Tomorrow afternoon, the House Labor, Veterans’, and Military Affairs Committee will hear HB 237, the Workforce and Economic Prosperity Act. Contrary to its title, this bill would greatly hinder the advancement of prosperity. By creating a new bureaucracy to direct and manage the economy in favor of the clean energy sector, HB 237 would harm our economy’s growth and recovery from the Covid-19 downturn.

The committee meeting starts at 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, and you can watch the webcast here or join the Zoom meeting for public comment here.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in opposition to HB 237.

House committees will hear three important bills this afternoon: HB 40, HB 102, HB 134. The House Appropriations and Finance Committee will hear HB 40, a moratorium on private prisons. If passed, this bad idea would cripple several local economies in New Mexico.  In addition, that same committee will hear HB 102, and anti-gun bill. The House Commerce and Economic Development Committee will consider HB 134, the Family-Friendly Workplaces Incentive Program. This bill would help subsidize employers’ provision of programs deemed to be family-friendly.

Both committee meetings are scheduled to begin at 1:30 this afternoon. You can watch the webcasts here. If you would like to give public comment on either bill, you can access the Zoom meeting for HB 40 and 102 here and for HB 134 here.

The Rio Grande Foundation has submitted testimony in opposition to HB 40, in favor of HB 134, and will speak in opposition to HB 102.

Government transparency is an essential part of holding public servants accountable. To that end, the Rio Grande Foundation has submitted Inspection of Public Records Act requests to hundreds of public bodies in New Mexico over the past several months. We have collected 2020 payroll records from colleges, counties, school districts, and municipalities across the state. More records will be added as they become available.

With the back and forth over Gov. Lujan Grisham’s lockdown policies and ongoing concern over certain industries and activities (sports, school, indoor recreation) that remain shuttered or unavailable, there has been VERY little talk about ONE very expensive project that has been shut down for just under a year: the New Mexico Rail Runner Express.

According to a Downtown Albuquerque News for which Rio Grande Foundation was quoted, the commuter train has been shut down since March 15, 2020 when the COVID 19 pandemic was in its early stages. This is unusual because both Albuquerque’s bus system AND the national rail service Amtrak have continued operations.

The train “isn’t going anywhere ” both literally and figuratively. With the State and Federal governments having added “Positive Train Control”  at a  cost of $60 million and no employees of the system having been laid off during the past year (while empty trains occasionally did run up and down the tracks) there are no indicators that the train (which costs taxpayers about $30 million annually to operate) is going to be taken out of service anytime soon.

Of course, of all the things that New Mexicans have expressed dismay at not having over the past year, the Rail Runner isn’t very high on the list.

On this week’s conversation, Paul and Wally begin by discussing Rep. Deb Haaland’s nomination and the start of her hearing process to become Secretary of Interior. Paul recently wrote about her here. The Lujan Grisham Administration recently said that oil/gas drilling companies are moving out of NM to Texas thanks to Biden ban. Oil prices have been tracking above $60/barrel and prices at the pump are up as well.

RGF will be co-hosting a virtual/free event w/ National Review Institute and former Chair of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors Kevin Hassett. Find out more here. 

Let them Play! And, let them go to school! The Gov. and APS have failed our students, but the problem is systemic. APS in particular is a problem.  RGF has been tracking district reopening. 

Facebook asks for an IRB to expand its data center in Los Lunas. Facebook is NOT 100% renewable, but the real problem is the subsidy.

New Mexico “virtual” session halfway home. How are things going so far?

On Wednesday Feb. 24, the Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation and Kevin Hassett of the National Review Institute discussed the impact of the Biden Administration’s energy policies on New Mexico. You can watch the discussion which lasts about an hour below:

The two-tiered nature of New Mexico’s economy is displayed in stark relief in the budget being voted on today in the New Mexico House. While many private sector workers, especially low wage workers have lost their jobs thanks to Gov. Lujan Grisham’s COVID-induced lockdown, State workers in New Mexico are in line for a nice bump in pay in their already-secure jobs.

Aside from the absurd nature of “across the board” raises for government employees at a time of high private sector unemployment , the Legislature is missing an opportunity to tie those pay hikes for teachers to getting back into the classroom. Budget documents are a critical way in which legislators can and do push for desired policies. If the Democrat-controlled Legislature wants New Mexico’s students back in their classrooms (as is widely recommended by health experts) they can and should add a requirement to that effect to the budget.

Even Gov. Lujan Grisham has expressed dismay that Albuquerque Public Schools has decided to remain “virtual” for the duration of the school year (we don’t know about the fall yet). If she wants in-person learning, she could push the Legislature to require it.

