Department of Justice extends New Mexico US attorney’s term amid judicial, Senate criticism
— Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
“Interim” U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Ryan Ellison is now “acting” US attorney, following a Justice Department move that extends the state’s chief federal prosecutor’s term until next year without Senate or federal court approval.
Ellison’s office announced the extension Friday, coinciding with the legal end of his 120-day interim status that began when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him in April. The extension means he can continue as before leading an office of about 200 employees, including lawyers and contractors.
“I look forward to working with public servants of all political stripes to combat crime in New Mexico,” Ellison said in a news release Friday. “In the interim, I will continue to lead the United States Attorney’s Office in the same way that I have over the last four months—without fear, without favor, and with public safety as my top priority.”
The announced extension of 210 days comes the day after a panel of New Mexico federal judges, in a brief statement posted to the court’s website, declined to approve his appointment. But the panel also declined to name an alternative to the post, which it is empowered to do while an official confirmation plays out in the Senate.
Typically, panels like this one approve the interim appointment, if a Senate confirmation is pending. The Senate makes those appointments permanent through confirmation.
New Mexico federal court spokesperson Heather Small declined to comment on why the federal judge panel declined to approve him but also didn’t name someone to take his place.
Ellison, in the statement, said “I applaud New Mexico’s federal district judges for declining to appoint someone other than the Trump Administration’s choice.”
The court’s neutral decision on Ellison’s approval comes a month after a federal judge chastised him for his implementation and prosecution of immigrants arrested within a newly militarized zone along New Mexico’s shared border with Mexico.
Ellison is just the latest chief prosecutor across the country whose term has been extended by the attorney general through what’s known as the Federal Vacancy Act. Before Ellison, four others received special appointments from the executive branch, according to Bloomberg, instead of the typical judicial approval of interim US attorneys whom the Senate hasn’t yet confirmed.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, both New Mexico Democrats, denounced the extension and said it amounts to “a deliberate attempt to circumvent” oversight from the Senate or District Court.
“While we are committed to reviewing [Ellison’s] application and credentials, we are extremely concerned by this administration’s continuing willingness to trample the role of the Judiciary and Congress,” the pair wrote in a Friday news release.
According to Heinrich’s office, Ellison only last week submitted the final version of an application form to Heinrich’s office that is required for his Senate confirmation process “after substantial prodding by the Senator’s staff,” said spokesperson Luis Soriano in an email to Source New Mexico.
“Now that the application has been received, the Senators and their staff will review Ellison’s answers and the materials that he has provided, while also conducting an independent vetting process, consistent with how the Senators have approached all prior vacancies,” Soriano said.
Tessa Duberry, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on his application to be considered for Senate approval.
President Donald Trump has not officially nominated him for the post, which is also required before he can be confirmed in the Senate.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment from Source New Mexico on Friday.
While Heinrich’s office declined to comment on whether he will ultimately vote for Ellison, his office has previously been critical of Ellison’s efforts to crack down on border crossings in New Mexico.
In April, shortly after being appointed, Ellison stood alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to tout a newly created military border zone along New Mexico’s shared border with Mexico. Ellison announced the new zone enabled him to bring new misdemeanor charges against people who, with the Army’s help, were arrested within the border zone.
But the creation of the border zone created confusion among recreators and residents who live near the border, and a federal magistrate judge dismissed more than 100 early cases because Ellison’s office failed to demonstrate the people arrested knowingly trespassed. Prosecutors then self-dismissed three cases due to confusion about the border zone’s boundaries.
In mid-July, a federal judge in Las Cruces dismissed one case “with prejudice,” meaning prosecutors can’t bring it again, issuing a scathing ruling that said Ellison’s office failed to ensure defendants constitutional rights in hundreds of the cases.
“The Government’s inattention to statutory and constitutional rights has been a consistent throughline through these hundreds of cases,” District Court Judge Margaret Strickland wrote. “Time and time again the Government has initiated a prosecution… only to turn around within days and deport the defendant while the charges are pending and thereby necessarily imperil the defendant’s Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, and Speedy Trial Act rights.”
