Staffing marks top education goal for New Mexico lawmakers - By Cedar Attanasio Associated Press / Report For America
New Mexico lawmakers are meeting starting Tuesday to craft the state budget, about half of which is expected to go to K-12 education.
Early proposals from key legislative committees and the governor put the total budget around $8.4 billion and the K-12 public school budget at around $3.8 billion, a 12% increase over last year.
A growing educational staffing crisis is taking center stage in that discussion, as New Mexico struggles to keep America's oldest teacher workforce in the classroom, keep up with inflation, and compete with other states and private employers who are raising wages.
State leaders believe the funding increases including raises are possible, thanks to surging oil and gas revenue, and essential for filling government and public-school positions. They also think it's necessary, with unfilled teaching positions reaching around 1,000, and many more unfilled school worker positions. With 7% national inflation, and strong competition from the private sector, getting teachers and other workers to staff schools is a growing challenge.
Democrats hold the governor's office and strong majorities in the state House and Senate, and their pending priorities are most likely to become law.
But Republicans want to restrict how race is taught in schools, ban vaccine mandates, and pursue the long-standing priority of allowing parents to carry their child's education funding from public schools to private schools.
TEACHER RAISES
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and key legislative committees are in synch in proposing an increase in the minimum teacher salaries based on levels of certification. The goal is to make the state competitive with its neighbors, incentivize young people to join the profession, and stem looming retirements.
Right now, starting teachers earn at least $41,000 and that would be raised to around $50,000, with mid-level teachers earning a minimum of $60,000 and master teachers around $70,000. For teachers affected by the minimums, the increases could reach 20%.
For teachers who already earn near those levels, a minimum 7% raise would be instituted. There's a similar raise proposed for school staff, from janitors to principals. Given the inflation rate, it wouldn't amount to an increase in buying power.
Lawmakers are proposing many other ways to add teachers.
"We are putting money into our teacher loan repayment, scholarships and (the Grow Your Own Teachers Act)," said Senate President Mimi Stewart.
Stewart and Lujan Grisham also support a plan to pay Indigenous language arts and culture teachers the same as starting teachers. For years, they've been paid as education assistants, with salaries as low as $14,000. But if the proposal is adopted, their language teaching certification, approved by tribal authorities, would count toward compensation.
FOOD, MAINTENANCE, TEACHING ASSISTANTS
In New Mexico's largest school district, Albuquerque, there were 742 staff vacancies as of Friday. Only 225 had "teacher" in the title, with food and maintenance worker vacancies taking up much of the list. Teaching assistants are also in short supply, and many are covering for teacher shortages, with a teaching workload, and without commensurate pay.
There's a proposal to set a minimum wage for school workers at just over $13 an hour, which could be competitive in rural areas but less so in cities like Albuquerque. Some lawmakers are calling for a $15 minimum wage, which Lujan Grisham has endorsed for state workers, but hasn't for school workers.
Across the board, raises could hit some snags. In Las Cruces, for example, increased funds could end up in the hands of contractors without reaching drivers because of their contract structure. Drivers in that city went on strike this fall, making students miss an increasingly rare day of in-person learning.
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS
A court found in 2018 that students who are low income, Native American, English language learners, and disabled — around 70% of all K-12 students — aren't being offered an adequate education, which is guaranteed in the state constitution.
The court identified areas where the state needed to improve education but didn't prescribe exactly how to fix the problems in the Martinez-Yazzie education lawsuit, named after Hispanic and Native American mothers of plaintiff students.
Heading into the final year of her first term, Lujan Grisham hasn't released a plan to address the ruling or negotiated with the plaintiffs' lawyers.
Without a plan from the courts or the governor, the Legislature doesn't know what it can fund in order to resolve the lawsuit.
MORE SCHOOL DAYS
The lawsuit placed the responsibility for closing the education divide on the Legislature and governor, but public-school districts still wield most of the power over how schools are run. State lawmakers broadly agree that students need more days in class to close the learning gap between more and less economically privileged students.
The urgency for extra learning has only increased during the pandemic, which by all available data indicates that students fell even further behind, in a state that regularly places last in measures of academic proficiency among K-12 students.
