Editor:

It just about kills me to see how far the extraction industries will go to maintain the status quo.

On Aug. 25, a guest column by Larry Behrens, the western states director for Power the Future, put forth a scenario that the Green New Deal would bankrupt the state and called out state representatives who support it. The staggering costs to New Mexico, according to a study compiled by his organization in cooperation with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sure sound scary.

It immediately looked like a bunch of bunk to me, so I did a quick Google search.

Here’s what I found out.

Power the Future was launched in 2018 by Dan Turner, a former Republican communication staffer and alumni of the Charles Koch Institute. Turner also worked for Generation Opportunity, an organization that is funded by Freedom Partners, a multimillion-dollar Koch-tied funding vehicle.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Turner’s specialty is in “public relations and storytelling.” The report that Larry Behrens referred to “requires a considerable number of assumptions,” according to its authors, and relied in part on data compiled by the American Enterprise Institute.

Turner described Power the Future as a “pushback to hold accountable some of these radical environmental groups” that “take away all your rights.”

The science tells us there is perhaps a decade to turn around the dire world environmental predicament we are in.

Larry Behrens tells us it is too expensive to save ourselves. He doesn’t acknowledge that the cost of doing nothing will be a future that is literally hell on earth.

New Mexico has abundant year-round sunshine, and strong winds two — thirds of the year. And even though we are an arid state, a great deal of water passes through it.

Of the 28 dams in New Mexico, only one, Abiqui Reservoir, has been retrofitted to produce hydro-electric power. We have ample alternative resources that would be a financial boon to the state and create much-needed well-paying jobs.

We just need the will and leadership to utilize them.

Stephen Farkash

Rio Rancho