Gas price surge strains drivers, boosts state revenue - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
The latest spike in gas prices is a double-edged nozzle in New Mexico, as consumers continue to feel the impact of rising costs while the state takes in more money from royalties and tax payments.
Average gas prices in the state climbed past $4 per gallon Thursday — or about 40% higher than they were one year ago, according to AAA data.
Gas prices were highest in rural Harding County, where they reported an average $4.85 per gallon, and were lowest in eastern New Mexico communities including Clovis and Portales.
Due to the Iran war and related supply chain interruptions, global oil prices have hit their highest level since 2022. In New Mexico the current average gas prices in the state are more than $1 above prices for regular fuel in mid-February, when they sat at about $2.70 per gallon.
At a glance
New Mexico gas prices have increased rapidly over the last two months. Here are mean prices from around the state as of Thursday:
- Albuquerque — $4.12 per gallon
- Santa Fe — $4.09 per gallon
- Farmington — $4.14 per gallon
- Las Cruces — $4.16 per gallon
But buying gas in New Mexico is still more affordable than in many other places, with the average cost of gas in San Diego surging past $6 per gallon this week. The national average as of Thursday was $4.30 per gallon.
While the spike in gas prices has hit New Mexicans’ pocketbooks from Deming to Dulce, it’s also led to increased revenue inflows for the state.
New Mexico is the nation’s second-highest oil producer — behind only Texas — and the recent surge in oil prices has reversed a downward state revenue trend from earlier this year. Recurring revenue is now tracking roughly $320 million — or 2.4% — above projected levels for the current fiscal year, according to Legislative Finance Committee data.
During a legislative hearing this week, LFC Director Charles Sallee said most of the revenue surplus will flow into the state’s permanent funds, which are invested and provide yearly distributions to support schools, hospitals and other programs.
“Very little of it will make its way into the general fund in a direct way,” Sallee told lawmakers.
Unlike in past years when drops in oil prices prompted furloughs and state spending cuts, the strategy of funneling excess oil revenue into trust funds has put New Mexico on more stable fiscal footing going forward, Sallee added.
“We’re moving out of a situation of high volatility on both the up side and the down side,” he said.
However, the spike in gas prices has not led to increased oil drilling in southeast New Mexico’s Permian Basin — at least for now.
Missi Currier, the president and CEO of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said Thursday that production decisions typically hinge more on long-term planning and infrastructure capacity than on short-term price movements alone.
“New Mexico’s oil and natural gas industry continues to operate responsibly and efficiently, providing reliable energy while supporting jobs and generating significant revenue for the state,” Currier told the Journal. “Any sustained changes in commodity prices can have implications for state revenues over time, but it’s important to recognize that these impacts depend on the duration and stability of pricing trends.”
Meanwhile, stubbornly high inflation and rising gas prices have also emerged as key issues during New Mexico’s election cycle this year.
Several candidates for governor have proposed tax cuts to provide financial relief for state residents and businesses alike, with the three Republican candidates in the race all calling for full repeal or partial reduction of the state’s personal income taxes during a KOAT-TV debate this week.
As for the two Democrats in the race, Sam Bregman has called for $500 per person rebates for New Mexico families making less than $200,000 per year, while Deb Haaland has said she would push to expand existing tax breaks and reduce the state’s gross receipts tax rate.
Lujan Grisham mandates NM environment officials resume food, health inspections - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday ordered the state’s environment department to immediately resume health and food safety inspections, which had been paused since last Friday.
According to a news release, the department stopped inspections due to a $1.2 million budget shortfall stemming from the most recent legislation session. Lujan Grisham said her office is working with the Department of Finance and Administration and legislative staff to identify funds to transfer to the department to resume inspections.
“The Environment Department’s decision to halt inspections was premature,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “We will resolve the agency’s budget shortfall to ensure the crucial service of providing health and safety inspections is uninterrupted moving forward.”
The Environmental Health Bureau oversees inspections of food service establishments, including in schools, hospitals, nursing homes and detention centers, along with public pools and septic systems across the state. The bureau employs 35 inspectors, who conduct about 17,500 inspections per year.
According to NMED Director of Communications Drew Goretzka, the budget gap translated into approximately $800,000 in unmet payroll costs for the bureau along with a roughly $400,000 shortfall for overhead, such as travel costs for inspections or vehicle maintenance.
He said the department did not anticipate any backlogs from the three-day hiatus.
