and clean air.
Kenney has been in his role since 2019.
Black was appointed to run economic development for Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in September of 2024. He previously served as the president & CEO of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce.
During his tenure, Kenney has pushed the Governor’s hydrogen and treated produced water agenda.
He has been exposed for his behind the scene manipulation of his agency’s personnel to favor insiders in obtaining contracts or participating as subcontractors, covertly coordinating the Governor’s Hydrogen Hub agenda, and pushing other cabinet officials to get the produced water agenda “over the finish line.”
In doing so, he has lost the trust of many environmentalists.
Months after Black’s appointment, in February 2025, he and Kenney sat like bookend props flanking the Governor and investor Lanham Napier, Chairman of BorderPlex Digital Assets.
Lujan Grisham and other political leaders tripped over themselves, bestowing thanks and committing state economic incentives and dedicating state employee personnel to the investor and his partners for bringing what has become to be known as Project Jupiter to New Mexico.
(This weekend the Candle will be reporting on Kenney’s “White Glove” service to Project Jupiter and Oil and Gas Industry interests via NMED’s Project Velocity.)
Kenney Covertly Pushing Economic Development – “It’s all hydrogen all the time here!”
For months before he informed environmental advocates, Kenney was meeting and plotting with hydrogen insiders to accelerate the establishment of a Hydrogen Hub economy in New Mexico.
His commitment to the project is best evidenced through his own words.
In August 31, 2021 Melanie Kenderdine, a principal player in a think tank advocating ‘hydrogen hub formation,’ wrote to Kenney regarding a proposed upcoming event, and invited Governor Lujan Grisham to be a speaker. Kenney was also invited to participate “in some capacity.”
Kenney and Kenderdine had met at the site of a coal-fired power plant that had been shuttered and which Tallgrass Energy, LP (a company with offices in Texas and Kansas) had announced it was planning on converting into a hydrogen-fired generating operation.
Kenney wrote in response to the invitation: “Yes, please include the Governor and keep us posted. Looping in Caroline Buerkle, Deputy COO for the Governor, who was also at the Escalante tour with us. Thanks you for reaching out.”
Kenney ended the email writing,
“I hope you are well, Melanie! It’s all hydrogen all the time here!”
A few years later, Lujan Grisham appointed Kenderdine Secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD).
Kenney was also instrumental in funding a study in support of the Governor’s Hydrogen agenda entitled, “Defining and Envisioning a Clean Hydrogen Hub for New Mexico.”
The study was funded and approved by Secretaries of both the Environment Department and the Economic Development Department.
Alicia Keyes was the Secretary of the Economic Development Department at that time. She resigned in the summer of 2023, and has been recently associated with BorderPlex Digital Assets, as well as with proponents of the former (rejected) and current proposed Produced Water petition for a rules change (see below) brought on behalf of entities associated with oil and gas industry interests. Keyes also is the CEO of Apaluma, a company performing AI services to NMED in the digitization of the agencies millions of pages of records.
According to a communication from NMED that The Candle received in 2022, “The New Mexico Economic Development Department and the New Mexico Environment Department executed a contract with NM Energy Prosperity Jason Sandel to conduct an economic study of the impact of the hydrogen economy in New Mexico, titled Defining and Envisioning a Clean Hydrogen Hub for New Mexico...”
Sandel and his family have been owners of a number of businesses supporting oil and gas companies.
He has also been a significant financial contributor to the campaigns of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, travelled with the Governor on international trips relative to energy.
One of Sandel’s companies has/had contracts with the NM EMNRD for the past few years paying in excess of $1.3 million.
Kenney and Governor Recruit Kenderdine and Other High Ranking Officials in Secretive Effort to Get Produced Water Use “Over the Finish Line”
Kenderdine appears to have been manipulated, along with other Secretaries, in a controversial effort by Kenney, the Governor’s assistant Caroline Buerkle, and the Governor, to reopen a rule-making process before the Water Quality Control Commission.
In May of 2025, after about a year of hearings including review of research, testimony of expert witnesses, and deliberations, the Water Quality Control Commission adopted rules that prohibited treated produced water being discharged or used in New Mexico except for contained reuse in the oil fracking process.
Oil and gas interests were not pleased, as they are desperate to find some place to dump the billions of gallons of polluted produced water generated by their fracking operations.
Within weeks of the WQCC Produced Water rule being adopted, attorneys with a history of representing the interests of oil and gas companies filed a petition for a new hearing to undo the rule, claiming new scientific data was available.
As the summer moved along, it became obvious to environmental advocates that Kenney and the Governor were pushing the industry effort to reopen the rule process.
And at an August meeting of the WQCC, Kenderdine, and several other agency heads, followed Kenney in voting to take up the new proposed Produced Water initiative proffered by lawyers associated with oil and gas industry and water treatment interests.
Many who attended the meeting felt it was staged with Kenney calling the shots.
Secret Collaboration of Cabinet Members to Advance Produced Water Exposed
But in September, Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Nicholas Gilmore broke a story exposing behind the scenes activities of the Governor’s executive staff and Kenney to push the effort over the finish line.
As stated in a September 2025, press release from The Center for Biological Diversity, a national, nonprofit conservation organization, “emails showed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office directed a majority of the panel’s members to vote for an oil industry petition that would allow treated oil and gas waste to be discharged into New Mexico’s rivers and onto its soil...
“The governor is doing the dirty work of the fossil fuel industry and trying to overturn toxic waste rules that protected people and the environment,” said Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The commission is supposed to be fair and impartial, and it’s supposed to act in New Mexicans’ best interests. But instead its members seem to have worked with the governor behind closed doors to sway this vote in favor of the oil industry. This injustice can’t be allowed to stand.”
On November 13, 2026, after considerable public pressure resulting from the Gilmore’s reporting, a different composition of members of the Water Quality Control Commission rescinded the hearing for the proposed rule change.
Shortly thereafter, on December 5, 2025, Kenderdine abruptly resigned her position as Secretary of NM EMNRD. According to a short press release from the Office of the Governor, “… Melanie A. Kenderdine, secretary of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD), will resign for personal reasons effective today.”
New Effort to Resurrect Oil and Gas Proposed Produced Water Rule Change
Early last month, the supporters of oil and gas industry interests filed a new petition for a change in the Produced Water rules.
The Water Quality Control Commission is scheduled to meet next Tuesday, April 14, 2026, and although the agenda was not available at the time this story was published, it is likely that the matter will be discussed and possibly acted on during that meeting.