SOAE 2025: Delivering Benefits to New Mexico and Beyond

Alex Leif
Posted January 17, 2025

Big Idea: Communities across the country benefit from American oil and natural gas. Just ask Delora Hesuse, a resident of northwestern New Mexico, where revenues from taxes, fees and royalties paid by energy companies help fund education, public services and other critical needs where she and her family live.

Access to America’s Natural Resources: Delora’s experience highlights the critical role of American energy and the opportunity we have to seize this moment. By leveraging abundant oil and natural gas resources and modernizing our energy permitting system, we can meet the needs of millions like her across the country. These priorities are central to API’s Five-Point Policy Roadmap. Delora’s story brings these policies to life, offering policymakers a clear path to deliver on what voters demanded in the 2024 election: affordable, reliable and abundant energy.

Delora Hesuse (center) speaks at the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association’s Annual Meeting.

Living in Harmony with American Energy: Delora and her family have deep roots in their community, with a legacy of service that spans across many decades. Her grandmother and father both served on the local  council, passing down not only their dedication to the community but also the stewardship of mineral rights on their lands. Today, Delora carries that legacy forward, serving as a steward of these lands and a passionate advocate for neighbors with similar claims to development opportunity:

“Our [oil and natural gas] allotments provide vital revenue ... allowing us to lease the land and support our daily lives. This connection to the land runs deep – my allotment has been passed down through generations. Becoming an allottee is both an honor and a responsibility in order to preserve our heritage and sustain our community.”

The Time Is Now: Policymakers have a golden opportunity to unlock American energy’s full potential to help ensure that there are more success stories like Delora’s. API’s Five-Point Policy Roadmap outlines concrete steps the incoming administration and new Congress can take to chart a lasting path for U.S. energy leadership: Protect consumer choice, bolster America’s geopolitical strength, leverage our natural resources, reform our permitting system and advance sensible tax policy.

State of American Energy: Delora was a special guest at API’s annual energy policy event in Washington, D.C., where energy and political leaders convened under the mandate delivered by voters in November. The early days of the incoming administration will be focused on developing policies that keep the lights on with affordable, abundant energy.

Delora Hesuse.

API President and CEO Mike Sommers, in his State of American Energy speech:

“From coast to coast, voters embraced a future where American energy thrives – prioritizing our own resources over foreign imports, empowering consumers to make their own choices about what to drive and how to cook, streamlining permitting to support big projects, and ensuring our allies can rely on U.S. energy leadership instead of turning to our adversaries. … As Winston Churchill urged during some of history’s darkest hours – we must take ‘action this day.’”

Bottom Line: Misguided energy policy should not stand in in the way of Delora and millions of Americans counting on affordable, reliable energy. Now is the time for new policies that will make Washington pro-American energy.