Meta raises specter of shutting down service to New Mexico in legal clash over child safety - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Meta is raising the prospect of shutting down its social media services in New Mexico in response to a push by state prosecutors for fundamental changes to the company's platforms, including Instagram, to protect the mental health and safety of children.
The possibility emerged amid legal gamesmanship in the runup to a bench trial next week on allegations that Meta poses a public nuisance. It's the second phase of a case that already resulted in $375 million in civil penalties on a jury's determination that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Prosecutors are asking the court to order a series of changes to child accounts on social media aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.
Meta executives have emphasized that the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive social media use. The company says it's being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use.
In a court filing unsealed Thursday, Meta said it was unfeasible for the company to meet a proposed requirement for 99% accuracy in verifying that child users are at least 13 years old, among other demands.
"As a practical matter, this requirement effectively requires Meta to shut down its services — for all users in the state — or else comply with impossible obligations," Meta said in the filing.
Such a shutdown across a population of 2.1 million residents in New Mexico could silence personal communication on Meta's immensely popular platforms, which also include Facebook and WhatsApp, and also impact their use for commercial advertising.
By withdrawing from New Mexico, Meta would satisfy any concerns about harm to children, but the message could appear intentionally hostile and might lead to unintended consequences, said Eric Goldman, codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California.
Goldman noted that Canadian authorities accused Facebook in 2023 of putting profits over safety after the platform blocked local news content during record-setting wildfires and evacuations. Facebook was responding to a newly enacted law that requires tech giants to pay publishers for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
A Los Angeles jury last month found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services, validated longstanding concerns about the dangers of social media.
New Mexico's case against Meta is the first to reach trial among more that 40 state attorneys general who have filed suit against the company on claims it contributes to a mental health crisis among young people. Most are pursuing remedies in U.S. federal court.
"I highly doubt that they're going to be willing and able to turn the lights off for their product all over the country," New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in an online news conference.
Torrez disputed Meta's argument that proposed changes are impractical, describing "before times" in an ever-evolving social media landscape when "we didn't have infinite scroll and we didn't have auto-play." Torrez, a Democrat running for reelection to a second term in November, said he won't be "turning a blind eye to exploited children in the state of New Mexico because people have an advertising contract."
Beyond the U.S., other countries have implemented — or are planning — a bevy of restrictions on children's online activities, ranging from social media bans to requiring younger teens to link their accounts to a parent's. New Mexico also wants all child accounts on Meta platforms to have an associated parent or guardian, as well as a court-supervised child safety monitor to track improvements over time.
Goldman said there are some countries that Facebook "doesn't directly support in part because it's just not worth it."
"The cost of maintaining the separate service is greater than any value from that territory," he said. "And that could be the case with New Mexico as well."
Taos family sues New Mexico road department for neglecting 'lethal hazard' at Rio Grande Gorge Bridge - John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
The family of a Taos teen who died by suicide at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in September filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week against the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
The lawsuit accuses the state of failing to install safety measures at the National Historic Landmark despite dozens of suicides there since it opened in 1965.
Taos County Sheriff’s deputies recovered the body of 15-year-old Noah Salmons below the Gorge Bridge on Sept. 21 — one of seven such deaths recorded at the historic steel arch span, which sits 600 feet above the canyon floor west of Taos.
In a civil complaint filed in 1st Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, the Salmons argued that their son’s death could have been prevented had the state acted upon three feasibility studies that proposed safety measures at the Gorge Bridge in 2009, 2015 and 2018.
The proposals centered on the bridge’s 4-foot-tall railings, calling for higher rails, vertical netting that could act as a barrier or chain-link fencing, among other solutions.
NMDOT closed the bridge to foot traffic in September following a string of three deaths that month alone. In December the agency announced it would install higher railings and lighter-weight sidewalks, the day after deputies recovered the body of a Colorado woman who also died by suicide at the bridge.
But Albuquerque-based attorney Shayne Huffman said in Monday’s complaint that, for dozens of families whose loved ones have traveled from near and far to take their lives at the Gorge Bridge, the action is too little, too late.
The lawsuit asserts the state failed to address a known “lethal hazard for decades.”
“Despite this knowledge, NMDOT took no meaningful action to implement these deterrents or otherwise ensure the safety of the public at the Bridge prior to the death of Noah Salmons,” the complaint reads.
Asked for comment on Tuesday, agency spokesperson Kristine Mihelcic said NMDOT “does not comment on pending or threatened litigation.”
Huffman in an interview said the civil complaint may be the first of its kind in New Mexico, but the lawsuit refers to national studies demonstrating suicide deterrents to be effective at high bridges that have attracted people in crisis elsewhere in the U.S.