But more school days mean shorter summers. And that hasn't gotten support from teachers or the most vocal parents, who tend to show up at school board meetings. Last year, superintendents and school boards rejected tens of millions in state funding for extra days, bending to local pressure.
Proposals from lawmakers this month suggest a new approach, offering the perks of an extra-days program, with fewer restrictions. For example, schools might be able to offer more instruction hours during the school year instead of lengthening it.
"It is the belief of the executive and I think ... the Legislature that we have learned from COVID and also from reviewing the research that we need more time with students engaged with their teachers," education secretary Kurt Steinhaus told a legislative committee Friday.
Albuquerque school district to reopen after cyberattack — Associated Press
New Mexico's largest school district will reopen Tuesday after a cyberattack that forced a two-day closure, officials said.
The Albuquerque Public Schools district discovered problems last Wednesday with its student information system that tracks attendance, grades and emergency contact information.
The district said Monday it hasn't fully resolved the problems, but it has found a way around the issues so that students can return to class.
"We will be able to take attendance, contact parents in emergencies, and assure that students are picked up from school by authorized adults," the district posted on Twitter.
The district serves one-fifth of New Mexico's K-12 public school students.
Officials said students will have to make up the two days of classes they missed in May. The investigation into the cyberattack is ongoing.
Navajo increases ability to do COVID testing, vaccinations — Associated Press
Health facilities on the Navajo Nation are increasing the ability to test for COVID-19 and vaccinate people as the omicron variant spreads, tribal leaders said.
Navajo President Jonathan Nez said the facilities also are working to give out more home testing kits this month while cases are surging.
"We must remain diligent, keep our guard up at all times, especially in public, and do more to encourage our loved ones to get fully vaccinated and a booster shot," Nez said in a statement Sunday.
The tribe reported 179 additional cases of the coronavirus on Sunday. The death toll remains at 1,600. A full report with total case counts during the pandemic will be available Tuesday, the tribe said.
The omicron variant spreads much more easily than other coronavirus strains. However, early studies show omicron is less likely to cause severe illness than the previous delta variant.
The 27,000 square-mile Navajo Nation extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Official: Alec Baldwin surrenders phone for shooting probe — Associated Press
Alec Baldwin has surrendered his cellphone to authorities as part of the investigation into a fatal shooting on a New Mexico film set last fall, a law enforcement official said.
Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office spokesman Juan Rios said Baldwin's phone was turned over Friday to law enforcement officials in Suffolk County, New York, who will gather the information from the phone and provide it to Santa Fe County investigators, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Sheriff's office investigators in December obtained a search warrant for the phone's contents in their investigation into the Oct. 21 shooting on the "Rust" film set at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.
Baldwin was an actor and co-producer, and the search warrant for his phone sought text messages, images, videos, calls or any other information related to the movie.
Authorities have said Baldwin's prop revolver discharged a live round during a rehearsal, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin's lawyer, Aaron Dyer, said his client had been cooperating with authorities throughout the course of the investigation, and the delay in providing information from the phone was no indication otherwise.
"Alec voluntarily provided his phone to the authorities this morning so they can finish their investigation," Dyer said Friday in a statement. "But this matter isn't about his phone, and there are no answers on his phone."
Baldwin, who has denied any wrongdoing in the shooting, and said in an Instagram message on Jan. 8 that New Mexico needed to go through New York law enforcement and that the process of specifying exactly what is needed took time.
"They can't just go through your phone and take your photos, or your love letters to your wife, or what have you," he said.
Baldwin has said he didn't know the gun he was holding contained a live round when it went off. Investigators are trying to find the source of the live round.
No charges have been filed in the shooting.
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This story has been corrected to show that the fatal shooting occurred on Oct. 21, not Oct. 11.
Navajo Nation: All government workers must have booster shot -Associated Press
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez has signed an executive order requiring all government workers on the tribe's vast reservation to have a booster shot.
Nez also said tribal health officials have changed how the term "fully vaccinated" is defined by making it two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine plus a booster shot.
The actions come after a record number of COVID cases have been reported on the reservation that covers 27,000 square miles and extends into parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Tribal health officials reported 525 new cases Friday, the most in a single day since the pandemic began almost two years ago.
