Former New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn, who retired in August after three years as the state’s main liaison on federal nuclear cleanup in the Land of Enchantment, last week rejoined the private sector as executive director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The 38 year-old Flynn, who resigned from Gov. Susana Martinez’s (R) Cabinet on Aug. 12, took the top spot at the state’s main petroleum industry trade association Sept. 2, the Journal said, citing to a statement from NMOGA spokesman Wally Drangmeister.
Drangmeister did not immediately reply to an email from Weapons Complex Monitor.
As a former Cabinet secretary, Flynn is barred for two years from lobbying the New Mexico Environment Department, though not from lobbying the state Legislature, Drangmeister told the Journal. Meanwhile, Martinez has yet to nominate a permanent replacement for Flynn. Butch Tongate, a New Mexico Environment Department fixture, took over as acting secretary after Flynn left.
Flynn joined the New Mexico Environment Department as general counsel in 2011 and ascended to the top spot in 2013 amid a small shakeup in Martinez’s Cabinet. Flynn was New Mexico’s top environmental regulator during the underground radiation leak that closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., and the point man on subsequent settlement negotiations with the Energy Department over the accident, which in January netted New Mexico nearly $75 million to put to rest alleged violations of DOE’s state-issued operating permits for WIPP and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Flynn also had a leading role in preparing the massive new consent order, approved in June, that governs cleanup of legacy nuclear waste at LANL. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which is responsible for the work, thinks it will take until 2035 to complete and cost roughly $3 billion. New Mexico, based on its own parsing of DOE’s Los Alamos life-cycle cost estimate, thinks it will be more like $5 billion.