At least two of the prosecutions resulted in convictions, and Ellison’s statement Friday touted his office’s crackdown on illegal immigration and crime. According to his statement, illegal border crossings are down 92% and immigration-related prosecutions are up 180%.
“Our partnership with the U.S. military and the U.S. Border Patrol has made our southern border more secure than at any point in our nation’s history,” he said.
EPA approves more nuclear waste storage at New Mexico WIPP site - Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
The only permanent nuclear waste storage site in the country, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, has federal approval to add two new underground storage areas.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, stores radioactive waste, like tools or protective clothing that were contaminated with radioactive elements, in underground salt chambers.
At the end of July, the Environmental Protection Agency greenlit a Department of Energy request to add two new underground areas for nuclear waste storage at WIPP. The extra storage was needed because a storage area was contaminated in 2014 and could no longer be used, according to DOE.
WIPP began storing transuranic waste in 1999. Half a mile below the earth are storage areas called panels. Each panel has seven rooms. The rooms are 13 feet high, 33 feet wide and 300 feet long. When panels are filled with waste containers, workers close them and salt naturally fills in the space, helping trap the waste. The approval allows WIPP to build two more panels.
Both the EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department regulate WIPP.
New Mexico already approved the two new storage areas in 2023, with the condition that one of the areas should prioritize legacy waste, waste produced during the Cold War and the Manhattan Project instead of in new weapon development. The state also required DOE to create a clear definition of legacy waste.
But state Environment Secretary James Kenney does not think DOE has held up its end of the bargain.
“We renegotiated a permit in good faith that would focus on legacy waste and prioritize (Los Alamos National Laboratory),” Kenney said.
In particular, NMED officials want an 11-acre unlined dump with radioactive and toxic waste from the 1940s through 1970s dug up and disposed of at WIPP. Last year, DOE proposed covering the dump instead, a strategy NMED said would not be adequate. Then DOE withdrew its plan to clean up the area, called MDA-C, and turned its attention to other legacy waste projects, something Kenney thinks is a stall tactic.
To comply with the permit agreement, DOE also sent New Mexico a legacy waste disposal plan last year.
NMED’s Hazardous Waste Bureau Chief John David Nance asked for revisions to the plan in May. One of the issues Nance identified was an overly broad definition of legacy waste. He asked for a response from NMED by November.
Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, was disappointed by the federal approval but not surprised. Hancock wanted the EPA to use a more extensive rulemaking process to make the decision.
WIPP was not originally intended to be the only permanent storage site for nuclear waste and by law isn’t able to store high level radioactive waste or commercially produced nuclear waste. The law that created WIPP, the Land Withdrawal Act, set its capacity at 6.2 million cubic feet of transuranic waste.
But Hancock is concerned that if DOE does not find another permanent waste repository or permanent waste storage for higher level radioactive waste, the federal government will try to turn to New Mexico for even more nuclear waste storage.
“Two panels on the one hand doesn’t seem like such a big deal … but it’s part of this bigger situation of we need people in the federal government — DOE, EPA, Congress — to understand that New Mexico isn’t going to take it all,” Hancock said. “We’re giving you more than adequate warning that you’ve got to be working on someplace else.”
Attorneys general call on Meta to place privacy limits on new Instagram location feature - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s top law enforcement officer and his counterparts from a majority of states this week called on the social media giant Meta to add guardrails to a newly launched Instagram feature allowing the company and anyone who follows a user on the app to see their location.
Instagram on Aug. 6 launched the new feature for all users in the U.S. called Map, which displays the user’s profile picture and location in real-time on a map visible to any mutual followers. It quickly faced backlash from privacy advocates who warn against sharing highly personal data with an intermediary like Meta.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and attorneys general from 36 other states sent a letter Wednesday to Instagram executive Adam Mosseri saying that without careful controls, the new feature raises public safety and data privacy concerns, especially for vulnerable users like children and domestic violence survivors.
“Unrestricted location-sharing features pose a particular risk for minors as they can be readily used by sexual predators to identify and geographically target children in the real world,” they wrote. “We know that dangerous individuals are already present on Instagram, and we have serious concerns that this feature will increase the likelihood of hands-on abuse and exploitation.”