That number topped the 405 cases reported Thursday.
Officials reported 62 cases Saturday, but said there have been no reported deaths from the virus in the last three days.
"Our case numbers have been very high recently, but the number of hospitalizations has not surged and the numbers of deaths has remained low," Nez said. "This shows that the COVID-19 vaccines are highly-effective and that they are saving lives."
The Navajo Nation has reported more than 45,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,600 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
New safety teams in Albuquerque offer aid, not handcuffs - By Elise Kaplan Albuquerque Journal
Quinn Mulhern and Leigh White are driving up Central one morning in early December when they spot an older woman lying on a pile of blankets on a sidewalk. She is surrounded by belongings, including a wheelchair and a walker.
Mulhern pulls a sharp right onto the side street, parks a white city-owned Ford Escape with "community responder" emblazoned on the side, and he and White jump out.
The pair are wearing jeans, and jackets cover their long-sleeved "Community Safety Department" T-shirts. Radios hang on cords around their necks. They squat next to the woman and hand her bottles of water, a blanket and a pair of socks, ask if she needs anything and encourage her to use a bus pass to get to the West Side homeless shelter.
Ultimately, that's about all they can do.
Mulhern — who was a mixed martial arts fighter before going back to school to get a master's degree in social work — and White — a former corrections officer who cites her personal experiences navigating the system as a single mother — are behavioral health responders who roam the streets as part of the city's newest department.
Albuquerque Community Safety was launched at the end of August and has received widespread national media attention. Articles have lauded the city's goal of addressing societal issues with social workers instead of law enforcement.
Local residents have also been intrigued, although some have been a lot more skeptical, including a woman who White said kept demanding if they were "ready to die for the city."
"The hardest part of the job has been sometimes balancing the citizens who are making the calls," White told the Albuquerque Journal. "We can't always meet their expectations. There are limitations to our job and to what we're able to achieve."
A lot of times callers expect the responders to arrest people who are camping out on public property, something Mulhern said they — or the police for that matter — do not do. He said when they approach someone on the street they ask for a first name to build a rapport but they do not run criminal history background checks or see if someone is wanted on a warrant. While there are lots of naysayers, Mulhern said he has also talked to people who seem to think the department is a solution to the complex problem of police brutality.
"It's an attempt to replace a certain set of jobs that the police normally do. …" Mulhern said. "There's this idea that we'll wipe the board of like conflict and homelessness, and it's like, no … I think we are doing a good job and important job and doing it well, but it's like one piece of a bigger puzzle."
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APD in the midst of reform effort
In June 2020, as the nation was gripped by protests over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and calls to "defund the police," Mayor Tim Keller announced the city would create a new public safety department that would respond to calls involving behavioral health, homelessness, addiction and other issues.
The Albuquerque Police Department has been criticized in the past for its handling of homeless people and those experiencing mental health crises and is in the midst of a yearslong reform effort.
Eleven days before the mayor's news conference, an APD officer had shot a man who was suffering from a mental health crisis in his parents' home. Officer Jose Ruiz shot Max Mitnik as the 26-year-old was walking toward him holding a paring knife and asking to be shot. Although Mitnik survived the shooting, his mother has told the Journal he will never be the same.
An internal investigation found the officer used force appropriately. But, it found he failed to control the scene, which escalated the situation leading up to the shooting.
ACS Director Mariela Ruiz-Angel said she has watched the video of the encounter multiple times and wondered how her responders could have handled it differently. For one thing, Mitnik wanted to be taken to the hospital but didn't want to be in handcuffs.
"There was a moment where he was like, 'OK, I'll go,'" Ruiz-Angel said during an interview.
But, she recalled, the officers said they had to handcuff Mitnik in order to transport him.
"Had we gotten him in the car and just let his mom go in the car with him, would that have been a different outcome?" Ruiz-Angel asked.
Ruiz-Angel said dispatchers typically do not send calls to ACS if a person is reported to have a weapon; however when responders arrive at the scene they often find people are armed. She said responders have not been threatened by anyone but if they are, they are told to back out of the situation and call for assistance.
Ruiz-Angel grew up in El Paso, Texas. While in her 20s she worked in customer relations for a large corporation before going back to school to get a master's degree in social work and business administration. She worked for Albuquerque's Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs before being hired to start ACS in 2020. In April, she was hired as the director.