This week, President Biden’s nominee for secretary of the Interior, New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland, is up for confirmation in the Senate. Haaland, a self-described “progressive,” and a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, would, if confirmed, become the first Native American to head Interior. The Department manages approximately 500 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States.

The agency’s work is of interest to all Americans because it oversees more than 400 National Parks, from Yellowstone to White Sands. However, the department is of particular importance to Westerners, as more than 90 percent of the lands it manages are located in the Western United States.

The nomination of Haaland makes a certain amount of political sense for President Biden, allowing him to place a Native American in a position of leadership over Interior’s vast network of Native reservations. These reservations, including the Navajo Reservation in Northwest New Mexico, remain among the deepest pockets of poverty in the country. The fact that no Native American has ever managed those reservations is indeed worth remedying.

But Interior is a large department with many lands of varying purposes, and Western resource-intensive states including New Mexico have already seen the Biden administration act in ways that will do significant harm to their economies.

At Interior, Deb Haaland would be a cheerleader for Biden’s early anti-energy policies and would likely look for opportunities to expand upon them. She has taken radically anti-fossil-fuel positions throughout her political career. In 2016, prior to being elected to Congress, Haaland traveled to North Dakota to cook food for the protesters demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She stayed in the camps for four days that September.

In May 2019, the newly minted congresswoman told The Guardian, “I am wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public land.”

Are Haaland’s positions and opinions based on sound science and history? In a 2019 Los Alamos Monitor story, Haaland claimed that “climate change in the U.S. started when Europeans arrived and started killing the buffalo.” Considering the numerous, dramatic changes that were a feature of the climate in prehistoric North America (and everywhere else on this planet), Haaland’s understanding of environmental forces is a bit off.

Given her radical views, it is not surprising that Haaland has been a strong supporter of the Green New Deal. The ambitious plan put forth by Represenative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and others would cost trillions in subsidies and lost economic activity. Among the plan’s radical proposals is a mandated shift to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and an increase in the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent.

On day one, the Biden administration pulled the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. While this pipeline won’t directly affect energy-producing states, the cavalier approach to the permit raised red flags. Shortly thereafter, the Biden administration placed a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands. If confirmed, Haaland would be a staunch defender of such policies.

Haaland’s home state, New Mexico, is particularly impacted by what happens at Interior. The state has the third-highest Native American population in the U.S. and also happens to be the state most financially dependent on energy produced on federally managed lands within its borders.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, a ban on federal oil and gas leases could cost New Mexico 62,000 jobs, reduce state revenues by $1.1 billion, and reduce oil and gas production within the state by nearly 50 percent.

With Haaland’s nomination up this week and Biden already taking an aggressive anti-energy stance, it is ironic Haaland wasn’t Biden’s first choice for the job.

In fact, according to several New Mexico media outlets, Biden initially offered the position to New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. On December 2, media outlets reported that Lujan Grisham had been offered the top job at Interior but turned it down. Lujan Grisham has never stated publicly why she refused the job, although she is just halfway through her first term in a “blue” New Mexico where she likely expects to be reelected in 2022.

As has been the case since the early days of Biden’s run for the White House, identity politics loom large for him. The president seemingly had the Interior secretary set aside to be filled by a Western, female, minority Democrat. A few weeks after Lujan Grisham turned him down, Biden settled on Haaland for the post.

The case for the slot at Interior being based purely on demography is buttressed by the fact that Lujan Grisham and Haaland have very different views regarding federal-land management. While both are New Mexican females (one Hispanic and one Native American), they exemplify opposite wings of the Democratic Party on energy.

From 2013 to 2019, Lujan Grisham represented the same Albuquerque-area congressional district as Haaland does now (Haaland will relinquish the seat if confirmed), and took a practical, moderate view on energy. This moderation is notably reflected in her 2015 vote to repeal the ban on crude-oil exports. She was one of just 26 Democrats in the House voting to repeal, with 153 of them voting to keep the ban in place.

Lujan Grisham continued to express moderation on energy issues when she moved into New Mexico’s Governor’s Mansion in 2019. During her time in office, she has expressed strong support for the state’s oil and gas industry and even said she’d consider asking for a waiver in case of a federal leasing ban.

As a governor concerned about her state’s economic and financial interests (and one who enjoys having oil and gas generate anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of her state’s budget), Lujan Grisham has attempted to placate environmentalists in her political base without doing serious harm to the state’s most important industry. Based on President Biden’s early energy policies, Haaland seems to make a better fit for the administration.

Senator Steve Daines (R., Mont.) has announced his opposition to Haaland’s nomination. Montana’s junior senator signaled he would not only vote against her confirmation, but also attempt to block her nomination from advancing.

