NM’s revenue growth said to slow for first time this decade, but state still flush, analysts say - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s budget is expected to have .2% less revenue this fiscal year than last thanks to a slowing global oil market. But it’ll still be enough to give lawmakers more than $650 million in new money to spend at the legislative session come January.
That’s according to fresh projections released Wednesday by an expert group of legislative and academic analysts — projections that state leaders tout as proof the state is on rock-solid financial footing to meet obligations and continue growing.
“The actions that the Legislature and this administration have taken over the past several years to diversify our revenues and prepare for the eventual slowdown in oil and gas revenues are already starting to have an effect,” said Wayne Probst, Secretary for the state’s Department of Finance and Administration, in a news release.
New Mexico is expected to generate a little more than $13 billion in revenue this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2025, from taxes, investments and other sources. The $13.016 billion estimate this year is $19.7 million less than what the state pulled in last fiscal year.
It’s the first time that the state was expected to collect less in revenues over the prior year since at least 2020, according to a chart in a 31-page report released Wednesday. Instead, growth has usually ranged anywhere from 2% and 20% since then, according to the report.
In 2026, revenues are expected to rise again about 3% above 2025 levels, according to the report.
Even as oil and gas revenue hit record levels, the volatility of the industry pushed lawmakers to try to use budget surpluses wisely and in ways that generate their own returns on investment.
In February, lawmakers passed a record $10.2 billion budget that spent much of the budget surplus on new trust funds overseen and invested by the New Mexico Finance Authority, as well as additional infusions of cash into existing return-generating funds that pay for early childhood education.
Because the state is meeting its legally required reserves, some money that would otherwise go into a reserve fund can go to the Early Childhood Trust Fund. According to the report, more than $680 million can be deposited into that fund this year. The state holds in reserves more than 31% of what it intends to spend this year.
Still, forecasters warn that the New Mexico economy will grow more slowly than the rest of the country, and they noted some challenges that could affect the state’s bottom line.
For one, New Mexico’s labor force participation rate – 57.3% – is far below the national average and hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. And the state is expected to see less of a jump in oil production, down from the 30% increases seen in the last few years.
The state is expected to produce 735 million barrels of oil in the coming year. It produced 705 million last year, according to the report.
NM receives millions from DOJ for public safety and survivor services - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
New Mexico’s congressional delegation announced Thursday that it helped secure nearly $5.5 million from the U.S. Department of Justice for public safety initiatives.
The money will go towards efforts to, “Solve crime, support prosecutors and courts, survivor services, violence prevention, and keep communities safe,” according to the announcement.
The New Mexico Department of Justice will receive the largest chunk of the federal investment. Sen. Martin Heinrich requested the more than $1 million for the agency’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center.
The state DOJ will spend the money on technology called BRASSTRAX, which helps collect evidence from gun casings, according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The workstations will be located in Farmington, Gallup, Las Cruces and Roswell.
Heinrich said in a statement that, “A safer New Mexico depends on ensuring that crimes are solved and survivors are supported.”
The Chaves County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) will also receive a large infusion. The agency will spend its nearly $1 million award on a “Victim Trauma Intervention Project.”
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, who requested those funds, said in a statement that the project will help “protect the most vulnerable and change lives.”
Other recipients include Santa Fe and Sandoval counties, the Albuquerque and Edgewood police departments, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, The City of Santa Fe, New Mexico Child Advocacy Networks (NMCAN), Families and Youth Innovations Plus (FYI+), Las Cumbres Community Services, and La Pinon Sexual Assault Recovery Services.
International District could see $50 million boost from feds - Damon Scott, City Desk ABQ
The buzz has been building among city officials and International District residents about the prospect that up to $50 million in federal money could be funneled into an area that desperately needs it.
The city and the Albuquerque Housing Authority (AHA) were recently awarded a $500,000 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant through the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) that targets three public housing properties in the International District: the Wainwright Manor, Grove and Pennsylvania Street apartment complexes. The three total about 100 units of low-income housing that are in great need of redevelopment.
Officials now have about 18 months to confer with residents at the properties to assess their needs and meet with stakeholders across the International District to discuss ideas to address the area’s biggest challenges in order to assemble a plan solid enough that HUD will choose it to be implemented.
“I am so excited about this planning grant and then the implementation grant that could bring $50 million into the International District,” City Councilor Nichole Rogers said in a statement. “We have a real opportunity to transform the public housing in the International District into spaces that people want to live in. When the community gets to lead, big things happen.”