He referred to two oft-cited examples where higher railings have greatly reduced instances of suicide: The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Royal Gorge Bridge outside Colorado Springs.
He said that higher railings were installed in both instances, removing a certain path to suicide for people in distress and a source of trauma and cost for those communities.
“People aren’t finding ways to get around these railings, right?” he said. “Because suicide, it’s an impulsive thing that happens for somebody in a moment of crisis.”
UNM announces three finalists for provost - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
The University of New Mexico on Wednesday announced three finalists to be its next provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
According to the university, the provost serves as UNM's chief academic officer, providing leadership for the university's academic programs, faculty affairs, research enterprise and student success initiatives.
The finalists are:
- Avery August, deputy provost at Cornell University. August is a professor of immunology. He has a bachelor’s degree in medical technology from California State University at Los Angeles and a doctorate in immunology from Cornell. His research focuses on understanding the immunological basis for the balance of inflammation and pathology.
- Charles Martinez, dean of the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Martinez is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. He is the founding director of the Center for Research and Community Impact, which studies disparities in education and health. His work focuses on the positive development of Latino youth and their families. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pitzer College and a master’s and doctorate from the California School of Professional Psychology.
- Barbara Rodriguez, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at UNM. Rodriguez served as senior vice provost and chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. Her research focuses on bilingual language development in young children, particularly in Spanish speakers. Rodriguez holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UNM and earned her doctorate in speech-language pathology from the University of Washington. She grew up in Española and joined the faculty of UNM in 1999.
The nationwide search to replace former provost James Holloway began in late January. Holloway left UNM in July after six years to become president of the University of Toledo in Ohio.
Rodriguez has been serving in Holloway’s position in the interim.
After a replacement is selected in May for President Garnett Stokes, who will be retiring in July, the new university president will help select the new provost, according to UNM spokesperson Ben Cloutier.
Candidates for provost will visit the campus for open forums in early May. All forums will be held in the Student Union Building, Lobo A/B, from 10:05 to 11:05 a.m.
August will visit Friday, May 1; Martinez will visit Wednesday, May 6; and Rodriguez will visit Thursday, May 7. Surveys will be available for the public to offer its feedback following each finalist’s visit on the UNM website.
Still to come are campus visits from the remaining three finalists for president: Eric Barker from Purdue University, Steven Goldstein from the University of California, Irvine, and Eric Link from the University of North Dakota. The presidential finalists will visit May 11-13, after which the search committee will announce its choice.
Asbestos detected in Lindy’s Diner after wall collapse - Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
A city assessment performed after the partial collapse of Lindy's Diner in Downtown Albuquerque has found that the historic building contains asbestos.
A city of Albuquerque Code Enforcement team conducted an evaluation of the structure after its walls collapsed Monday afternoon, the city said Wednesday in a news release.
An asbestos test found that fibrous minerals were detected in “portions of the piping and flooring adhesive,” according to Tim Walsh, spokesperson for the city. The debris pile from the collapse did not contain signs of asbestos.
The hazardous materials were secured, he added.
An initial review of the Bliss Building was completed, Walsh said, and city officials await a second opinion from an independent structural engineer to verify the findings.
Lindy's Diner owner Steve Vatoseow was not aware of the asbestos, adding that he had not been informed of the city’s findings until he was notified by the Journal.
“I should be aware of any findings they have,” he said. “It’s not due diligence on their part.”
Vatoseow stated that the asbestos was most likely due to the building's age, adding that the property had been tested before a movie was filmed inside the diner, and production crews determined that the building was asbestos-free.
“That’s how they constructed things back then, and it was built in 1905,” he said. “I would assume there’s asbestos in nearly every building Downtown. I don’t think it’s unique to my building.”
Vatoseow believes the asbestos may have come from the diner's second story, which has been vacant since around 1975, when it operated as the Elgin Hotel, which housed 22 rooms.
He told the Journal in 2025 that he has not touched the upper portions of the building since the hotel closed down because it was out of code and would take a “considerable investment” to repair.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prohibited a majority of asbestos products in 1989, with the ban finalized in 2022. The Bliss Building, at 500 Central SW, was constructed in the early 1900s.
Vatoseow said Tuesday his goal is to preserve the building if possible.
The second review — set to be completed Thursday — will determine whether the property can be salvaged or will need to be demolished.
“Once that review is complete, the city will share the confirmed results with the public,” Walsh said.