Clueless national media praise New Mexico Democrats on energy
When New Mexico is not being ignored entirely by the national media, they usually just get things completely wrong. This is often the case with what “conservative” outlets like Fox News, but since most media are liberal, it happens more often from the left. Take this Politico piece.
The gist of the article is that New Mexico Democrats have somehow figured out that supporting an “all of the above” energy strategy is a key to political success. But even New Mexico Democrats praised in the article have to be shaking their heads at some of the statements contained within. Here are a few of the worst:
1) The entire premise: while MLG has not attacked New Mexico’s revenue source head-on, she is hardly takes an “all of the above” position on energy and routinely attacks the industry through absurd policies like the Clean Fuel Standard, Methane rules, and electric vehicle mandates (to name a few).
2) Rep. Angelica Rubio, “represents an oil patch district in the Permian Basin.” FALSE!!! Rubio, among the most left-wing members of the New Mexico Legislature, represents Las Cruces. Everyone in New Mexico knows that liberal Las Cruces is well outside the Permian Basin.
3) Far from working to “find middle ground” as Rubio claims, she signed a letter from anti-oil-and-gas liberal legislators in SUPPORT of the Biden Administration’s permitting moratorium despite its impact on New Mexico.
4) Sen. Martin Heinrich who takes a backseat to no one in his environmental radicalism is quoted downplaying solar jobs. The story quotes him as saying, “Now, I love those jobs, but to be honest, those rooftop jobs, they’re not in my view a benefit because they’re going to replace a job for an [oil company] operating engineer. They’re not.” This IS a robustly sane statement, but Heinrich is NOT some kind of moderate. He’s pushing very hard to eliminate natural gas in home cooking and heating for example.
The article DOES go on to have some useful quotes from NMOGA and Gov. candidate Mark Ronchetti along with some anti-energy statements from environmental groups. It is interesting for some of the things it gets right as well as the big things it gets wrong.
The biggest thing it ignores is how long Democrats have controlled the New Mexico Legislature and the fact that under their “leadership” New Mexico is dead last in numerous rankings of well-being. Dependency on oil and gas absent a thriving private sector economy should hardly result in praise for Democrats’ willingness to tolerate the industry.