‘NOT JUST HOUSING’
AHA Executive Director Linda Bridge said the idea is that the housing redevelopment spurs other beneficial effects in the International District.
“You’re engaging in an initiative to help revitalization in the neighborhood,” she said. “So it’s not just focused on the housing, but it’s centered around the housing.”
Bridge said the neighborhoods could see positive impacts in the areas of education, health and recreation, safety, employment and mobility if the funds are awarded.
While the AHA is independent from the city, the mayor appoints its board. It owns approximately 700 public housing units that are subsidized by HUD and manages housing programs for low-income households, like HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8.
Bridge said the International District was chosen over other public housing sites because it offers the best chance to land the implementation money.
“We narrowed it down to a few, but ultimately decided this would make for the best application and potentially biggest impact for a neighborhood,” she said.
In 2016, the Denver Housing Authority received a $30 million implementation grant to help transform its impoverished Sun Valley community — an area with few amenities or economic opportunities. Denver officials are on track to replace 333 public housing units and expect 960 mixed-income units in all to be built in four phases, among other projects.
Bridge said the best case scenario for Albuquerque is to land the implementation money like Denver and put millions into the International District, but receiving the planning grant (the city’s second try) is a plus in and of itself.
“Even if it doesn’t happen, we want to have a transformation plan that we can still put to action and apply for other grants and other funding sources,” she said. “We hear from the community — there’s been a lot of planning, a lot of discussions and they want to see action.”
NEXT STEPS
The city and AHA have brought on planning consultants to assist with the process, including Borderless Studio, Collabo Planning and the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture’s Design and Planning Assistance Center. A steering committee includes members of East Central Ministries, Endorphin Power Co., the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness and the SW Indigenous Housing Justice Collaborative, among many others.
Bridge said a community feedback event will likely be held in October.
Downwinders pressure Speaker Mike Johnson on RECA during his New Mexico visit - By Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Downwinders had a message for the U.S. House speaker on Wednesday: You’re failing people the federal government exposed to radiation and hurting their chance at some measure of justice.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) attended a private event supporting candidate Yvette Herrell seeking to again represent the 2nd Congressional District in New Mexico, and then for a public event announcing national GOP investment in her campaign and other down-ballot races.
Despite the sun beating down on a stretch of gravel outside Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, spirits were high for the 30 or so rallying there, many of whom wore shirts bearing slogans directed at Johnson: “Pass RECA before we die,” or “We are the unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated.”
RECA is the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which expired in June after decades of offering financial assistance to people harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons development. People in New Mexico were never included among those who could seek compensation despite having been downwind of the world’s first nuclear blast.
A bipartisan push in Congress to expand the program failed. Some advocates are still holding out hope for a bill on Johnson’s desk that could extend and expand RECA.
Bernice Gutierrez, a member of Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium board, said she was frustrated that the years of organizing by her group and others is being thwarted.
“One man is holding up this whole process. He’s denying justice to everybody,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez was 8 days-old in 1945, when the first atomic bomb exploded at the Trinity Site in the Jornada Del Muerto, just 35 miles from her hometown in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Her family has been plagued by aggressive and deadly cancers, which pushed her into the fight.
Gutierrez said Johnson isn’t just hurting New Mexicans, he’s hurting thousands of people nationwide – in far more Republican House districts than Democratic ones — who would finally receive benefits after radiation exposure from uranium mining and aboveground nuclear tests.
RECA THEN AND NOW
Johnson has blocked an effort to expand and extend the life of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act, over the objections of members of his own party, who represent people exposed to radiation.
S. 3853 would allow thousands of people in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri and Guam — and uranium workers after 1972 — who have suffered diseases linked to radiation exposure to be eligible for compensation. The bill passed the Senate in a 69-30 vote in March.
Johnson’s publicly expressed concerns start and end with the costs of expanding the program.
Since its start in 1990 until the program’s sunset in June, the fund paid out $2.6 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that costs would rise to between $50 billion and $60 billion over the next decade.
While advocates have disagreed on the accuracy of that figure, it’s also only a portion of the estimated $756 billion in spending for the nuclear weapons program between 2023 and 2032.
RECA is a unique fund that paid out lump-sums to people exposed to radiation from decades of nuclear tests or uranium mining before 1972. The program only compensated downwinders in a handful of counties in Arizona, Utah and Nevada.
