The following (below the image) is the text of an email received today from President Biden’s US Department of Education. Regardless of your position on the vaccines themselves, pressuring children as young as 12 years old to get a vaccine for an illness that really doesn’t impact healthy children is absurd.

Our children should NOT be forced to wear masks RIGHT NOW as they play sports in 100 degree heat. They shouldn’t be masked when they return to school this fall. Furthermore, the creation of a COVID19 Student Corps is an insidious effort to push an unnecessary vaccine on our children.

As we move toward reopening our schools in the fall, we need all hands on deck to ensure students 12 years old and older across the country are vaccinated before they go back to school in the fall. Our best path out of the COVID-19 pandemic is for every American to get a COVID-19 vaccination as soon as it’s available to them. The Biden-Harris Administration is excited to announce the launch of COVID19 Student Corps, a program within COVID19 Community Corps specifically focused on students. As a member of Student Corps, you’ll get resources to help you build vaccine confidence in your community, including: Biweekly calls to learn best practices and hear from other students how they are talking to their friends, families, and other community members about getting the vaccine Fact sheets on vaccine safety and hints for planning and attending community events Social media content to share with your followers Regular email updates with the latest vaccine news and resources to share

In her ongoing effort to placate radical environmentalists while not directly attacking New Mexico’s oil and gas industry, Gov. Lujan Grisham announced yesterday that she would be putting the “Clean Fuel Standard” legislation on the “call” for the 30-day session that kicks off in January of 2022.

RGF’s Paul Gessing was quoted in the Santa Fe New Mexican as saying that, of course this mandate will increase costs to consumers because “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The Administration would like New Mexicans to think that somehow passing a new mandate to use less carbon-intensive fuel will be an economic boon to the State.

In reality, according to the State of Oregon’s own analysis, the “clean fuel standard” in that state cost approximately 4 cents per gallon. Of course, that analysis is from the State AND the program is not fully-implemented (which could increase costs). And, one of the prime “replacements” for gasoline is likely to be ethanol, the environmental and technological track record of which is spotty at best. 

At the Rio Grande Foundation we LOVE it when we appear in media outlets thanks to writings of others. It means that we’ve hit a nerve and that people are paying attention. Unfortunately, papers don’t always give us an opportunity to respond, so we respond HERE.

The latest is a piece by “democracy activist” John House and it is in the Santa Fe New Mexican. The author calls it “A defense of the Gov’s pandemic actions,” but it really is no such thing. The author mostly wishes to discount the content of a deposition by Health Secretary Tracie Collins that we published online, but he doesn’t actually make any salient points. Instead he makes the red-herring argument that Sen. Cliff Pirtle and RGF believe that absent the Gov.’s lockdown policies, the economy would be “just fine.”

In reality, there would have been impacts from the Virus alone, but with locked-down New Mexico and other “blue” states having the highest unemployment rates and more open “red” states having the lowest, he clearly glosses over the impact of the Gov.’s policies. Just to be clear, New Mexico now has the 13th-highest death rate from COVID, so MLG’s lockdown policies haven’t exactly succeeded.

Way back in April of 2020, the Rio Grande Foundation outlined an alternative approach to fighting COVID 19 in New Mexico. We called it “Fairly Open.” It involved being fair with businesses and allowing them to innovate. It meant being open and transparent about the data being used and working to explain her decisions to the people of New Mexico. If House REALLY believes MLG did a good job on COVID he didn’t do a very good job of defending her.

Americans have not suffered from really high inflation rates for a generation. Notably, there is widespread agreement among economists across the political spectrum that inflation harms the poor disproportionately.

According to the following chart from the New York Times, inflation hit 5% in May. The annual rate hasn’t been 5% since 1990. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but there is no doubt that the kind of spending we’ve seen from the Biden Administration is largely to blame and unsustainable.

On this week’s conversation, Paul sits down with Jeffrey Smith of New Mexico Copper Company. After over 300 episodes of the show, this is the first time Paul has had a chance to interview someone from the non-oil-and-gas mining industry.

Jeff and Paul discuss the copper industry, the proposed Copper Flat mine that his company is working to get permitted, environmental issues in mining, and the particular importance of mining in Biden’s push for electric vehicles and “renewable energy.”

