Feds officially cancel conservation rule for public lands - byPatrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The United States Bureau of Land Management on Monday formally cancelled the so-called “Public Land Rule,” which required the agency to consider conservation and development equally in land-use decisions for millions of acres across the West.
The BLM, which manages 13.5 million acres of land in New Mexico, published a notice Monday in the Federal Register finalizing its elimination of the 2024 rule, officially known as the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule. The agency first announced it was considering eliminating the rule in September.
The Biden-era rule provided guidance for ensuring conservation received due consideration along with mining, timber, grazing, recreation or other uses on public lands. It also allowed the BLM to issue leases specifically for conservation, though the agency never issued any.
The BLM’s notice Monday said officials had received and responded to nearly 140,000 public comments in response to the proposal. Ultimately, officials said eliminating the 2024 rule was necessary because it “threatened to restrict productive use of the public lands and introduced uncertainty and unnecessary burdens in planning and permitting.” The rule’s elimination comes alongside executive orders and other actions by the Trump administration to expand drilling, mineral production and other commercial uses of public lands.
Michael Carroll, a campaign director for environmentalist group The Wilderness Society, told Source NM on Monday that the rule’s rescission, which officially goes into effect in 30 days, will leave millions of acres across the West newly vulnerable to oil and gas extraction and mining.
“They’re effectively saying, ‘We’re just going to prioritize extraction across BLM lands,’ Carroll said. “They’re going to be prioritizing industrial-scale development on those public lands. I think we’ll see that right away.”
He also noted that the BLM determined it did not need to consult with Indigenous tribes in its decision to rescind the rule, which he called “shocking in terms of its disrespect to tribal nations,” many of which sit adjacent to federal lands.
The Wilderness Society was among many environmental groups that denounced the end of the “Public Lands Rule” on Wednesday. Several public statements from the groups mentioned the pending U.S. Senate confirmation of Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico Republican congressman, as BLM director.
If the Senate confirms him, Pearce, who has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, will oversee an agency that is no longer required to consider conservation as an acceptable use of public land, Carroll said.
“Today is a bad day for those people who care about public lands and care about the Bureau of Land Management,” he said. “But we’ll keep fighting and keep pushing back.”
Union: CYFD retaliated against anonymous workers who spoke in news stories - Esteban Candelaria, Searchlight New Mexico
Change often begins with someone deciding to speak up and identify a problem.
But at the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, workers who do are just being punished more harshly, the union representing them says.
Leaders at CYFD have said they abhor what its workforce describes as an ongoing problem of supervisors and managers retaliating against employees over disagreements about case management, office politics, disciplinary issues and other conflicts.
But employees suspected of speaking to The New Mexican in its reporting about workplace culture problems within the troubled child welfare agency’s county offices have become the targets of investigations and further harassment, according to union leaders.
“They were very, very heavy-handed,” said Connie Derr, executive director of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “... They wanted to know who is talking to the media, who’s leaking information.”
The New Mexican published an article March 15 detailing current and former CYFD workers’ accounts of their experiences with toxic work environments at multiple county offices throughout the state. That article, which also described the impact high caseloads have in turnover within the agency’s workforce, cited interviews with employees who asked not to be identified out of concern for retaliation from CYFD.
Three days after the story was published, acting Cabinet Secretary Valerie Sandoval sent a letter to workers in which she said she was “deeply upset by its tone, content and message.”
She added that CYFD “does not condone any personal attacks, mistreatment, or retaliation aimed at CYFD team members.”
“I won’t tolerate any of that ever,” she said, before encouraging employees to call, email or text her if they are experiencing those issues.
In the same letter, Sandoval also appeared to discourage workers from speaking with the media, writing that everyone at the agency is entitled to their privacy and that since CYFD leadership would never share personal information about its staff with the public, all the department’s employees should also refrain from doing so.
In the wake of the article’s publication, Derr said leadership at CYFD’s Los Lunas office quickly started pressing workers in an effort to find out who spoke with The New Mexican and launched investigations into workers suspected of doing so.
Spokesperson Jake Thompson highlighted in an email several efforts to address workplace culture problems and improve morale, leading to the vacancy rate among frontline workers being nearly cut in half. He also flatly denied that any of the agency’s workers were investigated following the article’s publication, writing that the union’s account of CYFD investigating its workers was “inaccurate.”
“No investigations have been launched – or are currently underway — into workers who may have spoken to the New Mexican,” he wrote. “The Human Services Director and a senior CYFD leader attend the department’s weekly Employee Relations Bureau meetings and would be immediately aware of any such investigations. None exist.”
Thompson also rebuked the union’s criticisms that CYFD was sending conflicting messages about the issue of retaliation, writing that agency leaders do “not tolerate any retribution or retaliation against employees, period.”
Derr, however, maintained that workers were investigated both formally and informally following the article.
“They’re not being honest when they say that,” she said of Thompson’s email.