Ruiz-Angel said as ACS grows, she thinks the budget will need to double — but it will still be a much cheaper option than police. The ACS annual budget is $7.7 million and APD's budget is about 30 times larger.
"Even just logistically thinking about the vehicles that (police) purchase, and the guns that they purchase, the shoes, " she said. "We're always probably going to stick to something very casual, even though it might be uniformed."
Since the beginning of September, behavioral health responders had taken on more than 1,500 calls for service and street outreach responders went to 213 calls involving 753 individual contacts, according to a department spokesman. As of early December almost two-thirds of the calls had been about an unsheltered person and 17% had been for welfare checks. The remaining calls involved "down and outs," behavioral health issues, panhandlers or suspicious or intoxicated people.
By the first week of December, ACS had hired or was in the midst of hiring staff for 20 out of 24 behavioral health responder positions and 29 out of 45 of its overall field staff. The department also has a clinical supervisor, four mobile crisis team clinicians who accompany law enforcement on calls, two street outreach responders and a Community-Oriented Response Assistance responder who help people affected by tragedy or violence. It has 10 vacant positions for community responders, who respond to minor injuries, abandoned vehicles, crashes without injury and needle pickups.
Ruiz-Angel said the expectation is that the department will double its response units every year and eventually take up to 40,000 calls a year. She said it currently is operating seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. but hopes to be closer to 24/7 by the end of January.
"In my perfect world, if we could put behavioral health responders in every area of town, in every district, in every quadrant similar to police, I think the outcomes might be different because then you can … have deeper relationships with the community," Ruiz-Angel said.
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Services somewhat 'threadbare' in ABQ
On Dec. 10, with a Journal reporter and photographer in tow, Mulhern and White drove around the city responding to calls and scanning the streets.
As Mulhern drove, White sat in the passenger seat with an open computer on her lap, looking at computer-aided dispatch records for the calls that firefighters and police officers were responding to around the city. Scanner traffic from Albuquerque Fire Rescue crackles over the radio.
The first two calls they are dispatched to — a man between two vehicles in a strip mall parking lot and a man next to a bicycle in front of a Wendy's — result in no one being found. That happened in about 27% of the calls ACS responded to in the first three months, whereas resources were offered in about 48% of the calls and services were refused in about 17% of the calls, according to data provided by the department.
When responders do find someone who wants help, they say it's often a scramble to try to find them what they need. The responders offer basic necessities and — if the person is interested — try to get them housing or case management services.
"In the best case scenario — if the person is motivated and, you know, relatively mobile, they can get to the place they need to go, they're computer literate, they can deal with a cellphone, if all of those boxes are checked — even then it's quite hard to get in the services to get a housing voucher to get on the list for more permanent housing," Mulhern said. "It's not that easy. And that's the thing we run into a lot … services are, I would say, somewhat threadbare."
Other times, the only thing they can do is call for medical help.
Shortly before noon, Mulhern spots a man lying face down — his head covered by a straw fedora — on the sidewalk of an off-ramp along Interstate 40. A bitterly cold, strong wind is threatening to blow a shopping cart containing all of his belongings into the street.
The responders park and Mulhern brings the shopping cart back up onto the sidewalk. They squat next to the man, asking if he's OK, and he doesn't move but mumbles faintly. Eventually, after asking repeatedly how they could help, White calls for paramedics. While they wait the responders cover the man with a blanket to try to keep him warm.
Eventually, an Albuquerque ambulance arrives and loads the man into the back. Mulhern and White hand the ambulance crew his backpack so it can be taken with him to the hospital.
Driving away, the team reflects on the way ACS can fit into the first responder system alongside APD and AFR.
"The functions of the job kind of determines the behavior of the people in the job to some degree, and it's like, we get the little extra superpower of not being able to arrest. We don't even touch that whole world, " Mulhern said. "I think people get hung up on … 'they're going to be replacing police with us.' No … It's complementary to that other necessary service where they do have the power to arrest – somebody's got to have that too – but dividing it up, seems pretty logical to me."
