Sarah Cottrell Propst Confirmed by Senate as Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department Cabinet Secretary

By EMNRD 

New Mexico State Senate confirmed Sarah Cottrell Propst as Secretary of the Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department (EMNRD).  Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham selected Cottrell Propst to lead the department last December.

Sarah is a natural leader and an expert on energy and environmental policy,” said Governor Lujan Grisham. “She is taking our state energy in a new direction and I am excited about the creative policy solutions she will bring to protect our environment and implement a clean energy agenda.”

“I am humbled that Governor Lujan Grisham and the New Mexico Senate have confidence in my experience,” said Secretary Cottrell Propst. “I lead a strong team and together we will become the national model for an energy and natural resource agency with deep policy expertise, transparent processes, and a mission that balances conservation and development.”

As the leader of a wide-ranging department, Secretary Cottrell Propst’s priorities include implementing Governor Lujan Grisham’s executive order establishing the Climate Change Task Force and developing the state’s strong renewable portfolio standards. Cottrell Propst will also focus on healthy watershed and forest programs, modernizing state parks, and securing federal grants to safeguard and reclaim abandoned mines throughout New Mexico.

From 2012 to 2018, Cottrell Propst served as the Executive Director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a non-profit trade association that represents the nation’s leading companies in the renewable energy industry, bringing them together with non-governmental organizations in the West. She is the founder of Propst Consulting LLC, specializing in energy and environmental policy. She was Deputy Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department after serving as Energy and Environmental Policy Advisor to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. She earned a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, with a concentration in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy. She worked as a Research Fellow for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, VA, and was a magna cum laude graduate of Davidson College with Honors in Political Science.