“I’m deeply concerned with the Congresswoman’s support on several radical issues that will hurt Montana, our way of life, our jobs and rural America, including her support for the Green New Deal and President Biden’s oil and gas moratorium, as well as her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline,” Daines said in a statement. Is that enough to stop Haaland from taking her radical policies to Department of the Interior? We should all hope so.

As if New Mexico students didn’t already face serious challenges, see this quote from the New York Times (which, to their credit has been pushing for schools to reopen). 

Unfortunately, you can’t embed the map here, but as of Feb. 22, New  Mexico schools are among the least reopened in the entire nation, a situation that is problematic for our State and its future. According to the Burbio data:

New Mexico schools are 21.3% open;
Arizona is 68.6%;
Utah is 90.2%;
Colorado is 77.1%;
Oklahoma is 67.5%;
Texas is 90.8%.

Whether these states spend more or less than New Mexico on K-12 and whether or not they have expensive pre-K programs, every other state in the region is blowing the doors off New Mexico. Of course, our State’s largest school district, Albuquerque Public Schools, has already punted on the entire 2020-2021 school year.

The Rio Grande Foundation provided testimony to the House Judiciary Committee yesterday evening as it considered House Bill 166, a bill banning ghost guns and 3D printing. A ghost gun is a term for a typically homemade or improvised firearm that lacks commercial serial numbers, making these firearms harder to trace.

There are laws already in place to prevent criminals from obtaining access to firearms. The bill also circumvents existing regulations from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Furthermore, the bill’s intentionally vague and broad language and definitions will hamper continued advancement of 3D printing technology, which has many useful applications in industries like healthcare.

During the allotted 60 second window of testimony, the Foundation’s arguments were based on the unfair treatment of the 3D printing industry and how this legislation would negatively impact thousands of New Mexicans that would become criminals overnight.

HB 166: RELATING TO CRIME; CREATING NEW CRIMES RELATING TO FIREARMS; PROVIDING A PENALTY

This bill is seeking to do too much and will cause confusion. The unintended consequences of this legislation includes criminalization of an extraordinary number of New Mexicans that might not otherwise realize that they have broken the law.

A very particular example of “other code that may be used to program a three-dimensional printer” includes the mandatory Microsoft Windows print spooler software package. This software is included on all major distributions of the Microsoft Windows Operating System and is in the presence of many homes, whether the inhabitants possess firearms or not.

So… people that:

Have no firearms experience;
Have never held a firearm;
Do not own a firearm;
And have no intention of ever exercising their second amendment right;
But have a Windows computer in their home would be guilty of violating this new firearms law.

We can all agree that 3D printing has many useful applications. But passage of this bill will create disincentives that prevent continued advancements in this technology and in software development in general.

Now is not the time to enact this legislation as this bill exists in a state that is not ready for consideration by this committee. On behalf of the Rio Grande Foundation I urge the committee to table the bill.

Included here is the specific portion of the legislation subject to this interpretation:

“It is an offense for a person to distribute digital instructions in the form of computer-aided design files or other code or instructions stored or displayed in electronic format as a digital model that may be used to program a three-dimensional printer to manufacture a firearm, firearm frame or receiver or other major component of a firearm to a person in New Mexico who is not a federally licensed gun manufacturer.”

During the discussion portion of the committee hearing, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Tara Lujan, and her expert witness, Andrew Karwoski, the Deputy Policy Analyst with Everytown for Gun Safety, could not or refused to answer Representative Bill Rehm’s direct question about whether a ghost gun has ever been recovered from a crime scene in New Mexico.

The fact that Albuquerque Public Schools has refused to reopen its doors to students for the duration of the 2020-2021 school year means (under Gov. Lujan Grisham’s COVID 19 rubric) that students at APS schools won’t be able to play sports. This led to protests over the weekend.

Should APS students be able to play sports? Should they be allowed to go back to school? The simple answer is YES to both. For the duration of COVID 19 the Rio Grande Foundation has urged policymakers to maximize individuals’ ability to decide how much risk they are willing to tolerate in going about their lives (or taking COVID precautions).

Ultimately, the problem here is one-size-fits-all policies that put policymakers in charge of decisions for which they simply do not have the capacity to make basic tradeoffs. The one-size-fits-all component transcends COVID. It has been a harmful feature of the government education monopoly for decades.

Of course, private schools have been open throughout the COVID situation. They have both a financial interest in what students and families want (as opposed to what unions want).

