---
type: "Bill"
title: "LANDOWNER LIABILITY FOR CAVE EXPLORATION"
description: "LANDOWNER LIABILITY FOR CAVE EXPLORATION"
jurisdiction: "us/states/nm"
legislature: "New Mexico Legislature"
session: "2019"
identifier: "SB 77"
citation: "New Mexico SB 77 (2019)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["PROPERTY (conservancy districts", "land grants", "real estate)"]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Soules, William P."]
version_count: 2
action_count: 8
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2018-12-17"
last_action: "2019-02-04"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/f023daa9-7b52-4568-ac05-a727907810c8"
source_url: "http://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?chamber=S&legType=B&legNo=77&year=19"
source_hash: "e032dae4d153ffd5d4be3a987a7bf9bb39e98d87f25589a459525dd80fc0bfb1"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-nm"]
---

# New Mexico SB 77 (2019) — LANDOWNER LIABILITY FOR CAVE EXPLORATION

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Final Version** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/19%20Regular/final/SB0077.PDF)
2. **introduced version** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/19%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0077.HTML)

## Votes

- house passage — **60–10** (pass) · lower
- senate passage — **40–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Soules, William P. — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2018-12-17** Sent to Senate Pre-file `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2019-01-22** DO PASS committee report adopted `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2019-01-24** passed Senate `passage`
- **2019-01-16** Sent to Senate Conservation Committee `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2019-01-25** Sent to House Judiciary Committee `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2019-01-29** DO PASS committee report adopted `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2019-01-30** passed House `passage`
- **2019-02-04** Signed `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/f023daa9-7b52-4568-ac05-a727907810c8`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official New Mexico legislature records).