Government is really good at using copious quantities of taxpayer dollars to produce undesirable “products” at a high cost and having those products in turn rejected by the supposed “customers” they are meant to serve.

The City of Albuquerque has chosen to spend $3 million (above and beyond massive existing subsidies) to completely eliminate bus fares on the City bus system.

Albuquerque’s buses are deeply unpopular and have always been so, but ridership truly plummeted during the pandemic. Of course, despite massive government spending, transit ridership had been declining nationwide for years. The pandemic caused ridership to plummet. 

The question is not whether “free” bus service will goose ridership (it won’t). Rather, the questions is whether transit will ever recover from new “virtual” and hybrid work patterns (and the emptying of Americans from urban centers).

The concept was concisely summarized by President Reagan in the quote below many years ago.

During a recent Tipping Point New Mexico podcast (still available in audio format and on Facebook) the hosts discussed the usual list of political news and events impacting New Mexicans. Among the topics discuss were mask requirements imposed upon student athletes, Gov. Lujan Grisham’s emails (and contrasting their deletion with the recent “dump” of Dr. Fauci’s emails), and we also discussed the unfortunate withdrawal of professional golfer Jon Rahm due to a positive COVID test.

Which of these (or other) topics caused Youtube to pull our video down? Hard to say. See the notice below. What is definitely of concern is the censorship practices of our big tech companies. That’s why we at RGF have been a proud member of the Free Speech Alliance which is organized and led by the Media Research Center.

New Mexico’s most far-left “progressives” on June 8 sent an “interesting” letter to President Biden in support of his Administration’s anti-energy policies. The letter largely disregards the profoundly negative impacts Biden’s permit moratorium is having on New Mexico in terms of lost jobs and revenues (impacts publicly acknowledged by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham).

Notably, these elected Democrats are acting counter to their OWN STATE as well as THEIR OWN Gov. and legislative leaders. Also the letter linked above is illogical .

The letter states the legislators’ support for the Biden Administration’s moratorium on oil and gas leases and calls for a “transition” away from oil and gas. So, naturally in the next paragraph it argues for raising taxes on oil and gas through a royalty increase. All of this is of course for the supposed benefit of “the children” who they say are receiving inadequate revenues from the very oil and gas they support Biden by “keeping it in the ground.”

Notably, more Democrats DID not sign the letter (24 signed, but 46 of them DID not), so support for the Biden Administration’s moratorium remains a MINORITY position even among New Mexico’s increasingly-progressive Democrats. Shots fired.

On this week’s podcasts discussion, Wally and Paul talk about Mark Moores getting clobbered 63% to 33% in the Congressional District 1 race; What went wrong? What does it mean? What does it mean for redistricting?

Paul gives “props” to Mayor Tim Keller for vetoing Albuquerque’s gas tax;

On COVID 19, all New Mexico counties are now in turquoise.

An Albuquerque Journal sports reporter had an important article over the weekend on Gov. Lujan Grisham’s ongoing policy of demanding athletes wear masks in New Mexico.

In continuing the sports theme, golfer Jon Rahm was forced to withdraw from the Memorial golf tournament over the weekend due to a positive COVID test and despite having no symptoms. Rahm was leading by a robust 6 strokes.

Paul provides a brief update on the ongoing CYFD story; Thankfully Fauci didn’t delete emails like MLG has been.

With half of all US states (all of them GOP-led) rejecting “$300 supplemental” unemployment benefits, the Federal Reserve indicates the policy is likely to get people back to work.

The La Luz trail race is forced to cease. This makes radical environmentalists happy.

Craziness ensues at two local campaign events. Mayoral candidate Manny Gonzales’ event was disrupted by a drone outfitted with a sex toy followed by a physical attack. Gov. MLG (at her campaign launch) suffered taunts and protests. She then called her opponents lizard people & Q’Anon.

UPDATE: The Youtube video of the following podcast was removed by Youtube. We are unsure WHAT precipitated this action, but we believe it MAY have been the result of our discussion of Dr. Fauci’s changing views on masks during the pandemic OR it could be something else. Thus, the audio is below:

On Thursday June 3rd, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham held her reelection announcement at the Albuquerque Museum. She was met by protesters fed up with her extreme agenda.

