LUCA Staff
Jefferson L. Byrd was elected and sworn into office to his first, and only, term as a Public Regulation Commissioner representing District 2 on January 1, 2019. Growing up on his family’s ranch, he graduated from Mosquero High School in Harding County and went on to attend New Mexico State University, where he obtained a degree in Agricultural Engineering. While attending NMSU, Jeff met his future wife Suzanne, a math teacher at Logan Public Schools and a registered Professional Civil Engineer. They have been blessed with two sons, Noah and Zackery. Jeff is a devout Christian, husband, and father.Jeff’s work experience is broad, working as an environmental engineer on a Geoprobe rig installing micro-monitoring wells at a depth of 18 to 20 feet as a geologist and completing site delineation plans of numerous industrial sites from New York to California. He has installed and completed site remediation systems at various sites around the United States. Jeff is also a cattle rancher and works as a wind-miller on his own and neighboring ranchers’ wells.As the former Vice Chair of the Public Regulation Commission, Jeff currently represents New Mexico on the Southwest Power Pool Regional State Committee, which is comprised of retail regulatory commissioners from Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.Jeff works every day to represent New Mexico families and businesses to ensure access to reliable and affordable utilities and promote energy independence for our state. He is thoughtful in his decisions and knows that his vote not only impacts his constituents, but all citizens in our diverse state. Jeff has worked with his fellow commissioners to ensure consumers were protected from disconnections and that utility providers were able to maintain their solvency during the COVID pandemic.Jeff is running to be New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands to ensure New Mexico schools and teachers have the funding they need to educate our children. The State Land Office oversees over 9 million surface acres and 13 million mineral acres of land that is leased to generate revenue for the state. The funds from those leases go directly to our local schools. And the revenues generated from those products is a substantial portion of the State’s general fund, making this a very important office. Jeff is a strong supporter of ensuring the New Mexico oil and gas industry is able to thrive as they explore for the energy our state needs to fund our schools and the energy our nation needs to remain secure from hostile foreign regimes. He will bring his extensive knowledge and experience with a wide range of energy sources to the SLO. Jeff’s PRC district continues to diversify New Mexico’s energy reliance by expanding our renewable energy source with the Sagamore wind project, a 522MW wind farm which was completed in Roosevelt County. This project is one of the largest wind farms ever built in New Mexico and is expected to save customers $110 million annually in generating fuel costs. Sagamore’s 240 Vestas turbines peak generating capacity of 522MW can produce enough clean electricity to power close to 194,000 houses. This large new supply of carbon-free electricity will go a long way toward helping New Mexico in meeting its clean-energy goals.With his experience in oil and gas, ranching, renewable energy and electricity regulation, Jeff is arguably the most qualified candidate for State Land Commissioner in New Mexico history.
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