Zachary Withers
IndependentQ1 Q1 (Produced Water and Oil and Gas): New Mexico’s oil and gas industry generated 2.7 billion barrels of produced water in 2025. This wastewater can contain salts, chemicals, and radioactive materials, and underground disposal has raised concerns about earthquakes in the Permian Basin. State regulators have also identified gaps in evidence about treatment and environmental safety. What policies, if any, would you support for produced-water treatment, monitoring, disposal, or reuse outside oil and gas operations? What scientific evidence would inform your position?
I support requiring the oil and gas industry to fully treat all produced water to remove all contaminants at their own expense to standards established by fully independent commission of scientific experts. I oppose allowing the oil and gas industry to use fresh water for hydrological fracturing. I support state funded monitoring, testing, and enforcement of water quality standards. I support levying fees on every gallon of produced water. I support reuse of produced water only where there is universal consensus amongst the scientific community, reflected in multiple independently funded and peer reviewed studies, that it poses no threat of harm to the environment.
Q2 Q2 (Water Security): New Mexico’s 50-Year Water Action Plan identifies water conservation, improved storage and delivery, groundwater monitoring, and protection of existing water resources as approaches to long-term water challenges affecting communities, agriculture, and economic development. What policies, investments, research, or new technologies would you prioritize to strengthen New Mexico’s long-term water security? How would you measure whether they increase water availability or reduce water loss?
The water crisis is primarily a political crisis created through poor management and governance. The state has allocated roughly twice as many individual use rights as our water resources can sustainably support. Overuse is impairing water cycles and reducing water availability. The primary solution to this problem is creating effective governance structures at the local level to manage water in accordance with the hydrological realities we are facing and the based on the needs of local communities. Increasing water availability can be accomplished through increasing aquifer recharge and surface flows through effective watershed restoration and improving soil health, direct capture and storage, and investment in closed loop systems for treating and recycling water. I oppose inter basin transfers. I oppose mining deep aquifers and desalination as a long term solution. We need a holistic framework for managing water that accounts for riparian health, short and longterm impacts on localized water cycles, aquifer level monitoring, total ecological health in the watershed, food sovereignty, and access to healthy water for personal needs as a basic human right.
Q3 Q3 (Uranium Mining and Cleanup): The EPA reports 523 abandoned uranium mines on or near the Navajo Nation, including 30 mines in New Mexico within one mile of Navajo Nation lands. Past uranium mining and milling have raised environmental and public-health concerns, while new proposals raise questions about water use and contamination. What policies, if any, would you support regarding existing sites, cleanup costs, and new uranium mining proposals? What role should scientific evidence and the decisions of affected Tribal governments play?
I oppose allowing private industry to externalize costs onto the public. I support requiring financial surety bonds for mining operations that are sufficient to cover the entirety of the following costs: long term site remediation; long term remediation for offsite environmental contamination; damages and punitive damages for any possible negative impacts on surrounding communities resulting from intentional or accidental contamination. I oppose approving applications to transfer agricultural or domestic water rights to mining operations. I support full remediation of existing sites, and accountability for the companies responsible. Tribal governments should have full sovereign control over their lands, and equal say in any decision on any project that may impact their lands.
Q4 Q4 (Commercial Aerospace): New Mexico has invested public funds in Spaceport America and the commercial aerospace sector, prompting questions about environmental impacts and taxpayer investment. What conditions, if any, would you place on future state investment, and how should operating, infrastructure, and environmental costs be divided between public and private entities? How would you evaluate economic benefits alongside safety, wildfire, debris, and community impacts?
State investments should serve three functions, providing highly reliable and predictable returns to ensure adequate funding for provision of basic services and investments into public infrastructure, building and maintaining an collective sovereign wealth fund that ensures long term financial security for state and local governments, and drives the creation of real wealth and community health across New Mexico. I oppose state ownership in private enterprises. I oppose using public funds to continually subsidize private industries. I oppose commercial space tourism. I support using public funds to increase access to capital for locally owned businesses that provide real economic benefits to local communities without threatening the environment and undermining the health of the local communities.