In meetings scheduled to start at 1:30 this afternoon, several legislative committees will hear bad bills. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear SB 66, which caps interest rates for small installment loans at 36%. This cap would force loan providers to be much more selective with whom they serve, meaning that those who most need this type of loan would likely not be able to access them. The House Commerce and Economic Development Committee will hear HB 110, which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15. The House Judiciary Committee will hear HB 20, a paid sick leave mandate; HB 166, which prohibits home assembly of firearms; and HB 193, an update to the state’s red flag law.

All webcasts can be accessed here. You can join the Zoom meeting for public comment for the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee here and for the House Judiciary Committee here.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in opposition to SB 66, HB 110, and HB 20 and will speak in opposition to HB 166 and HB 193.

The bad ideas keep coming, and we keep fighting them! Tomorrow, the Senate Tax, Business, and Transportation Committee will hear the gas tax hike bill we have written about before, SB 168. On Monday, the House State Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee will hear HB 9, the Climate Solutions Act. Also on Monday, the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee will hear a minimum wage increase bill, HB 110.

You can access all the webcasts here. If you would like to give public comment, you can join the Zoom meeting for HB 9 at 8 A.M. Monday morning here. The Commerce and Economic Development Committee starts at 1:30 P.M. on Monday, and you can join the Zoom meeting here. If you would like to give public comment on SB 168, follow the instructions here before 5 P.M. on Friday evening.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in opposition to SB 168, HB 9, and HB 110.

On this week’s Tipping Point NM interview Paul sits down with Christian Robey, Vice President of External Affairs at the Media Research Center. The Center focuses on anti-conservative media bias and the Rio Grande Foundation is part of their Free Speech Alliance, an organized conservative response to media and tech bias.

The discussion includes Rush Limbaugh’s legacy in alternative media, the genesis of MRC, ways in which media and tech firms influence elections, and how citizens can push back. This episode covers an especially informative and very timely issue.

With the exception of Board member Peggy Mueller-Aragon, the Albuquerque Public School (APS) board is full of union-endorsed advocates. Concerns about what the unions think as opposed to what is best for our children is what caused the Board to keep students out of their classrooms for the duration of the 2020-2021 school year.

1. More APS students will fall behind after over a year of in-person schooling having been lost. Of course we won’t have great metrics to understand just how much they are losing anytime soon because the State will likely skip its big standardized test again this year;
2. The “real” question all along is what this decision means for this fall. Will APS and its very cautious teachers be willing to return to school this fall? Only time will tell, but it would seem that no matter what happens with COVID 19 the likelihood of 5 days a week in-person learning is slim;
3. The large group of parents who want their children educated in person face some difficult challenges. Obviously THIS school year was always going to be an issue, but the 2021-2022 school year and what it looks like is now in-doubt. There are private schools of course and in terms of charter schools, it would seem that if they are chartered by the State they may have more flexibility than those chartered by APS. A list of charter schools by chartering authority can be found here. 
4. For athletes in APS this decision has got to be devastating. To be led on for most of the school year and for the Gov. to dump the decision in the laps of districts and for the District to make this decision has got to be extremely frustrating and saddening for these young people.
5. Rio Rancho schools are moving forward with their reentry plans. Parents who want the best for their children have to be considering picking up and moving if they have the means to do so.

Tomorrow the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee will hear HJR 6, which mandates legislative involvement in extending emergency declarations after ninety days, and HJR 7, which would allow state school funding to go to private schools and families that choose to home school. In addition, the Senate Tax, Business, and Transportation Committee will hear SB 168, which would raise the gas excise tax by an additional $0.05 over several years.

Both meetings are scheduled to start at 1:30 P.M. You can watch the hearing webcasts here, or join the House committee Zoom meeting for public comment here. To give public comment on SB 168, please email scorc@nmlegis.gov with your name, the entity you represent, the bill number, whether you support or oppose the bill, and your email address before 10 A.M. Thursday morning.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in favor of HJR 6 and HJR 7 and in opposition to SB 168.

With so many serious issues facing New Mexico children (even before the Pandemic), we need REAL educational choice desperately in our State.

A small group of education reform activists is meeting with a goal of changing that. Paul Gessing, President of the the Rio Grande Foundation will be speaking about the dire need for education reform to that group on Monday, February 22nd in Albuquerque.

The event is sponsored by the New Mexico chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) which is located at: 2808 Central Ave. SE in Albuquerque. Paul will speak for about 30 minutes starting right at 5:30. You can find out more by contacting Edwin from AFP at: 505-313-3290. Zoom MAY be available if you are outside Albuquerque or are unable to make it in-person.

On this week’s podcast, Paul interviews Zachary Fort of the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association about gun rights in the 2021 legislative session.