The attorneys general are calling on the social media company to prohibit minors from enabling location-sharing; provide clear alerts to adult users about the feature, its risks and how their location data will be used; and allow adult users who opt in to easily disable the feature at any time.
Implementing those measures would demonstrate Meta’s “commitment to protecting the privacy and security of your users while still allowing those who wish to share their location to do so knowingly and with informed consent,” they wrote.
The New Mexico Department of Justice is also pursuing litigation against Meta and Snap Inc, which owns Snapchat, alleging the companies’ policies fail to protect children.
“Instagram is once again prioritizing engagement over safety and has enabled a potentially dangerous feature without first ensuring the safety of their users, especially kids,” Torrez said in a statement. “It is absolutely stunning that the company would allow children on the platform to enable a feature which would provide predators with even more information to target and abuse them.”
“Real-time location features should of course be intentionally built and give users control, which is why Instagram Map’s design already addresses the issues the attorneys general raise: it is off by default, everyone receives a notification explaining what the feature entails and can turn it off whenever they want, and with parental supervision, parents get a notification if their teen starts using it and can block their access to location sharing at any time,” a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Instagram has accounts designed for teens that are automatically equipped with built-in protections, the company says on its website. That includes limiting who can contact them and what content they can see.
Other attorneys general joining New Mexico in the letter are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
‘Forever chemicals’ detected in Clovis-area blood tests, New Mexico environmental officials say — Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Blood tests from all but two of more than 600 residents around Cannon Air Force Base found so-called “forever chemicals” associated with firefighting foams, which have contaminated surrounding groundwater, according to a report released Thursday by the New Mexico Environment Department.
While the presence of the chemicals in 99% of the 628 samples is on par with national studies showing the level the group of chemicals known as PFAS appears in most people’s blood, New Mexico environment officials said the key finding of the study was types of chemicals present.
“That shows a correlation between what’s in their blood and what came from military operations at Cannon Air Force Base,” Environment Secretary James Kenney said in an interview with Source NM ahead of the report’s release Wednesday.
Cannon Air Force Base officials when reached by phone Wednesday said they could not immediately provide a response because the report was not yet public. Source NM will update the story with any further comment.
Of the 33 compounds tested for in the blood of residents outside of nearby Clovis, the four most prevalent substances are ingredients found in currently or historically in aqueous film-forming foams, or the type of suppressant used to put out fires from flammable liquids like gasoline.
The report also found that 14 people tested had very high PFAS levels, similar to levels found in other states where the chemicals were manufactured or spilled. For comparison, only an estimated 9% of adults nationwide have those levels present.
“I think it’s profoundly disappointing that we have 14 New Mexicans who are in that highest national tier from the Cannon Air Force Base’s foams migrating offsite,” Kenney said. “We don’t make the chemicals in New Mexico, they’re only used here in that concentration and that significance in military operations, and they think this is that direct link that has been missing, but now proven.”
New Mexicans working or living closer to the PFAS-contaminated groundwater plume under Cannon had PFAS levels that were three times higher than residents not working or living near the plume, according to the report.
The blood test results are from a 2024 state program to collect samples in 2024 from residents in surrounding Curry County immediately surrounding the base, in partnership between environment officials and New Mexico Department of Health. Participants were alerted to their results in the spring.
There’s been a rising awareness to address contamination from PFAS, an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of synthetic chemicals used in the manufacture of everything from rugs to cookware to firefighting foams. The foams, first used in the 1970s are effective for fighting high-heat fires from jet fuel ignition, hence the prevalence of their uses on Air Force Bases.
PFAS were first detected in soil and groundwater in 2018 near Cannon Air Force Base, with state officials alleging that the military’s use of firefighting foams over decades seeped into the soils and water. A dairy with contaminated wells was required to euthanize more than 3,000 cows and brought the miles-long plume to light.
