Monsoon season brings the promise of rain for the arid southwestern US - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Clouds build up in the early afternoon and gusty winds push in every direction. The skies darken and then comes the rain — often a downpour that is gone as quickly as it came.
This seasonal dance choreographed by Mother Nature marks a special time for the southwestern United States and Mexico. It is when residents clasp their hands, hoping for much-needed moisture to dampen the threat of wildfire and keep rivers flowing.
Forecasters say it has been a wet start to this year's monsoon season, which officially began June 15 and runs through the end of September. Parts of New Mexico and West Texas have been doused with rain, while Arizona and Nevada have been hit with dust storms, which are a common hazard of the season.
In other parts of the world, monsoons often mean months of never-ending rain.
In North America, the season can have considerable variability. The bursts and breaks depend on how much moisture is circulating and which way the wind blows.
Easing drought
The monsoon relies on the buildup of summer heat and shifting wind direction, which helps funnel moisture from distant bodies of water to areas where rain is sparse.
Just ahead of the monsoon, officials with the Navajo Nation declared an emergency because of worsening drought conditions across the reservation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
Below-average precipitation month after month has left little forage for livestock, and fire danger has ramped up as pockets of moderate and severe drought expand. Ranchers and farmers are being urged to reduce their herds, shift to drought-tolerant crops and limit irrigation.
New Mexico's governor also declared an emergency in May because of severe drought and escalating fire risk.
Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Integrated Drought Information System say monsoonal rainfall only provides a fraction of the West's water supplies, with the majority coming from snowpack. Still, summer rains can reduce drought impacts by lessening the demand for water stored in reservoirs, recharging soil moisture and groundwater, and reducing the risk of wildfires.
New Mexico and Arizona typically stand to benefit the most from the North American monsoon, getting anywhere between 10% to 60% of their annual precipitation during the season. It has a lesser influence in Nevada and California, though southern Nevada on average gets 20% to 25% of its precipitation during the summer.
Along the Rio Grande at the base of the Jemez Mountains, Santa Ana Pueblo farmers are eagerly watching the afternoon skies. Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo said they have already had several good downpours, and he wouldn't mind more.
But that will be for the spirits to decide, Armijo said. "You know, it's not up to us," he said.
Flooding fears
With summer rains come increased river flows and in some cases flooding in normally dry washes and across the scars left by wildfires.
Sandbag stations have been set up in communities across the region — from Tucson, Arizona, to Albuquerque and San Antonio, Texas. In Española, state transportation workers have closed a historic bridge that funnels traffic across the Rio Grande, citing concerns about higher flows further eroding a concrete pier.
On the edge of the Gila National Forest, New Mexico National Guard troops have delivered dozens of pallets of filled sandbags for residents who are preparing for flooding following a blaze that has charred about 74 square miles (192 square kilometers).
Meanwhile, hundreds of firefighters are hoping for higher humidity and rain to tamp down a wildfire that is racing through a mountainous area of the Navajo Nation. Fire officials reported that the flames made a 6-mile (9.66-kilometer) run in a matter of hours.
Once the fire is out, land managers acknowledge that the monsoon will be a mixed blessing, as rainfall on the charred hillsides will surely result in surges of runoff filled with ash and debris.
A tie that binds
Just as light and shadow move across the mesa tops beyond artist Daniel McCoy's studio, the Rio Grande pulses with each downpour, turning into what looks like a sudsy caramel concoction as it carries away sediment.
The river and the desert badlands and purple mountain peaks that border it are the inspiration for the giant canvasses McCoy is preparing for an upcoming show at the Hecho a Mano gallery in Santa Fe.
McCoy, who is Muskogee (Creek) and Potawatomi, grew up working on a farm with his grandfather in Oklahoma. He and his green thumb faced new challenges when he moved to the arid Southwest, where water shortages often lead to mandatory rationing and pleas for prayers.
A sign down the street from his studio reads in Spanish: "El Agua No Se Vende. El Agua Se Defiende." It means water isn't for sale, and the right to access the finite resource should be defended.
"It's made me mindful more than I ever thought I would be," he said of hearing stories from longtime locals about the preciousness of water.
But McCoy fits right in, living by the seasons and learning to tend to his drinking water well.
"When you're outside working, it's a different kind of time. You live more by what the sun's doing and what the water's doing," he said. "And so it's good to be connected to that."