Official: Alec Baldwin surrenders phone for shooting probe - Santa Fe New Mexican, Associated Press
Alec Baldwin has surrendered his cellphone to authorities as part of the investigation into a fatal shooting on a New Mexico film set last fall, a law enforcement official said.
Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office spokesman Juan Rios said Baldwin's phone was turned over Friday to law enforcement officials in Suffolk County, New York, who will gather the information from the phone and provide it to Santa Fe County investigators, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Sheriff's office investigators in December obtained a search warrant for the phone's contents in their investigation into the Oct. 11 shooting on the "Rust" film set at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.
Baldwin was an actor and co-producer, and the search warrant for his phone sought text messages, images, videos, calls or any other information related to the movie.
Authorities have said Baldwin's prop revolver discharged a live round during a rehearsal, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin's lawyer, Aaron Dyer, said his client had been cooperating with authorities throughout the course of the investigation, and the delay in providing information from the phone was no indication otherwise.
"Alec voluntarily provided his phone to the authorities this morning so they can finish their investigation," Dyer said Friday in a statement. "But this matter isn't about his phone, and there are no answers on his phone."
Baldwin, who has denied any wrongdoing in the shooting, and said in an Instagram message on Jan. 8 that New Mexico needed to go through New York law enforcement and that the process of specifying exactly what is needed took time.
"They can't just go through your phone and take your photos, or your love letters to your wife, or what have you," he said.
Baldwin has said he didn't know the gun he was holding contained a live round when it went off. Investigators are trying to find the source of the live round.
No charges have been filed in the shooting.
Woman sentenced in scheme to steal iPods intended for kids -Associated Press
A former employee of a northwestern New Mexico school district faces 18 months in prison after being sentenced in a yearslong scheme to steal and resell thousands of Apple iPods intended for Native American children on the Navajo Nation.
Kristy Stock, 46, of Waterflow was sentenced Tuesday by a federal judge in Maryland after previously pleading guilty to interstate transportation of stolen goods and tax fraud, the Farmington Daily Times reported.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland, Stock from 2014 to 2019 stole up to 250 iP0ds at a time and provided them to codefendants who bought the devices from Stock and resold them via eBay at a profit.
Stock worked for the Shiprock-headquartered Central Consolidated School District and oversaw use of federal grant money intended to be used to provide iP0ds to students, the office said in a statement.
Albuquerque police: Man found dead was shot, not hit by car -Associated Press
Police are investigating what they thought were two deaths in northeast Albuquerque involving a shooting and a pedestrian struck by a vehicle said the cases were connected and only one person was involved.
They now say a man shot around 2 a.m. Sunday actually was the same person believed to have been struck and killed by a vehicle less than a half mile away.
They said the victim in the street was found to have a gunshot wound and investigators concluded he was the victim of the shooting at a home.
Police said a man called 911 at around 1:30 a.m. to report that he had shot at someone who was attempting to steal tools.
The suspect fled the scene and was later found in the middle of a road and was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Police said there wasn't a crash, the man had a gunshot wound and was the victim from the shooting.
The name and age of the man wasn't immediately released.
Governors turn to budgets to guard against climate change - By Kathleen Ronayne Associated Press
Their state budgets flush with cash, Democratic and Republican governors alike want to spend some of the windfall on projects aimed at slowing climate change and guarding against its consequences, from floods and wildfires to dirty air.
Democratic governors such as California's Gavin Newsom and Washington's Jay Inslee have been clear about their plans to boost spending on climate-related projects, including expanding access to electric vehicles and creating more storage for clean energies such as solar. Newsom deemed climate change one of five "existential threats" facing the nation's most populous state when he rolled out his proposed state budget this past week.
In Republican-led states, governors want to protect communities from natural disasters and drought, even as many of them won't link such spending to global warming.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey this past week pitched $1 billion for water infrastructure as drought grips the Western U.S., shriveling water supplies for cities and farms. Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who has acknowledged climate change's role in worsening wildfires, proposed $150 million for five years' worth of fire-fighting costs, plus more for new fire personnel. In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster called on lawmakers to spend $300 million in federal money for, among other things, protecting the state's coastline against flooding, erosion and storm damage.
