2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 74 - Environmental Improvement › Article 4 - Hazardous Wastes › Section 74-4-14 - Administrative actions; judicial review.

A. Any person who is or may be affected by any final administrative action of the board or the secretary may appeal to the court of appeals for further relief within thirty days after the action. All appeals shall be upon the record before the board or the secretary.
B. For appeals of regulations, the date of the action shall be the date of filing of the regulation under the State Rules Act [Chapter 14, Article 4 NMSA 1978].
C. Upon appeal, the court of appeals shall set aside the action only if it is found to be:
(1) arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion;
(2) not supported by substantial evidence in the record; or
(3) otherwise not in accordance with law.
D. A stay of enforcement of the action being appealed may be granted after hearing and upon good cause shown:
(1) by the board or the secretary, whichever took the action being appealed; or
(2) by the court of appeals if the board or the secretary denies a stay or fails to act upon an application for a stay within sixty days after receipt.
History:
1978 Comp., § 74-4-14, enacted by Laws 1992, ch. 43, § 6.
ANNOTATIONS
Compiler's notes.
— This section was enacted as 74-4-6 NMSA 1978 but was redesignated by the compiler, since a section with the same code number had previously been enacted (repealed by Laws 1981 (1st S.S.), ch. 8, § 12).
Untimely appeal of administrative action.
— Where the New Mexico environment department (department) issued a determination in 2011 regarding the time-line of a five-year report on the feasibility of excavation of a mixed waste landfill and any likelihood of contaminants reaching groundwater, plaintiff's 2014 appeal of the department's 2011 decision regarding the time-line for the first five-year report was untimely.
Citizen Action N.M. v. N.M. Env't Dep't
, 2015-NMCA-058, cert. denied, 2015-NMCERT-005.
Order approving permit modification was proper.
— Where the U.S. department of energy (DOE) and appellees, as co-operators of the waste isolation pilot plant (WIPP), an underground federal repository for radioactive waste material in New Mexico, held a permit to dispose of mixed waste, a mixture of radioactive waste and hazardous waste, at WIPP but sought approval from the New Mexico environment department (NMED) to modify their permit because the original permit anticipated the emplacement of 6.2 million cubic feet of mixed waste based on an incorrect assumption that the waste containers would be full of mixed waste, but because the permit incorrectly assumed the containers would be full, this created a "de facto" limit that could result in underutilizing the WIPP facility, and where the secretary of NMED approved the permit modification request that modified the method by which appellees and DOE tracked waste volumes disposed of at WIPP, and where appellants claimed that NMED's order was not in accordance with law and arbitrary and capricious or an abuse of discretion, NMED's order was proper, because the Hazardous Waste Act (HWA), §§ 74-4-1 through 74-4-14 NMSA 1978, authorizes NMED to administer the state's hazardous waste management program consistent with federal law, the HWA provides that permittees may submit permit modification requests to NMED, and that NMED is charged with issuing a decision, the NMED's authority necessarily includes the responsibility to collect data regarding the amount of hazardous waste the HWA charges NMED with regulating, and the permit modification request enables the NMED to collect more, not less, data by tracking the volume of inner waste containers as well as outer waste containers, and neither federal law nor state law specify a particular method for calculating waste capacity, and therefore, contrary to appellants' argument, the NMED did not erroneously interpret federal law.
Nuclear Waste P'ship, LLC v. Nuclear Watch N.M.
, 2022-NMCA-014.