Bernalillo County offers ‘Take a Ride on Us’ for Independence Day weekend - nm.news
Bernalillo County and its partners are once again providing free and safe rides for Independence Day weekend through the “Take a Ride on Us” program.
This initiative aims to encourage residents in Bernalillo, Sandoval and Santa Fe counties to plan ahead and avoid driving under the influence during the upcoming festivities.
From 10 a.m. on July 4 through 2 a.m. on July 7, individuals can utilize the Uber app to receive up to $10 off two trips. To access the discount, riders should open the Uber app, tap “Vouchers,” and enter the code NMUSA25.
The offer is valid for up to 2,500 rides and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. It is important to note that the discount is limited to Uber rides and does not apply to Uber Eats orders or cover driver tips.
The “Take a Ride on Us” program, created by Cumulus Media Albuquerque, is made possible through a collaborative public-private partnership. Key partners include Bernalillo County, Sandoval County, Santa Fe County, Glasheen Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers, Sandia Resort & Casino and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
Since its inception in 2017, the program has successfully provided over 63,000 safe rides in the Albuquerque metro area. This ongoing effort plays a crucial role in reducing impaired driving incidents and enhancing road safety during holidays and special events.
Here’s more information about Bernalillo County’s DWI prevention program.
Massive Senate spending bill promises major impact on New Mexico – Albuquerque Journal
What’s in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and how will it affect New Mexicans? For some it will mean tax cuts, for others it could mean life and death. Here’s a list of all the ways the bill could affect the Land of Enchantment.
Trump’s bill narrowly passed the Senate by a vote of 51-50 with all Democrats, including both New Mexico senators, joining three Republican senators in voting no. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie. The White House said the bill is the “largest tax cut for working- and middle-class families in U.S. history” and will fund a crackdown on undocumented people living in the U.S., while repealing some of what Republicans say were the most damaging parts of former president Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, which invested heavily in renewable energies.
Opponents warn that the bill contains provisions that will disproportionately affect states such as New Mexico that have large numbers of Medicaid and supplemental food program beneficiaries and the rural hospitals that treat them. New Mexico is one of four states on the Mexico border that are likely to feel the effects of changes in immigration policy. The bill also takes aim at energy policies likely to affect the state.
“Senate Republicans had a choice: stand with working families or bend to billionaires,” Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said in a statement following the vote. “They chose greed, cruelty, and a callous disregard for the people they represent. New Mexicans and all Americans will suffer for it.”
MEDICAID AND RURAL HOSPITALS
The Senate package would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by implementing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans. State officials estimated Tuesday that 90,000 New Mexicans could lose Medicaid coverage caused primarily by increased eligibility checks and increased work requirements that would start in 2027. As of May, about 38.5% of New Mexicans were enrolled in Medicaid.
Medicaid cuts threaten to close six to eight rural New Mexico hospitals in coming years with hospitals in Gallup, Taos, Las Vegas and Clayton at particular risk, state officials warn.
SNAP
The bill contains sweeping changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, which provides food benefits to more than 460,000 New Mexicans.
The New Mexico Health Care Authority estimates that the bill would cut between $224 million and $352 million in SNAP benefits to the state. The agency estimates that about 58,000 New Mexicans will lose SNAP benefits. It will also increase the state’s share of the federal match from 50% to 75%.
The bill would require able-bodied adults under age 65 to work 80 hours per month, with exceptions for those with children under 10. It also limits SNAP benefits to lawful permanent residents.
CHANGES TO STUDENT LOANS, PELL GRANTS
The bill makes sweeping changes to student loans, with the most considerable calculated savings being an estimated $271 billion, achieved by limiting payment options based on income. It changes qualifications for Pell Grants, notably the elimination of those grants for students with full-ride scholarships and changes to how students’ and families’ financial need is calculated.
OIL AND GAS
If passed, oil and gas royalty rates on federal lands would drop from 16.67% to 12.5%. Additionally, coal development royalty rates would decrease from 12.5% to 7%. Royalty rates are payments operators make to extract public resources, and the money goes to the U.S. Treasury — and is one of the largest nontax sources of revenue for the federal government, according to the Center on American Progress.
Barbara Vasquez, board chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils, described the move as “a ruthless giveaway to the fossil fuel industry.”