Acknowledging the presence of the protestors she said, “I just have to say I’m sorry that we picked the same location that the QAnon lizard people meeting was at.”

Grisham, who officially launched her re-election campaign, acknowledges the noise:

“I’m sorry that we picked the same location that the QAnon lizard people meeting was at.” #NMGov pic.twitter.com/h5YP9pIs5M

— aaron navarro (@aaronlarnavarro) June 4, 2021

In response, the Rio Grande Foundation has the following statement for the governor: “Do not tread on us.”

James Yodice the sports reporter from the Albuquerque Journal has done all New Mexicans a favor with his recent article on the ongoing State mandate that young people, especially student athletes, must wear masks during competition.

Ironically, while Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails from early in the pandemic question the very effectiveness of masks (while Fauci has changed his position, the scientific evidence on masks remains mixed at best). When asked for comment by Yodice, the Lujan Grisham Administration’s spokesperson fell back on vaccination rates (as they have done repeatedly with state reopening overall).

“In the Department of Health’s view, not enough kids are vaccinated yet,” said spokesman Tripp Stelnicki. “We’re certainly making progress. But we’re not at the point where they feel comfortable removing that requirement.”

Stelnicki  went on to say that “The DOH and the governor’s office are working on a plan to tie vaccinations, vaccination rates among teens and schools or districts to a (change) that would remove the mask requirement before the season ends.”

Of course, this completely ignores individual choice on the matter, the fact that young people are not really susceptible to the Virus, the lack of outdoor spread of the Virus, and the potential negatives associated with wearing a mask during a strenuous workout.

Of course, while summer has just begun and most State-sponsored sports are nearing conclusion, this battle is going to arise again both in terms of classroom masking during the school day as well as in athletics which are right around the corner this fall.

This article first appeared in The Center Square on June 4th, 2021.

Anthony Fauci’s emails have been released, and they tell an interesting tale about the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. One particular email stood out to me from Fauci to Sylvia Burwell discussing masks.

Within the body of the email, Fauci asserts that the use of masks in a public setting is generally to prevent infected individuals from spreading a virus. More specifically, he writes that the “typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.” This email was sent on February 5, 2020.

If the drug-store masks are ineffective, why were they forced on the general population for over a year? Did masks help contain the spread of COVID-19 at all? What else do we not know?

But I’m not here to argue about the efficacy of masks and Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. I’m here to emphasize the importance of why we are able to have this discussion today: open government and transparency.

Without access to these documents, the country might not have ever known to ask these questions. This is significant as we can analyze the events in early 2020 in a new light. Most importantly, we can hold individuals accountable if they recommended policies that were known not to be effective.

Here in New Mexico, we have a different ongoing dilemma, one that is also rooted in transparency. Thanks to the initial efforts of Searchlight New Mexico, the additional whistleblowers that have come forward since the initial Searchlight report, and some well-timed public records requests submitted by yours truly, we know that Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and her administration are still actively depriving the people of New Mexico access to public documents through permanent and automatic deletion.

In January of this year, a directive from the governor’s office was implemented by the New Mexico Department of Information Technology: delete all messages after 24 hours. This directive came before the governor’s press secretary acknowledged the use of a creative new term: “transitory.”

The deleted messages were broadly considered “transitory” in nature, a definition that has already been debunked in the context of transparency and is not a qualified exception under the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), New Mexico’s government transparency law.

“Transitory” messages have been unofficially described as “employee banter, routine check-ins between workers and other insignificant exchanges.” The rub is that they’re all public documents and subject to inspection requests, regardless of whatever “transitory” qualification they try to apply.

Fauci could have used the same term to describe his seemingly innocuous email to Burwell about masks. What if Fauci had deleted that email because it was “just transitory”?

All this and the responses from Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office that there are “no records responsive to your request” underlines a seriously dangerous trend and contemptuous attitude within the Governor’s administration. The widespread and systematic “paper shredder” policy is nothing short of criminal.

New Mexico’s Attorney General agrees: “public bodies acquiring information should keep in mind that the records they keep generally are subject to public inspection.”