"I can think of no more meritorious use of taxpayer funds than to protect these pristine properties for future generations of South Carolinians," he said as he presented his proposed state budget, which also includes $17 million to use in the aftermath of hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Governors' proposals are just the first step in budget negotiations, and they'll have to work with state lawmakers on the final details. Many governors will issue their plans in the coming weeks, with some already telegraphing their priorities. New York's Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, used her state of the state address to call for $500 million in spending on offshore wind projects.
This year's discussions on how to spend taxpayers' money comes not only as many states are seeing massive budget surpluses, but also as the negative effects of changing weather patterns are becoming ever harder to ignore. As drought continued in much of the West, an unseasonable December wildfire ripped through a Colorado neighborhood near Boulder. Deadly off-season tornados ravaged Kentucky, and several hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast. Late summer temperatures soared to sweltering, record-breaking levels in the Pacific Northwest.
"The climate crisis is not an abstraction. It is something that I and every governor in the United States, almost on a weekly basis, have to deal with," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said this past week.
Meanwhile, Democratic President Joe Biden's $2 trillion package of social and environmental initiatives is stalled in Congress, leaving the prospect of more federal money to fight climate change uncertain. States, mostly led by Democrats, took on a larger role advancing climate policies during former Republican President Donald Trump's time in office.
Most states are awash in money as tax collections have exceeded expectations because of strong consumer spending and rising prices, which together have bolstered sales tax revenue. On top of that, states are taking in billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief and are preparing for a big boost in federal infrastructure money after Congress passed a $1 trillion public works bill in November. Beyond increasing climate spending, states are looking to the windfall to pad their reserves, cut taxes, boost funding for education and increase affordable housing.
California is home to the most ambitious climate spending, with Newsom calling for $22 billion for various projects spread over the next five years. The bulk of that would go to transportation projects such as electrifying school buses and expanding vehicle charging stations into disadvantaged communities. He also proposed another $2 billion for clean energy development and storage.
California-based companies that work to address climate change and develop green technologies could be eligible for tax credits. Through programs to build more housing in downtown corridors and make communities more walkable, Newsom threaded his efforts to tackle climate change throughout his budget proposal.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leaders promised increased investments related to wildfires, such as adding fire response equipment and training for firefighters, after last month's Boulder County wildfire. The Democratic governor has requested about $75 million for such efforts, and the Democratic-led Legislature has signaled it wants more.
Polis also wants to spend $425 million on electrifying bus and truck fleets, aerial and ground monitoring of oil and gas emissions, and more.
"From extreme floods to megafires to seemingly never-ending ozone alerts, our state's long-term health is on the line. ... We have to do everything in our power to make sure this is not the new normal," Colorado Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg said.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has asked the state legislature to fund the creation of a "climate change bureau," with a 15-member staff and $2.5 million initial budget.
It would implement pollution standards for vehicles and push the state's economy toward a point where just as much carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere as is being emitted. Her administration has offered limited details on the proposal.
Even as they prioritize climate initiatives, many governors are balancing those plans with a need to support their state's current economy as it transitions away from a dependence on fossil fuels. In New Mexico, the output of oil and natural gas has surged to an all-time high under Lujan Grisham's administration. At least one-fourth of the state's general fund budget can be traced to income from the oil and natural gas industries – underwriting public education, health care and other services.
In some states, it's lawmakers who are driving climate spending. Democrats who control Maryland's legislature are pushing a climate change measure that would reduce methane emissions, modernize the electric grid and invest in green technology.
The package, subject to negotiations, would accelerate the state's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The current plan is to cut emissions by 40% of 2006 levels by 2030. The Democrats' new plans is to raise that emissions reduction to 60%.
They also want to set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning at least as much carbon is being removed from the atmosphere as what's being emitted. Money for climate programs could come from the state's $4.6 billion budget surplus and federal infrastructure funding.
Maryland Democrats have enough members to override any vetoes by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, though he has previously supported efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
State Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat, said advancing climate policy has political merits, particularly in the state that is home to Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary. All Maryland state lawmakers are up for re-election this year, as are about two-thirds of governors across the U.S.
"I think legislators want to be able to run on something, and people should be accountable," Pinsky said. "Do they support the environment and this kind of bold action or not?"
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