U.S. Senators warn 15 New Mexico hospitals likely to close if ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ cuts become law - nm.news
U.S. Senators responsible for reviewing the impact of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” say Medicaid cuts in the House proposal and further cuts proposed this week by Senate Republican leaders could force over 300 rural hospitals, including 15 in New Mexico, to close.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the leading Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, and other committee members wrote to Republican leaders that “by enacting these drastic health care cuts that will kick millions of people off their health insurance coverage, rural hospitals will not get paid for the services they are required by law to provide to patients. In turn, rural hospitals will face deeper financial strain that could lead to negative health outcomes for the communities they serve.”
They cited an analysis by Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina (Sheps Center) which ranked each hospital by the percentage of Medicaid patients it serves.
15 New Mexico hospitals ranked in the top 10% of all hospitals in the country for percentage of patients on Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for low-income and disabled adults and children.
“Already, rural hospitals are struggling: in 2023, there were 50 fewer rural hospitals than in 2017, and lack of health care access in rural America is contributing to worse health outcomes. Faced with additional cuts to their revenue, many rural hospitals may be forced to stop providing certain services, including obstetric, mental health, and emergency room care, may have to convert to clinics or standalone emergency centers, or close altogether. Rural hospitals are often the largest employers in rural communities, and when a rural hospital closes or scales back its services, communities are not only forced to grapple with losing access to health care, but also with job loss and the resulting financial
insecurity,” the letter explained.
Contacted by nm.news for comment, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich’s office pointed us to this statement he shared on June 6 after the bill passed the House of Representatives : “Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is nothing but a big, beautiful betrayal of the American people. Whether it’s closing rural hospitals or leaving 16 million people uninsured: it’s a big, beautiful NO from me.”
The New Mexico hospitals identified at risk by members of the Budget Committee are:
1. Alta Vista Regional Hospital (Las Vegas) – high Medicaid share
2. Eastern New Mexico Medical Center (Roswell) – high Medicaid share
3. Española Hospital – high Medicaid share
4. Plains Regional Medical Center (Clovis) – high Medicaid share
5. Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital (Gallup) – high Medicaid share
6. Carlsbad Medical Center – high Medicaid share
7. Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital (Hobbs) – high Medicaid share
8. Roosevelt General Hospital (Portales) – high Medicaid share
9. Lovelace Regional Hospital– (Roswell) – high Medicaid share
10. Socorro General Hospital – high Medicaid share
11. Dr. Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital (Tucumcari) – high Medicaid share
12.Lincoln County Medical Center (Ruidoso) – high Medicaid share
13.Miners’ Colfax Medical Center (Raton) – high Medicaid share
14.Mimbres Memorial Hospital (Deming) – high Medicaid share
15. Holy Cross Hospital (Taos) – high Medicaid share
Each relies heavily on Medicaid reimbursements; a cut would erode revenue and risk shutting down essential health services.
Gallup district attorney files Supreme Court challenge over defunding of office - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico’s highest court is being asked to intervene in a simmering dispute over the defunding of the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office.
District Attorney Bernadine Martin filed a Supreme Court petition this week, arguing the Legislature and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham violated the state Constitution’s separation of powers provision by stripping state funds for her office out of a $10.8 billion budget bill.
“The legislative and executive branches have no discretion to withhold essential government services in a manner that violates equal protection or due process rights,” Martin wrote in her petition.
Martin declined further comment on Wednesday due to the litigation, but said in her petition the elimination of funds to her office, if allowed to happen, would effectively nullify her authority as an elected official.
The unusual showdown — and the filing of the Supreme Court petition — comes just two weeks before July 1, when the new state budget bill is set to take effect.
Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday he had not yet reviewed the petition but described defunding Martin’s office as a last resort.
Specifically, he said the action was the only way in his power to ensure criminal cases move forward, citing large numbers of dismissals in recent years.
“If the district attorney doesn’t want to do her job and prosecute cases, you have a broken justice system,” Muñoz told the Journal.
He previously said he was approached by judges, other prosecutors and Chief Public Defender Ben Baur about an alarmingly low number of prosecutions in McKinley County and Martin’s management of the District Attorney’s Office.
The District Attorney’s Office in Gallup has had by far the state’s highest average caseload for attorneys in recent years, due to chronic staffing issues. As of last fall, the office had 2,822 assigned cases per attorney, according to Legislative Finance Committee data.
While this year’s budget bill initially included funding for Martin’s office, it was amended in the Senate Finance Committee. The final version earmarked $1.9 million for the district attorney in neighboring San Juan County to prosecute cases in McKinley County.
The annual spending bill also provides additional funding for contract attorneys to be hired in the district. While some legislators expressed concern about the changes, the amended bill ultimately passed both the Senate and House before being signed by Lujan Grisham in April.
In her petition, Martin said she approached San Juan County District Attorney Jack Fortner about signing an interagency agreement that would allow her to continue paying staffers and contract attorneys in her office.