The governor’s press secretary Nora Sackett said that the governor takes transparency and open government “very seriously.” If that’s true, then Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration and all New Mexico state agencies should shed their cloaks of secrecy and immediately stop the destruction of public documents.

This is a clear assault on the people’s ability to keep a watchful eye on their elected government and should be alarming to everyone, especially those who care for our democracy.

And remember, democracy dies in darkness.

Since Republican Governor’s across the nation started to refuse the Biden (and Congressional Democrats’) over-generous unemployment benefits, many in the media have claimed that the efforts of GOP governors to get people back to work by ending that disincentive were merely “playing politics.”

You can see those states which (of course) do not include New Mexico below. Interestingly, I found the following nugget from the usually hyper-partisan Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post. To be fair, she actually quotes from a recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

They estimated that in “each month in early 2021, about seven out of 28 unemployed individuals receive job offers that they would normally accept, but one of the seven decides to decline the offer due to the availability of the extra $300 per week in [unemployment] payments.”

So,  if New Mexico were to reject the “Biden stimulus” and 1 of these 7 workers were to take a job they wouldn’t have EVERY MONTH, New Mexico would put a pretty good dent in its 3rd-highest-in-the-nation 8.2% unemployment rate.

On this week’s interview, Paul sits down with the Foundation’s own Patrick Brenner. Aside from being the organization’s Vice President of Development, Patrick handles a wide variety of open government and transparency issues for the Foundation. Patrick and Paul discuss the unfolding scandal at New Mexico’s Children Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) which involves the destruction of public records and the firing of whistleblowers at CYFD.

In a nod toward limited government not seen since the early days of Albuquerque Mayor Keller’s Administration when he attempted to stop overly-generous subsidies for TopGolf, Mayor Keller has vetoed legislation passed by Albuquerque’s City Council that would have put a brand new gas tax on Albuquerque ballots in November of 2022.

RGF has long opposed the addition of a gas tax to local tax burdens, it is our hope that this will put an end to the nonsense once and for all. Kudos and thank you to Mayor Keller.

As Covid continues to recede as an issue along with the lockdowns, the main remaining issue is masking children. The excellent tracking site at Burbio shows who is requiring masks for kids and who isn’t. New Mexico remains among the more stringent states.

The New Mexico Legislature allocated additional money this session to give local school districts money to extend their school years. A significant number of districts (thanks to pressure from parents and families) have opted out. Paul and Wally discuss what could be causing this.

Paul briefly mentions a scandal involving CYFD. Here and here are recent articles discussing the issue from RGF’s perspective.

The City of ABQ is set to reinstate its plastic bag ban on August 1.

Finally, based on a report from Bloomberg which says that Western states could be suffering from electricity blackouts THIS summer, Paul is concerned about the reliability of New Mexico’s power grid. Of course, with San Juan Generating Station scheduled to be decommissioned in ONE year, Paul is even more worried about future summers. Paul and Wally discuss and attempt to figure out when we’ll know if the plan to save San Juan via carbon sequestration will move forward.

The Rio Grande Foundation has long been concerned with the “one-size-fits-all” restrictive approach of the federal government when it comes to federal lands. While New Mexico continues to be impacted economically by the Biden Administration’s moratorium on federal leasing permits, federal control has reared its ugly head here in the Albuquerque metro area as well.

The latest issue is something so simple that it should never be an issue, but it involves the permanent cancellation of the La Luz trail race up the Sandias. The event was canceled because commercial activities are expressly prohibited in Wilderness areas. That may seem reasonable, but a trail race with paid participants is hardly the same as putting a McDonald’s in the middle of a Wilderness area.

Of course, radical environmentalists have eagerly stepped up to defend the decision because they simply don’t care about people and their interaction with nature. Rather, to an increasing number of enviros, the only way to truly preserve nature is to put up a big sign saying, “stay out.”

To be sure, Deb Haaland as Secretary of Interior has incredible power here and New Mexico’s “green” Congressional delegation including Martin Heinrich said  they are “working on it,” but it seems this “fun” race (if running up a mountain is your idea of fun) has gone away for good.

On this week’s interview, Paul gets (now) former KOB TV reporter Patrick Hayes on the other side of the microphone for a conversation about the inner workings of New Mexico’s media.

