City of El Paso Ex Rel. Public Service Board v. Reynolds

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BRATTON, Chief Judge.

The City of El Paso et al. filed this suit in 1980 seeking a declaratory judgment that New Mexico’s embargo on the out-of-state use of ground water, N.M.Stat.Ann. § 72-12-19 (1978), impermissibly burdened interstate commerce in contravention of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. Defendants, the state officials responsible for enforcing New Mexico’s water laws, responded that it was the Rio Grande Compact and the state constitution, not the embargo statute, which blocked El Paso’s proposed ground water exports, making § 72-12-19…