A. The director shall adopt procedural regulations to govern the procedures to be followed in hearings on adjudicatory actions of the director. No adjudicatory actions under the Solid Waste Act shall be taken until these regulations are adopted. As a minimum, the procedural regulations shall provide:

(1) for hearings to be public;

(2) requirements for prior notice of the variance or exemption request hearings and the methods for giving that notice, which shall be designed to inform interested and affected persons of the nature of the action to be considered and the date, time and place of the hearing;

(3) for maintenance of a list of persons that desire to have notice of variance request hearings and provisions for giving notice to those persons;

(4) a reasonable opportunity for all persons desiring to be heard on a variance or exemption request or a permit action to be heard without making the hearing process unreasonably lengthy or cumbersome or burdening the record with unnecessary repetition;

(5) procedures for discovery;

(6) assurance that procedural due process requirements are satisfied;

(7) for the director to designate a hearing officer to conduct a hearing and make a report and recommendation to the director;

(8) for the maintenance of a record of the hearing proceedings and assessment of the costs of any transcription of testimony that is required for judicial review purposes; and

(9) for the place of the hearing to be in Santa Fe, and at other places the board may prescribe, for hearings on actions of general statewide application, for hearings on actions of limited local application to be held at a place in the area affected, and for enforcement actions to be heard in Santa Fe.

B. Actions taken by the director following a hearing on adjudicatory actions shall be:

(1) written and shall state the reasons for the action;

(2) made public when taken;

(3) communicated to all persons that have made a written request for notification of the action taken; and

(4) taken within not more than thirty days after the closing of the hearing or the date of submission of a report by a hearing officer.

History: Laws 1990, ch. 99, § 29.

Goal of hearings. — An essential goal of public hearings during the permitting process is to provide community members the opportunity to ask questions, offer their own technical advice, cross-examine witnesses and make nontechnical statements. Colonias Dev. Council v. Rhino Envtl. Svcs., Inc., 2005-NMSC-024, 138 N.M. 133, 117 P.3d 939.

Written basis for decision not required. — Even though statute does not explicitly state that the commission must provide a written factual and legal basis for its decision, administrative agencies must provide written factual and legal basis for their decisions in order to permit an effectual and meaningful review. Gila Res. Info. Project v. N.M. Water Control Comm'n, 2005-NMCA-139, 138 N.M. 625, 124 P.3d 1164, cert. denied, 2005-NMCERT-009, 138 N.M. 439, 120 P.3d 1182.

Statement of reasons required. — Subsection B(1) of this section and 20 NMAC 1.4.V.504(B) required the secretary (now director) of the environment department to state reasons for departing from hearing officer's recommendations as to groundwater conditions for landfill permit. Atlixco Coal. v. Maggiore, 1998-NMCA-134, 125 N.M. 786, 965 P.2d 370.