There are several bills listed below that could impact YOUR gun rights in New Mexico. Paul and Zach discussed what is happening and what can be done about it.

A few specific bills discussed are listed below:

1) HB 102 Creates a committee under the Department of Health to study gun violence, Sponsor Rep. Gail Chasey

2) HB 193 amends 2020’s “red flag” bill; original bill allows police to execute search warrants for any reason (purely civil), allows police to directly ask for a warrant to search for guns, Reps. Joy Garratt and Damon Ely

3) HB 166 Ban on homemade firearms, Rep. Tara Lujan

4) SB 224 Mandates so-called “safe storage” of guns, but also could limit youth gun training, Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

New Mexico schools have been closed for too long, but when Gov. Lujan Grisham made her surprise announcement that schools could open to “hybrid” learning on February 8, most New Mexico school districts immediately got to work to get students back into their classrooms.

As the Albuquerque Journal recently noted, more than half of New Mexico school districts are back in classrooms for hybrid learning or more, but not the State’s largest district, APS. That needs to change right away.

The APS school board is meeting tonight starting at 5pm to discuss school reopening. You can watch the meeting here. You can sign up to speak during the meeting here.

You can email the School Board your comments, and questions at boarded@aps.edu  and you can call board members at 505-880-3729.

The unions have dominated the school reopening discussion and have a great deal of power over both the APS School Board AND the Biden Administration. It is important that strong majorities of concerned citizens weigh in and support school reopening. Several board seats are ALSO up for election this fall.

Tomorrow the House State Government, Elections, and Indian Affairs Committee will hear HB 9, the Climate Solutions Act, which would create a brand new bureaucracy to address climate change and promote a “green” economy.

The committee meeting starts at 8:30 A.M. on Wednesday the 17th. You can watch the webcast here or join the Zoom meeting for public comment here.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in opposition to HB 9.

We hope we’re moving the right direction, but obviously a shift backward and yet another closure could harm restaurants.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller says we won’t get to Green until summer. 

CDC director had said schools should reopen regardless of teacher vaccinations, but the Biden Administration’s union-friendly politics got in the way.

According to ABQ Journal: 47 districts currently open for hybrid at elementary schools. And 41 of the state’s 89 districts had secondary students on campus through that mixed learning approach.

But opening was not mandated and Albuquerque Public Schools and Santa Fe Public Schools are among the districts that are teaching virtually for now despite the governor’s recent action.

Will school open “normally” this fall?

The State has asked the federal government to skip standardized testing.

Discussing education and the pandemic, the UNM Lobo athletic department budget has been devastated by the pandemic and shutdowns.

Paul and Wally discuss the good, bad, and ugly of New Mexico’s 2021 “virtual” session.

An anti-fracking bill SB 149 was heard over the weekend and passed its first Committee. The bill heads to Senate Judiciary Committee next.

Washington/NM anti-energy policies will harm the US economy w/o helping the environment.

Texas windmills have frozen due to cold weather. 

Paul and Wally discuss HB 4, New Mexico’s Civil Rights Act. 

Is the DOJ settlement with Albuquerque causing crime to increase?

Committees will hear two particularly bad bills, HB 236 and SB 224, tomorrow afternoon. HB 236 would establish a public bank operated by the state government and used by the state and local governments. SB 224 creates new rules around firearm storage and whom firearm owners may permit to use firearms they own. The rules and definitions in SB 224 are very vague and would hamper law-abiding citizens’ ability to share their knowledge and passion even with members of their own families.

The House Commerce and Economic Development Committee will hear HB 236 in a meeting starting at 1:30 P.M. The Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee will hear SB 224 in a meeting starting 30 minutes after the end of the senate floor session.

Webcasts can be found here, and you can join the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee Zoom meeting here.

The Rio Grande Foundation submitted testimony in opposition to both HB 236 and SB 224.

In New Mexico, when politicians talk about “diversifying the economy,” they usually mean “finding new taxes in order to spend more money.”

That’s partially because we have so many state and local government workers (let alone federal employees and contractors). Even a global pandemic can’t stop New Mexico from growing as the map below from The Washington Post shows.

While most other states saw reductions (often major) in state government employment, New Mexico’s already-bloated government workforce grew by 4%. That is tied for the fastest growth in the nation.

Adding insult to injury, while their numbers grew, the Legislative Finance Committee in New Mexico’s Legislature planned to give pay raises to state government employees in the budget currently being discussed in Santa Fe. Gov. Lujan Grisham gave fat pay raises to her inner-circle although (to her credit) the Gov.’s budget DOES NOT have broad based pay hikes.