Employment threats
Some employees have described feeling forced to leave their county offices, or CYFD in general, following retaliation after articles were published.
In Los Lunas, workers suspected of speaking out have also been threatened with losing their jobs, Derr said.
One former employee, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his reputation, said his managers worked to derail his upcoming promotion, called his job competency into question and placed him on leave — all part of alleged harassment he said escalated after a report was published examining workplace issues in his office that he was suspected of collaborating on.
The worker said the alleged harassment ultimately drove him to quit his job and leave the state. He now works in child protective services outside New Mexico. He added one of his colleagues also left the county office they both worked at for years amid alleged harassment and now commutes up to four hours every day to work at another CYFD office in a different county.
“They will do whatever they can to retaliate,” the worker said.
CYFD has made significant progress in addressing the problems facing its workforce in recent months, Thompson wrote in the email,
He cited a 16.6% vacancy rate among the agency’s critical, frontline Protective Services workers, a number that is nearly half of what it was in September, when there was a 30.9% vacancy rate among those employees.
Across CYFD, the vacancy rate is 23%, down from 28% in September, Thompson wrote.
Efforts to improve CYFD’s workforce include bringing on 72 case aides to help frontline workers manage their workloads, closing thousands of completed cases, and developing a “buddy” system that pairs new employees with experienced ones to help them acclimate, he wrote.
Leaders have also become more available to workers, with Sandoval visiting a dozen offices in April and making plans to visit the rest this month. The agency has also worked to improve communication and morale by publishing monthly videos that provide updates about the department, organizing quarterly all-staff meetings drawing hundreds of employees statewide, and creating a newsletter, Thompson wrote.
“Over the last seven months, CYFD has launched an unprecedented drive to improve the department’s culture and staff morale,” he wrote. “Secretary Sandoval is personally invested in this work and engaged with staff every day.”
Generally, CYFD workers are not supposed to speak with members of the media about the goings-on within their county offices.
Derr said the union never condones the leaking of specific case information of vulnerable children being looked after by CYFD. However, she argued there is little trust that workers can have fruitful or safe conversations with leaders at the agency and said they should be able to voice their concerns.
“I think they do have a right to have that conversation,” she said.
This article first appeared on Searchlight New Mexico.
Suspect in Navajo woman's disappearance sentenced to 5 years for robbery after plea deal – Savannah Peters and Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press
The only person ever charged in the unsolved 2021 disappearance of Navajo elder Ella Mae Begay, whose case became emblematic of a crisis fueled by disproportionately high rates of violence faced by Native Americans, has been sentenced to five years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes in Phoenix on Friday accepted an agreement in which Preston Henry Tolth pleaded guilty to robbing Begay. Under the agreement, Tolth was credited with three years' time served and prosecutors dropped an assault charge and agreed not to prosecute him in the future if Begay's case develops.
The sentencing effectively closes a yearslong case that has been troubled by a lack of physical evidence and the suppression of a confession from Tolth, who also is Navajo.
During Friday's hearing, family members urged Rayes to reject the agreement. Begay's niece tearfully reiterated that they didn't want Tolth released without him leading investigators to Begay.
"A 62-year-woman is still nowhere to be found. No amount of time is enough if he won't tell us where she is," said Seraphine Warren, who later left the courtroom when it was apparent the judge was moving forward with the sentencing.
A beloved grandmother of nine and talented weaver of Navajo-style pictorial rugs, Begay was 62 when she vanished from her home in Sweetwater, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation in June 2021. Tolth's sentencing comes amid a week of awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement, which highlights the disproportionate number of Native Americans who are missing or have been killed.
In the years since Begay went missing, her family members have organized searches, pushed law enforcement for answers and even walked across the country to keep a public spotlight on her case. Advocates have compared Begay's case to that of Gabby Petito, a young white woman whose disappearance the same summer drew a frenzy of news coverage, social media attention and law enforcement action that ultimately led to the discovery of her remains in Wyoming.
Navajo Nation police and FBI agents identified Tolth as a suspect within days of her disappearance. Tolth, whose father was dating Begay's sister, initially denied any involvement. In a later interrogation, an FBI agent lied to Tolth, telling him police found Begay's truck and were processing evidence that would implicate him. In response, Tolth waived his right to remain silent and confessed to stealing Begay's pickup truck, beating her and leaving her for dead on the side of the road.
It is typically legal for U.S. law enforcement to fabricate evidence during interrogations. But Rayes ruled that in this instance, the FBI agent failed to "scrupulously honor" Tolth's initial refusal to speak and threw the confession out. A panel of appellate court judges agreed.
In the absence of that confession, U.S. Attorney Tracy Van Buskirk said Friday that the plea agreement was the government's best attempt at securing a reasonable sentence. Speaking about Tolth's effort to help investigators find Begay, Van Buskirk said Tolth wasn't familiar with the Sweetwater area and had been drinking alcohol on the night when he robbed her.