“The bill will rob taxpayers of a fair return and deprive rural communities of billions in funding we rely on for schools, roads and other basic infrastructure,” she said in a statement. The legislation would also require the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to hold quarterly lease sales for oil and gas development. BLM is leasing out upward of 22 million acres to the extractive industries, and the Wilderness Society estimates 88% of New Mexico federal lands are still up for grabs for oil and gas drilling.
WIND AND SOLAR
As for renewable energy, residential and commercial clean energy and energy efficiency incentives would get phased out more quickly under the bill. Tax credits, some of which Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act had poised to run through the early 2030s, could vanish as soon as the end of this year or, in other cases, by 2028.
It would put pressure on local solar manufacturers to sign New Mexicans up for solar panel installations sooner rather than later, as the elimination of the residential clean energy tax credit would increase the return on investment for major purchases like rooftop solar by years. Terminating the 30% credit after this year would also save $77 billion for the federal government, according to The New York Times.
While renewable energy officials have called the bill unnecessarily punitive to clean energy industries, Larry Behrens, spokesperson for the energy organization Power the Future, said it finally brings renewables to a level playing field with oil and gas.
“When we look at the fact that wind and solar will now have to stand on their own, and people will get a real feel of what the real cost is for those intermittent electric generation (sources), then they will start to see the failure they are,” Behrens told the Journal.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Planned Parenthood received over $792 million in government health services reimbursements and grants, including Medicaid, according to the nonprofit’s 2023 and 2024 annual fiscal report. But those numbers could quickly diminish as the bill proposes to defund any federal money going to Planned Parenthood.
Jack Teter, vice president of government affairs for Planned Parenthood, said the impact on New Mexicans is “enormous.
“Removing the country’s largest family planning provider from the Medicaid system is going to have a terrible effect on patients and providers,” Teter said.
Planned Parenthood provides a variety of medical services, including primary care, birth control access, cervical and breast cancer screenings and more. But one of the biggest services Planned Parenthood provides is abortions.
Over 21,000 abortions were performed in New Mexico, but nearly 70% of them were patients from Texas, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Teter added Medicaid is not applicable for anyone not in the state, meaning those patients used other insurance or paid for the procedure out-of-pocket.
“The impact that this will have on Planned Parenthood is going to be serious,” Teter said. “It’s going to be disastrous. The impact of removing health insurance coverage for millions of patients across the country is going to have a horrible impact on people’s ability to access care. That’s not just at Planned Parenthood, that’s at hospitals all over the country.”
TAXES AND THE DEFICIT
The bill includes an estimated $4.5 trillion in tax cuts by making permanent Trump’s 2017 tax rates, according to the latest CBO estimate. Among the expanded tax cuts are those Trump campaigned on, including no tax on tips. The bill would increase the standard deduction by $750, or $1,500 for couples, in 2025 and include inflation adjustments. It would also permanently increase the alternative minimum tax to $2,200 in 2026 and require a Social Security number from one parent.
“The President’s legislation will put more than $10,000 a year back in the pockets of typical hardworking families. This is the most pro-growth, pro-worker, pro-family legislation ever crafted,” the White House said in a statement. “Failure to pass this legislation would result in a $4 trillion tax hike.”
The bill would also create “Trump bonds” of $1,000 for every baby born between 2024 and 2028. The money would be invested and help until the child turns 18 and then can be used for specific circumstances like paying for college.
SPACEPORT
The bill would allow spaceports the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds, similar to airports and seaports. Spaceport America, located near Truth or Consequences, is a state-funded agency and funded by taxpayers.
The bill would increase investment in spaceport infrastructure, lower financing costs for spaceport development and allow for private investments. Tax-exempt bonds have been used to finance public infrastructure projects in the past. Spaceport America declined to provide comment.
BORDER AND IMMIGRATION
The bill includes a new annual fee for pending asylum cases of at least $100. An earlier proposal to set a $1,000 fee for asylum applicants was rejected by the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian as ineligible for a reconciliation bill, which requires a simple majority to pass the Senate. The final version nonetheless preserves a number of application and work authorization fees for immigrants, including a $5,000 fee for migrants apprehended between ports of entry.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said the fees would increase pressure on border communities and local law enforcement agencies in New Mexico, as financial barriers might push more migrants to attempt to enter the U.S. unlawfully.
The bill appropriates $46.5 billion to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for border wall construction and related infrastructure, including cameras and sensors. Additional funds for local border wall segments are available through a $10 billion fund for states and local governments to help fund border security, law enforcement and relocating immigrants who enter the U.S. without authorization.
