Eastern New Mexico is in the crosshairs of the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC). That means livelihoods of many family farms and ranches are in danger. The 5-15 mile-wide proposed corridor will encompass nearly 2 million acres of some of the most productive agriculture land in the state, most of which is to be acquired by the use of eminent domain.
What is the need for such a wide swath of land for a transmission line? Worse, NIETC has said it may expand the footprint to a whopping 120 miles wide. Why?
Several lending institutions in NM have said the corridor will drastically reduce the availability of loans for family farms and ranches in New Mexico. This makes sense—how can lending institutions be expected to issue loans secured by land that farmers and ranchers technically no longer own?
Imagine the impact on local communities. The Federal Government does not pay property taxes, and any alternative fees will never compare to what current land owners pay. These revenues are critical to help maintain important infrastructure and services.
The federal plan is based on what the government says is an urgent need for new infrastructure and electricity access. But that justification rings hollow when private industry is already answering the call—without federal overreach. Three new transmission lines are currently being developed to serve the only part of New Mexico facing a true energy shortage: the oil patch in the southeast corner of the state.
This region has seen increased demand due to advances in drilling and fracking technology, which now rely on high-powered electric motors rather than conventional diesel rigs.
That’s how the free market works. When a real need arises, private industry responds—faster, more efficiently, and at less cost to the taxpayer. What problem is this massive corridor actually solving?
Meanwhile, public transparency is nowhere to be found. The original NIETC proposal envisioned 10 corridors across the U.S. Today, that number has been quietly reduced to just three: the Southwestern Connector Grid (New Mexico, Colorado, and part of Oklahoma), the Tribal Energy Access Corridor (Dakotas and Kansas), and the Lake Erie-Canada Corridor (touching Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the lake). Why the shift? Why the secrecy? And why focus these projects on seven rural states while ignoring places like California, where rolling blackouts are a regular occurrence?
Most troubling is the near-total absence of communication with the people most affected. In New Mexico, affected landowners have heard from the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exactly once. A single meeting. A few questions answered. That’s not a public process—that’s a rubber stamp.
Rural New Mexico is already under strain. Now, millions of acres of productive land—and thousands of family livelihoods—are put at risk by a federal plan that appears rushed, misguided, and misaligned with the state’s actual energy needs.
Let landowners and private industry continue to work together, as they have for generations. This country is already experiencing record-low participation in the agricultural sector. Do not compound the problem by driving even more producers off the land in the name of a half-baked solution.
If farmers and ranchers in New Mexico lose their lands, we will all lose something even bigger.
Bronson Corn is the President of New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.