Q5 Q5 (Nuclear Waste): The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad is the nation’s only deep geologic repository for defense-related transuranic waste, storing radioactive waste like plutonium and americium. What position would you take on WIPP’s future mission and proposals to change the types or amount of waste it accepts? What oversight policies, if any, would you support for transportation safety, worker safety, and radiation protection, and how would you evaluate their effectiveness?
I would support requiring adequate financial surety bonds to address the full cost of long term storage as well as full remediation costs in the event of contamination during transport or at the storage facility as a condition of any change to the type and amount of waste being stored. I support the highest possible safety standards and strict monitoring and enforcement of those standards for the entire custody chain from mine to repository.
Q6 Q6 (Data Centers): Large data-center proposals, including Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, have raised community questions about jobs and investment, water use, electricity generation and prices, air quality, noise, and light. What standards, if any, should New Mexico apply when reviewing these projects, and what role should residents have in approval decisions? How should added infrastructure and resource costs be allocated, and what evidence would you use to evaluate promised benefits and actual impacts?
I oppose the development of mega scale data centers like Project Jupiter. I oppose any and all public subsidy to such projects. I oppose allowing agricultural or domestic water rights to be transferred to data center projects. I oppose using tax dollars to fund improvements to the grid or investment in power production to run these centers. I support state investment in small scale data processing capacity for universities and other public institutions. I support enacting and enforcing strict protections for intellectual property rights and personal data.
Q7 Q7 (Rural and Tribal Healthcare): A New Mexico analysis found that rural residents travel three to four times farther, on average, than urban residents for the hospital-based services it examined. What policies would you support to improve healthcare access in rural and Tribal communities? How would you work with Tribal governments on their priorities, and what measures would you use to assess progress?
I support culturally appropriate investment in fostering community health through increasing access to healthy water, healthy food, reducing environmental toxins and addressing behavioral health needs. I support public subsidies for rural health care clinics, incentivizing health care practitioners to relocate to rural areas, and systemic efforts to increase transparency in the insurance agency and bringing down costs. Progress should be measured in total community health metrics, health care availability, and outcomes from treatment.
Q8 Q8 (K-12 Science Education): In 2025-26, science proficiency fell from 35% to 33% statewide and from 40% to 32% in Taos Municipal Schools in Northern New Mexico. In Southern New Mexico, Las Cruces Public Schools has described uneven broadband access for students in rural Doña Ana County communities. What policies would you support to strengthen K-12 science instruction across the state, particularly in rural and Tribal communities? How would you improve access to qualified teachers, laboratory learning, and advanced courses, and measure progress?
Improving educational outcomes requires addressing multiple independent challenges that range from logistical challenges around busing and transportation to the political quagmire created though partisan culture wars that politicize students bodies and distract from the real problems facing public eduction. Improving science proficiency is interdependent on addressing literacy rates, and providing an engaging and constructive learning environment for students. Increasing funding to pay more highly qualifies teachers and invest in laboratory equipment and technology is only one piece of the solution, but just throwing money at it won’t fix anything . Giving more voice to the veteran class room teachers in specific steps we need to take to improve educational outcomes is key. Increasing standards and accountability for administrators is also important. Progress should be measured by students success in post primary educational life.
Q9 Q9 (Federal Research Funding): Federal research supports jobs, scientific innovation, universities, and local businesses across New Mexico, while growth associated with major research facilities can affect housing and infrastructure. Changes to federal budgets and rules governing research grants and oversight can affect how institutions receive and administer funding. What priorities would guide your position on federal research funding in New Mexico, and what changes, if any, would you support? How would you evaluate scientific value, benefits to residents, local infrastructure and environmental costs, and accountability for public funds?
Frankly I would like to see a lot more balance between funding for environmental research that is needed to address the multiple ecological crisis in our state and a little less focus on the military industrial complex. I understand that a huge part of our economy runs on defense funding. A bleak reality that we all need to wake up to is that our current systems for producing food, fuel, and fiber are unsustainable, and confronting the enormous challenges associated with maintaining our communities without the benefit of unrestricted groundwater pumping, extractive forms of industrial commodity food production, and negligent mismanagement of public and private lands cannot wait. I support reducing the influence of agri-industries on programing at state land grant university through re-investing authority over the New Mexico Department of Agriculture in the state, instead of the board of regents of NMSU.