It also directs $45 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for expanded detention facilities housing single adults and families, as the administration continues to ramp up removals. New Mexico currently hosts three facilities managed by private operators under contract for ICE, in Milan, Estancia and Chaparral.
ICE will also receive $29.8 billion for hiring and training officers and other staff. The allocation of nearly $75 billion to ICE over five years came amid concerns among lawmakers about the Department of Homeland Security’s spending and budget overruns at ICE as the agency attempts to realize Trump’s promise to execute historic numbers of deportations.
And the bill includes funding to assist with military operations in recently-delegated “national security areas” installed on federal lands along the international boundary, including much of New Mexico’s border with Mexico.
RADIATION EXPOSURE COMPENSATION ACT
A federal program to compensate people who develop certain diseases after being exposed to radiation through aboveground nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining could get renewed and expanded. An extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program was included in the bill text, thanks to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. The program was allowed to expire last year.
The legislation would include New Mexico as a downwind state for the first time and expand eligibility to more uranium mine workers, a long-term goal of New Mexico’s Democratic senators.
FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTION
The bill would expand the federal tax deduction for certain film, television and theatrical productions to include qualified sound recording productions. The deduction allows up to $150,000 for sound recording costs in the tax year that the expenses were incurred.
All of New Mexico’s downwinders could be compensated under Senate’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ – Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch
The federal government’s program that gives payments to people sickened by nuclear weapons testing is one step closer to being reauthorized and expanded.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans passed their massive tax and spending package, nicknamed the “big, beautiful bill” — among its many provisions is an expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which expired more than a year ago.
If the bill clears the final vote needed from the House, downwinders in New Mexico will now receive compensation for their medical bills, marking a significant change to the program that advocates say was too narrow to begin with.
Here are the RECA highlights, found in the final pages of the Senate’s 887-page bill:
- Downwinders in all of New Mexico, Utah and Idaho would now be eligible for payments. Coverage would also be widened in Arizona to include all of Coconino, Yavapai, Navajo, Apache, Gila, and Mohave counties. Residents who lived in certain parts of Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky who were sickened due to the Manhattan Project would also receive coverage.
- The program’s new expiration date would be Dec. 31, 2028.
- In some cases, people who lived in affected areas for just one year would be eligible for compensation — the program previously required they live there at least two years.
- The compensation amount — originally $50,000 to $75,000 — would be increased to $100,000 in most cases.
- Uranium miners and workers based in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon and Texas would be covered. The timeframe of eligibility would also be extended to 1990.
“RECA is generational legislation for Missouri and will finally deliver justice for survivors in the St. Louis region,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who sponsored the provision. “I call on the House to quickly pass this legislation and send it to President Trump’s desk.”
RECA expired in June 2024 after Congress failed to reauthorize it, and in the year since, downwinders who were just recently diagnosed with cancer or who didn’t know about the program were left without compensation. The New Mexico delegation and radiation survivors marked the anniversary of its expiration by renewing calls for RECA’s expansion.
The program had been in place since 1990, but downwinders have long said it should be expanded. Despite studies suggesting the entire West was blanketed by dangerous levels of radiation during nuclear tests, downwinders in just 10 counties in Utah, as well as a handful of counties in Nevada and Arizona, were covered.
Last year, New Mexico Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján teamed up with Hawley to sponsor a bill that would expand the program to cover much of the West. The bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House, mostly over spending concerns.
In mid-June, when Hawley re-introduced the measure into the GOP budget bill, the delegation responded by noting, in part, that the measure has previously garnered bipartisan support.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District, also noted in a statement provided to Source that over the years of fighting for RECA, the state’s delegation and the advocates have “built a broad coalition grounded in justice and science, yet Republican leadership refused to pass our bill and the program lapsed last year. Since then, people have been dying while Republican leadership in the House drags its feet. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day. While the broader Billionaires Budget Bill is deeply harmful in many ways, we are glad some Republicans are finally recognizing the value of RECA. New Mexicans have waited long enough. They deserve the compensation and recognition they’ve earned through pain and sacrifice.”
It’s not yet clear whether RECA has the support needed in the House to withstand the final vote. The New York Times estimates that the current proposed expansion will cost about $7.7 billion.
Correction: A previous version reported uranium workers in South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Texas were not covered under RECA. While these states were not covered in the initial version of the bill, it was expanded in 2000 to included these states.
Source New Mexico contributed reporting to this story.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.