In court Friday, Begay's son Gerald Begay called the agreement a "failure."
"It shouldn't be that way," Gerald Begay told the judge.
Jane McClellan, a lawyer for Tolth, said her client acknowledged robbing Begay, showed officers where he thought he might have left her on the night of the crime and doesn't have further information.
"He is remorseful for his actions," McClellan said. "He has taken responsibility for his actions."
In an unusual move, Rayes rejected a previous plea agreement that called for Tolth to be released after three years of time served, saying it was overly lenient. Begay's family members had presented anguished testimony and said they would prefer to the case went to trial.
Navajo Nation public safety director Michael Henderson said finding Begay is still a priority for tribal law enforcement.
"One of the hindrances is that the federal investigation is still pending," Henderson said.
Once federal law enforcement officially close the case, Henderson said, Navajo Nation police may gain access to information that will aid their search.
Report finds 32,000 young people in New Mexico are not working or in school – Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico has about 32,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who do not work or go to school, according to a new report from the state Legislative Finance Committee.
These “disconnected” young people account for 13% of their age group in the state — the lowest number reported since 2008, according to the report, but still 2% higher than the national average.
Young people who don’t work or go to school report higher risks of drug use and mental health issues, lower educational attainment and increased involvement in the criminal justice system, the study found.
The LFC estimates disconnected youth cost New Mexico $623 million annually in lost tax revenue.
By their 30s, disconnected youth earn $38,400 less than their peers and are 52% less likely to report good health, the report said.
Reaching them can be difficult — young people become disconnected because of mental health or substance abuse issues, family conflict, low employment and educational outcomes, safety issues and housing instability, according to the report.
Of participants in the LFC survey, 82% said they would work or go to school if provided adequate support.
Youth Development Inc., a New Mexico nonprofit, offers job training, housing assistance, and mental and behavioral health services to young people and families. Despite falling numbers of disconnected youth state- and nationwide, the organization reports a growing number of people looking for services, said Concha Cordova, vice president of education, employment and training.
“We are definitely seeing more than what we can provide for,” Cordova said. “We go anywhere we feel disconnected youth are going to be — community centers, skate parks. We go out to them. We get a lot that come to our offices seeking guidance.”
YDI offers job training — students often go into careers in healthcare or trades, Cordova said.
“Our end goal is really to address barriers, help them complete their education, secondary and post secondary, gain credentials and certifications so that they can start a career,” she said.
The legislative report found a lack of education is one of the biggest indicators a young person will become disconnected. Almost half of the participants in the survey did not attend or complete high school.
Youth slipping through the cracks is a “huge problem nationally,” said Martha Ross, a senior fellow at Brookings who studies young people and the labor market.
“We just do not have good policy to ensure that everyone has some sort of guidance and capacity to make the transition from school to further school or to a career,” Ross said. “It’s really easy for young people to get lost.”
Though New Mexico’s high school graduation rate is at its highest in more than a decade — 80.6% of students graduate in four years — it still trails behind most other states.
Many demographics fell below the state number. Native American students in New Mexico graduated high school in four years 78% of the time, while Black students graduated in four years 76.4% of the time, according to data from the Public Education Department.
Graduation rates worsened for students who were housing insecure. Homeless students graduated in four years 63.2% of the time, while students in foster care graduated in four years only about 40% of the time.
These demographics show similarly disproportionate rates of disconnection in New Mexico.
The report found 29.2% of Native Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 were not employed or in school, the highest of any ethnic group, though the survey acknowledges that the data may not capture the realities of living in Native communities, where education, work, caregiving and cultural responsibilities often fall outside of formal school and employment systems.
Almost 23% of Black youth were disconnected, compared with 16.4% of Hispanic youth and 12.7% of white youth.
Young women were almost 2% more likely to be unemployed and not in school than young men. The report attributes this to pregnancy, early parenthood and unpaid caregiving responsibilities rather than lower attachment to education or work.
In some rural areas, opportunities may not be in abundance, contributing to a higher level of disconnection. The highest concentration of disconnected youth is in western New Mexico, particularly around Gallup and Shiprock, where 30% of young people are not employed or in school.
Eastern New Mexico and Albuquerque’s South Valley also reported high rates of youth disconnection — more than half of the state’s disconnected youth live in Bernalillo, Doña Ana, San Juan and McKinley counties.
If New Mexico reduces its population of disconnected youth by 10% over the next three years, it will be in line with the national average. State officials hope to reach young people before they drop out of high school via support programs at the PED and flexible, alternative schools.
The state also hopes to expand its workforce training programs, including Integrated Education and Training, which combines basic education with job training.
At YDI in Albuquerque, many of the staff come from homelessness, addiction and incarceration, Cordova said. The organization uses a peer model to help steer young people out of the system.
“We teach a lot of resiliency skills,” she said.”They're not moving forward, because they don't have the confidence, they don't have the skills, they don't have the guidance to do it.”