Patrick recently took a reporting job in Phoenix, but before he left the two sat down to discuss how the media works right here in New Mexico, how decisions are made regarding what to cover, and how average New Mexicans with a story to tell or information to provide can get their message out.

While we will definitely miss Patrick and his excellent reporting, you also won’t want to miss this informative interview.

The results of the special election to replace Deb Haaland in Congressional District 1 are in and Melanie Stansbury didn’t just win, she blew Mark Moores out of the water winning 60% to 36%.

Here are a few takeaways from the results:

1. In its current form, CD 1 is now a safe “progressive” seat for Democrats. They can run anyone they want and have as left-leaning views as they want and win comfortably.
2. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller who faces re-election this fall must be pleased by the results knowing that crime and the “progressive” response to Albuquerque’s serious crime problems didn’t do much to help Mark Moores.
3. With redistricting coming up later this summer, it would seem that Democrats in the Legislature might consider taking some of CD1’s more left-leaning areas and moving them into CD2 in order to make things more difficult for Yvette Herrell, New Mexico’s lone Republican in Congress.
4. Traditionally the GOP has had an advantage in low-turnout elections with more consistent voters turning out to vote for Republican candidates, but that advantage became a disadvantage in the Moores v. Stansbury race. Moores received 46,977 votes (36% of the total) this year. In 2020 Michelle Garcia Holmes received 134,337 votes (42% of the total). Achieving that kind of turnout in a special election is simply not going to happen, but it doesn’t seem like the GOP ground game was very effective.
5. While the Moores campaign will undoubtedly be criticized for its shortcomings, he is THE ONLY Republican in the Legislature to successfully hold a seat in the City of Albuquerque. He DOES know how to win elections in this City.

What to make of the proposed purchase of PNM by Avangrid? As has been well-documented, the Rio Grande Foundation remains steadfastly opposed to the Energy Transition Act and the headlong effort to make New Mexico’s electricity generation system “zero carbon.”

Sherman McCorkle, a prominent voice in the local business community recently penned an article for the Albuquerque Journal in which he made the case that Avangrid’s purchase of PNM could be a boon for the local and state economies. Of course others, mostly hailing from Maine, have a much dimmer view of Avangrid and its likely impact on New Mexico. A state rep. from Maine is one of many who decried Avangrid’s customer service and cited billing problems as reasons to oppose the merger.

It’s hard to say what Avangrid’s customer service will be like and we certainly hope that problems in Maine will not happen here. Overall, we’re not at all convinced that replacing PNM is (a heavily-regulated utility) with another owner will do much for the local/state economy. PNM is the closest thing the private sector has to being a government utility. The best we can expect is for them to keep the lights on at a reasonable price.

And whether it is Avangrid or PNM, we have serious concerns about ANY utility’s ability to shift to zero-carbon at a reasonable cost to consumers while also keeping electricity reliability high. There are pluses and minuses to the merger, but at this point RGF isn’t jumping into the fray on either side.

The negative impacts of COVID 19 and the shift to online learning have been well-documented, but when presented with additional days of school for the supposed purpose of making up ground lost during the pandemic, many families (and districts) have pushed back against the Legislature’s plans to add school days onto the calendar for the 2021-2022 school year.

According to Channel 13, The K5 Plus program adds up to 25 days to the school calendar for kindergarten through fifth grade, while the Extended Learning Time Program (ELTP) adds up to 10 days for elementary, middle, and high schools.

What gives? It is hard to say, but here are a few thoughts:

1. It would seem that many families don’t think their children will get much out of the additional class time. In a related vein, perhaps parents view a high school diploma as a mere credential and not as a reflection of actual learning.
2. Perhaps families, especially those who have been cooped up in their houses for over a year, would rather have time for a family vacation rather than having their children in school for a week or two extra.
3. As was pointed out recently, APS’ student population is dropping. Perhaps families have lost faith in the system entirely and are just checking out? 