These chemicals resist breaking down in nature and can accumulate in water, soils and increasingly in the blood and bodies of humans and animals around the world. While their harms are still being studied, researchers have linked PFAS exposure to a wide range of health issues such as: decreased fertility, fetal developmental delays, increases in certain cancer risks, disruption of immune responses and more, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Efforts to address PFAS pollution nationally are estimated to cost billions of dollars as cleanup efforts stretch for years. New Mexico’s PFAS contamination is concentrated around military bases including Cannon Air Force Base, Holloman Air Force Base, Kirtland Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range and Fort Wingate.The state has spent more than $10 million between investigations, damages, legal costs and cleanup, according to court filings.
While the military has previously promised to end PFAS use, top officials are saying they cannot meet the deadline to find an alternative in 2026, according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth’s statements to the Government Accountability Office in July.
“If this can happen in Curry County, it can happen in Anywhere, USA,” Kenney said. “They’ve authorized the use of these firefighting foams for another year, and the Department of Defense is going to be releasing these into communities all over the country.”
New Mexico is embroiled in several lawsuits over PFAS contamination. New Mexico is part of multi-state litigation in South Carolina, which includes a combined 10,000-plus cases against military and civilian PFAS contamination.
The state is also involved in separate litigation in the federal court system, after the U.S. Department of Defense sued the state, claiming it overstepped its authority in mandating cleanup.
In a new case filed this year, state officials alleged Cannon Air Force failed to address contamination, including barring state inspectors entry to the base to test for PFAS. The Department of Defense requested the case move to federal court, which was granted in August.
Sen. Pat Woods, a Republican from Clovis, told Source NM the state appropriated $12 million to pay to connect residents to city water, replacing contaminated, private wells.
“In the short run, we’re going to do some of these shorter pipelines to help Clovis citizens that have contaminated water and high levels in their bloodstream,” Woods said. “We didn’t cause the problem, but we’re proposing a solution to the problem.”
The New Mexico Environment Department will hold a public meeting on Thursday Oct. 23 in Curry County to present the report’s findings.
New Mexico reaches 100 measles cases after 3 reported in Santa Fe County — Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
Measles cases have officially hit triple digits in New Mexico, according to state health officials.
On Thursday, the New Mexico Department of Health announced that the state has recorded more than 100 cases of measles after three Santa Fe County residents were diagnosed with the disease.
Of the cases, one resulted in death after an unvaccinated Lea County resident contracted pneumonia related to the disease.
In the Santa Fe County cases, two were adults and one was a child, all of whom were unvaccinated.
From Feb. 1 to Aug. 13, more than 48,000 New Mexicans have received the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. Nearly 28,000 vaccinations were given to children under the age of 18.
“We remain grateful New Mexicans continue to get their measles vaccination in an effort to slow the spread of the virus,” Dr. Miranda Durham, state Department of Health chief medical officer, said in a news release. “Without that, measles outbreaks are more likely to last longer and grow over time.”
A person with measles is contagious four days before a rash appears and remains contagious for several days, according to the Department of Health. In enclosed sp aces, the virus can remain in the air for two hours after a person who has the illness has left.
Symptoms begin with a cough, runny nose and eye redness, followed by a fever and rash, which starts on the head before spreading down the body, the health department says.
Santa Fe county commissioners table Rancho Viejo until Aug. 26 - Santa Fe New Mexican
In Santa Fe, the Rancho Viejo proposed solar energy project will once again go before Santa Fe County commissioners on Tuesday, Aug. 26.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports after more than 20 hours of testimony this week, commissioners opted to suspend the proceedings until Aug. 26.
The proposed project from Virginia-based AES Corporation would build a large solar energy and battery energy storage facility about 3 miles south of Santa Fe and a mile and a half from Eldorado.
Supporters of the project have cited the potential to use solar energy to generate enough electricity to power much of Santa Fe.
Opponents have cited danger from overheating lithium-ion batteries, as well as other concerns.
The New Mexican reports it’s unclear whether commissioners intend to vote on the matter at the Aug. 26. meeting.
Those opposed to the project say if county commissioners approve Rancho Viejo, they plan to file an appeal to state District Court.