But she said that proposal was rebuffed, setting the stage for possible employee furloughs.
In addition to Muñoz and the governor, the petition filed by Martin also lists Fortner and several other elected officials and legislators as respondents. That list includes Lt. Gov. Howie Morales, House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, and House Appropriations and Finance Committee Chairman Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces.
Though rare, it’s not unprecedented for New Mexico government offices to be defunded. For example, the Commission on the Status of Women was defunded and essentially dismantled in 2011 by targeted line-item vetoes from then-Gov. Susana Martinez, but the commission was later revived.
The Supreme Court had not yet filed any official response to the petition as of Wednesday, but it’s likely the case would be fast-tracked if the court decides to hear it due to timing issues at play.
Supreme Court clears the way for temporary nuclear waste storage in Texas and New Mexico - By Mark Sherman, Associated Press
The Supreme Court on Wednesday restarted plans to temporarily store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico, even as the nation is at an impasse over a permanent solution.
The justices, by a 6-3 vote, reversed a federal appeals court ruling that invalidated the license granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to a private company for the facility in southwest Texas. The outcome should also reinvigorate plans for a similar facility in New Mexico roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) away.
The federal appeals court in New Orleans had ruled in favor of the opponents of the facilities.
The licenses would allow the companies to operate the facilities for 40 years, with the possibility of a 40-year renewal.
The court's decision is not a final ruling in favor of the licenses, but it removes a major roadblock. Justice Brett Kavanaugh's majority opinion focused on technical procedural rules in concluding that Texas and a major landowner in southwest Texas forfeited their right to challenge the NRC licensing decision in federal court.
The justices did not rule on a more substantive issue: whether federal law allows the commission to license temporary storage sites. But Kavanaugh wrote that "history and precedent offer significant support for the commission's longstanding interpretation" that it can do so.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in dissent that the NRC's "decision was unlawful" because spent nuclear fuel can be temporarily stored in only two places under federal law, at a nuclear reactor or at a federally owned facility. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas signed on to the dissenting opinion.
Roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons (1,800 metric tons) a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.
The NRC has said that the temporary storage sites are needed because existing nuclear plants are running out of room. The presence of the spent fuel also complicates plans to decommission some plants, the Justice Department said in court papers.
Plans for a permanent underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, are stalled because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.
The NRC's appeal was filed by the Biden administration and maintained by the Trump administration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, are leading bipartisan opposition to the facilities in their states.
Lujan Grisham said she was deeply disappointed by the court's ruling, reiterating that Holtec International, awarded the license for the New Mexico facility, wasn't welcome in the state. She vowed to do everything possible to prevent the company, based in Jupiter, Florida, from storing what she called "dangerous" waste in New Mexico.
"Congress has repeatedly failed to secure a permanent location for disposing of nuclear waste, and now the federal government is trying to force de-facto permanent storage facilities onto New Mexico and Texas," she said. "It is a dangerous and irresponsible approach."
The NRC granted the Texas license to Interim Storage Partners, based in Andrews, Texas, for a facility that could take up to 5,500 tons (5,000 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants and 231 million tons (210 million metric tons) of other radioactive waste. The facility would be built next to an existing dump site in Andrews County for low-level waste such as protective clothing and other material that has been exposed to radioactivity. The Andrews County site is about 350 miles (560 kilometers) west of Dallas, near the Texas-New Mexico state line.
The New Mexico facility would be in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state near Carlsbad.
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Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this report from Albuquerque, N.M.
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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
New Mexico leaders reaffirm immigrant protections, as legal groups notice ‘uptick’ in ICE arrests- Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New Mexico elected officials and nonprofit leaders gathered in Albuquerque on Wednesday to acknowledge the fear in many immigrant families amid ongoing federal immigration raids — but also to reaffirm their commitment to keeping families together.
State House Speaker Javier Martinez and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller were among speakers at the office of El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos, each denouncing the federal immigration operations occurring throughout the state but also outlining long-standing protections Albuquerque and New Mexico residents have, regardless of immigration status.
“I will not allow a wannabe dictator in Washington, DC, to let my parents’ sacrifices and the sacrifices of all these good people behind me go to waste,” said Martinez (D-Albuquerque), referring to members of various immigration advocacy groups like El Centro joining him at the lectern. “If they want to come after you all, they need to come through me first.”
Martinez and Keller pointed to protections against local police coordinating with federal immigration agencies, along with a recent state law that prohibits state agencies from sharing resident data, including motor vehicle data, with the federal government.
Keller noted that the city has coordinated the distribution of 10,000 “red cards” that lay out immigrant rights, including in city schools, where the school board recently affirmed its policy prohibiting coordination with ICE.
The news conference comes amid an increase of federal immigration operations in the state, according to the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center and other groups that represent immigrants.