However, there is a growing nationwide reckoning that radiation exposure has harmed more communities causing rare cancers, diseases and low birth rates.
‘WE’VE SACRIFICED ENOUGH’
A call went up among people wearing yellow and black shirts and matching banners — evoking hazmat — as the flashing lights of a motorcade rounded the curve.
“Pass RECA now!” they chanted, as the motorcade carrying the speaker turned the corner, with escorts from federal, local and state police. The people ensconced in black SUVs in the center, had their heads turned away from the signs as they passed.
“I’m a New Mexican. I feel we’re all Downwinders here,” said Joaquin Lujan. He drove from Polvadera, outside of Socorro, to attend.
Lujan, 72, said the failure of the government to expand the program was a shame.
“The Republicans, I don’t know, they’re just not part of la gente,” he said. “That’s why we have to be out here. This is so important to our families.”
Don Meaders, a retired leader in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, made a cross as part of the message to Johnson, saying it’s unconscionable to not help people exposed to radiation.
“The cross is a symbol of sacrifice, and we’ve sacrificed enough,” he said.
RECA AND THE ELECTION
Members of the New Mexico Democratic party and supporters of Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez joined the Downwinders outside the museum. Some held signs about reproductive rights, which have been curtailed by Republican policies.
While RECA did not explicitly come up during a pair of brief speeches delivered by Herrell and Johnson, it’s become a significant campaign issue in the toss-up of New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.
Herrell recently told Source NM she supports expanding RECA fully and would address it with Johnson after Downwinders joined Vasquez for a campaign event last week.
Tina Cordova, the founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said that Herrell’s positions on RECA have changed, and if Herrell wants the support of the Downwinders, she would have to do more to champion the cause.
“We requested that she get us a face-to-face meeting — and we’re on the outside, and they’re on the inside,” Cordova said, pointing to the museum up the road.
At a campaign rally for Vasquez in Albuquerque last week, leaders in the Democratic party publicly promised to pass RECA if they take the majority in the House.
“For me, that’s a safety net,” Cordova said.
Both Johnson and Herrell declined to take questions at the campaign event on Wednesday.
Triple-digit temperatures scorch Texas as millions across Southwest under excessive heat warnings - By Ken Miller and Nadia Lathan, Associated Press
Summer heat scorched Texas and the Southwest on Wednesday, pushing Phoenix to nearly 90 consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures and putting millions of people under excessive heat warnings.
Meanwhile, energy demand in Texas hit an unofficial all-time high Tuesday, according to data from the state's grid operator.
A major heat alert is in place for Texas, reflecting what the weather service called "rare and/or long-duration extreme heat with little to no overnight relief." An extreme heat alert was issued for eastern New Mexico.
This area of high pressure, sometimes referred to as a heat dome, is a slow moving, upper-level high pressure system of stable air and a deep layer of high temperatures, meteorologist Bryan Jackson said.
"It is usually sunny, the sun is beating down, it is hot and the air is contained there," Jackson said. "There are dozen or so sites that are setting daily records ... mostly over Texas."
Record high temperatures were expected in cities such as Corpus Christi, San Antonio and Amarillo. In Phoenix, monsoon rains have provided brief respites since Sunday, although daytime highs continue to top 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius).
The dome was expected to move into western Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico beginning Saturday, then into the mid-Mississippi Valley, where it was forecast to weaken slightly, Jackson said.
About 14.7 million people are under an excessive heat warning, with heat indexes expected at 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) and above. Another 10 million people were under a heat advisory.
In Fort Worth, Texas, hundreds in August have sought emergency care due to the heat, according to MedStar ambulance. The service responded to 286 heat-related calls during the first 20 days of August, about 14 per day, compared to about 11 per day in August 2023, according to public information officer Desiree Partain.
Austin-Travis County EMS Capt. Christa Stedman said calls about heat-related illness in the area around the Texas state Capitol since April 1 are up by about one per day compared with a year ago, though July was somewhat milder this year.
"The vast majority of what we see is heat exhaustion, which is good because we catch it before it's heat stroke, but it's bad because people are not listening to the red flags," such as heat cramps in the arms, legs or stomach warning that the body is becoming too hot, Stedman said.