Recently, several media outlets including Bloomberg News noted that the Western United States including New Mexico could face blackouts as soon as THIS summer:

On top of that, we have this recent story from the Albuquerque Journal which explains the fact that “New replacement generation is needed because one of the four solar farms with back-up battery storage that is planned to replace San Juan next year is behind schedule and won’t be operational in time (for next summer when the plant will be abandoned)”

PNM recently offered RFP’s for 700 MW of “renewable” power, 200 of which will need to come online by next year (June of 2022). As the Bloomberg article points out, “States shuttering coal and gas-fired power plants simply aren’t replacing them fast enough to keep pace with the vagaries of an unstable climate, and the region’s existing power infrastructure is woefully vulnerable”

Also in the Bloomberg piece is this chart which is for THIS summer based on risk if surplus electricity is available on the Western grid or if electricity needs must be provided internally. Reminder, this chart is for THIS summer, the last one in which New Mexico will have San Juan Generating Station available. Advice: consider buying a generator.

The following ran in the Albuquerque Journal on May 26, 2021. It was written by Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh who has some serious questions and concerns over the way in which Gov. Lujan Grisham has handled the reopening of New Mexico due to COVID. Kintigh specifically wanted the chart below the article to be included:

Another two weeks have passed by and another paint-by-numbers color chart has been released by the assembly of experts in Santa Fe. All but one county in New Mexico has been blessed and anointed with the sought-after turquoise. The one outlier is my own Chaves County where Roswell is the county seat.

Since the beginning of this crisis, and the associated lockdown, I have been mystified by the edicts issued from Santa Fe. A year ago the pandemic was essentially nonexistent in Chaves County, yet at that time the policy was “we are all in this together.” As a result, Roswell schools were closed, restaurants shut down, graduation ceremonies cancelled and even weddings and funerals disrupted.

Somewhere, somehow, the “all in this together” went away, and then each county was judged upon its own performance. OK, that is acceptable, except that we, the unwashed masses, don’t get to see the data used to grade our progress. The criteria to get the adored turquoise designation currently involves three standards.

First, there are to be no more than 10 new cases per day per 100,000 county residents, on average, over a two-week period. That, however, is not the number of new cases reported each day. The number reported on a specific day could include cases diagnosed three days earlier or a week earlier or whenever. We don’t know.

Secondly, the percentage of COVID tests that are positive are to be 7.5% or less. The number of tests conducted has declined significantly since the beginning of the year and the data available shows nothing about positive rates. As of May 18, Chaves County had, per the DOH website, 108,263 tests completed. The number on March 16 was 95,015. In 73 days a total of 13,248 tests had been conducted or only 181 per day in a county of over 65,000 residents.

Finally, the fully vaccinated percentage is to be 40% or better. While I fully support getting the Trump vaccine – my wife and I both have been vaccinated – I know people who choose to not get vaccinated. In Roswell we are still free Americans, so that is OK by me.

At this time Chaves is the only green county; however, three other counties – Torrance, Roosevelt and Curry – all of which are turquoise, have worse numbers than Chaves County in all three categories. Torrance County fails all three of the criteria. Roosevelt and Curry actually fail two of the three. In fact, Santa Fe County, the seat of all wisdom, knowledge and power, is worse than Chaves in cases per 100,000 and positivity on tests.

We have been told repeatedly to “follow the science.” How about just “following the numbers,” or better yet how about if Santa Fe quits pretending it knows what it is talking about.

Dennis Kintigh is a 24-year veteran of the FBI with a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering, a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering and a master of science in computer science.

On this week’s conversation, Paul and Wally discuss the fact that Virgin Galactic achieved its first official space flight in a test over the weekend.

A story from Searchlight NM raises serious concerns on MLG’s open records issues at CYFD.

RGF appears in National Review on Census data. 

NM’s unemployment rate is now 8.2%, tied for 3rd worst in the nation.

According to Grover Norquist, of the top 15 states with lowest unemployment rates, 12 have GOP Governors. The 10 states with the highest unemployment rates are all led by Democrat Governors: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Pennsylvania.

According to Phil Kerpen: 24 states have announced they are ending unemployment bonuses. The only Republican governors who are keeping the bonuses are Hogan in Maryland, Baker in Mass, and Scott in Vermont. Still zero Democrat governors have opted out.

RGF digs into per-pupil education data from the Census Bureau and requests the information itself.

ABQ City Council puts gas tax hike on the ballot for next November. Paul and Wally discuss the problems with this new tax.