“Over the past several weeks, NMILC and our partners have observed a significant uptick in ICE arrests against community members,” said managing attorney Sophia Genovese. “Common tactics include ICE officers pulling over vehicles and detaining people, going to people’s homes and workplaces, detaining people at their immigration court hearings and appointments, and a number of other tips or tricks and bruising to effectuate the Trump administration’s mass deportation promise.”
ICE is also growing more violent, she said, “with at least one recent account of physical brutality” during an arrest. She was referring to the case of Jesus Jose Carrero-Marquez, a husband and father who was recently deported to Venezuela after living in Albuquerque with his family for at least two years. His wife told Source New Mexico last week that ICE agents threw him to the ground and put him in a chokehold, and he was hospitalized before being returned to ICE custody and ultimately deported.
According to Genovese, ICE agents conducted a mass arrest in a Walmart parking lot in Rio Rancho two weeks ago, along with “I-9 audits” where federal immigration law enforcement goes to restaurants and other businesses and asking owners for paperwork on all their employees.
“There’s a lot of ICE activity all throughout Albuquerque,” she said.
But it’s hard to pin down when and where raids are occurring, speakers said, given the fly-by-night nature of the arrests and because city employees, including the police department, are prohibited by law from coordinating with ICE.
In addition to the ICE activity in New Mexico’s biggest city, the speakers noted a raid at a dairy farm by federal immigration agents recently in Lovington,, where at least 11 people were arrested. The dairy farm has since shut down, Martinez said.
“Now if the argument is that we’re a bunch of freeloaders,” Martinez said, “ask yourself, ‘why are they raiding places of work?’ They’re not catching us at the welfare line while we commit fraud to get welfare.”
According to Keller, there are 20,000 mixed-status families in Albuquerque. Across New Mexico, 63,000 immigrants are homeowners, and immigrants across the state contribute $1.4 billion in federal state and local taxes, according to data El Centro presented.
The group also shared several anonymous quotes from families dealing with deportation, including from people whose relatives that have occurred here since Trump’s second term began.
“There are terrible things happening in our communities,” one of them reads. “Poor, defenseless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are being torn apart. Men, women and children are being separated.”
State hearings on Southern New Mexico water utility fines postponed - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Attorneys for state regulators and a Southern New Mexico water utility facing $250,000 in fines for arsenic level violations have agreed to push back hearings about the penalties.
The hearings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday will now be held sometime in the fall, according to a joint motion filed last week by attorneys for Camino Real Regional Utility Authority and the New Mexico Environment Department.
The utility supplies water for more than 19,000 people in Sunland Park, Santa Teresa and southern Doña Ana County, an area with high levels of naturally-occurring arsenic in the groundwater.
State regulators first issued fines of more than $251,000 in March 2024, after findings that the utility’s arsenic treatment plants were “offline and bypassed” for more than a year, sending drinking water with “high levels of arsenic” to residents.
Drinking water with high levels of arsenic is associated with diseases such as diabetes, increased risk of cancers, and can contribute to heart and lung diseases and skin problems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Utility leadership has said in statements that they take the concerns seriously and have worked to lower arsenic levels, achieving compliance with federal standards.
However, after a series of failed tests in May public officials and the state’s top environment officials said they’ve lost confidence in the utility’s leadership to address the chronic issues.
In late May, the New Mexico Environment Department filed an amended complaint, claiming that the utility delayed reporting elevated arsenic levels for multiple days and failed to specifically report them to the state.
“The continuing cycle of non-compliance by Respondent which compromises the public’s access to safe and reliable drinking water requires the application of a bad faith enhancement for each of the violations which are the subject of this enforcement action,” the amended complaint stated
Regulators raised the total fine to $252,000. Attorneys for the utility objected to the addition of new allegations for the upcoming June hearing, and requested more time to address them.
Both the utility and the environment department agreed to a calendar extending witness and discovery deadlines into August, with a final date for the new hearing to follow.
The utility faces additional court dates beyond the administrative hearing later this year.
A 3rd Judicial District Judge ordered parties to submit a further schedule in the civil lawsuit the state brought earlier this month against the utility, requesting the judge appoint a third party to take over the utility’s operations.
A hearing is scheduled for July in the civil lawsuit brought last year, which alleges the utility violated residents’ civil rights.
Wandering Mexican gray wolf Asha, now with pups and mate, set for release - Santa Fe New Mexican
The Mexican gray wolf, Asha, that was captured twice in Northern New Mexico has returned and has embarked in motherhood.
The Taos News reports, the endangered wolf gave birth to her first litter of five pups on May 8th at a wolf management facility near Socorro.
Asha, her pups, and her mate Arcadia will be released onto private land later this summer according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
Officials have said the time of the wolves’ release coincides with the elk calving season to help the pups develop into hunting.
They hope that Asha, who was captured from the wild, can help the pack acclimate, especially since her mate was raised in captivity.
Asha became a well-known figure in 2023 after she traveled multiple times to the far north of the Mexican wolf recovery area. She traveled nearly to Angel Fire in January of that year, but was soon captured and moved to captivity, then released in Arizona in June.