Despite the record heat in Texas, residents haven't been asked to cut back on their energy use like in years prior. This contrasts with the 11 conservation notices issued last year. One reason is that the agency, which manages Texas' independent energy grid and deregulated providers, has improved the grid's capabilities to better control supply and demand, Doug Lewin, an energy consultant and president of Stoic Energy said.
However, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas' criteria for when to notify residents to conserve energy has also changed, Lewin said, because they're ineffective and unpopular.
"I don't think they're seeing all that much reduction when they give notices," Lewin said of ERCOT. In fact public uproar against the conservation warnings has led to the agency sending fewer of them, he continued.
"There are many factors that ERCOT operations take into consideration when determining the need to issue conservation, case by case depending on conditions at the time," communications manager Trudi Webster said on the matter.
"It's been a hot summer, but this one does stand out in terms of extremes," said Jackson, the meteorologist.
Earlier this month, about 100 people were sickened and 10 were hospitalized due to extreme heat at a Colorado air show and at least two people have died due to the heat in California's Death Valley National Park.
Globally, a string of 13 straight months with a new average heat record came to an end this past July as the natural El Nino climate pattern ebbed, the European climate agency Copernicus announced Thursday.
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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Judge blocks Arizona lithium drilling that tribe says is threat to sacred lands - By Scott Sonner, Associated Press
A federal judge has temporarily blocked exploratory drilling for a lithium project in Arizona that tribal leaders say will harm land they have used for religious and cultural ceremonies for centuries.
Lawyers for the national environmental group Earthjustice and Colorado-based Western Mining Action Project are suing federal land managers on behalf of the Hualapai Tribe. They accuse the U.S. Bureau of Land Management of illegally approving drilling planned by an Australian mining company in the Big Sandy River Basin in northwestern Arizona, about halfway between Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The case is among the latest legal fights to pit Native American tribes and environmentalists against President Joe Biden's administration as green energy projects encroach on lands that are culturally significant.
U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa granted a temporary restraining order late Monday, according to court documents. Humetewa is suspending the operation until she can hear initial arguments from the tribe, Arizona Lithium Ltd. and the bureau at a hearing in Phoenix on Sept. 17.
The tribe wants the judge to issue a preliminary injunction extending the prohibition on activity at the site pending trial on allegations that federal approval of the exploratory drilling violated the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act.
"Like other tribal nations who for centuries have stewarded the lands across this country, the Hualapai people are under siege by mining interests trying to make a buck off destroying their cultural heritage," Earthjustice lawyer Laura Berglan said in a statement Wednesday.
The tribe says in court documents that the bureau failed to adequately analyze potential impacts to sacred springs the Hualapai people call Ha'Kamwe,' which means warm spring. The springs have served as a place "for healing and prayer" for generations.
The tribe and environmental groups also argue that a 2002 environmental review by the bureau and the U.S. Energy Department determined that the land was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a traditional cultural property.
Arizona Lithium plans a total of 131 drilling sites across nearly a square mile (2.6 square kilometers) to obtain samples to help determine if there's enough lithium to construct a mine and extract the critical mineral needed to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, among other things.
Justice Department lawyers representing the bureau said in court filings this week that any potential impacts of an actual mine would be determined by a more extensive environmental review. They said the tribe is exaggerating potential harm that could come solely from exploratory drilling.
"Given the speculative nature of Hualapai's alleged harm and the benefits of better defining the lithium deposits in this area, the equities favor denying" the tribe's bid for additional delay, the government lawyers wrote.
"Further, an injunction would not be in the public interest because the project is an important part of the United States' green energy transition," they said.
The bureau completed a formal environmental assessment of the project and issued a finding of "no significant impact" in June. On July 9, the bureau issued a final decision approving the drilling.
In court documents, Arizona Lithium referenced the "prodigious amount of resources" expended over three years to get federal authorization for the project, saying it worked with land managers to develop a plan that complied with federal regulations and considered the interests of the Hualapai Tribe, the environment and local residents.
The tribe says its homeland stretches from the Grand Canyon south and east toward mountain ranges near Flagstaff, Arizona.
The Ha'Kamwe' springs are on land known as Cholla Canyon, which is held in trust for the tribe. According to the lawsuit, there is archaeological evidence of the tribe's presence there dating to 600 A.D.
"Today our people celebrate the granting of the temporary restraining order, but understand our fight is not over," Hualapai Tribe Chairman Duane Clarke said in a statement Wednesday. "We will continue to bring awareness to the protection of our water."