Uranium company’s finalized NM plan includes treating, dumping water into nearby river
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A Colorado uranium company recently submitted a finalized operation plan to New Mexico officials, signaling that it — along with multiple other out-of-state companies — is increasingly serious about mining uranium in the state.
Energy Fuels, Inc. submitted a 273-page operations and “reclamation” plan earlier this month that details how it plans to extract uranium from more than 1,600 feet below the surface within the Cibola National Forest boundaries in McKinley County, then transport it to its mill in Blanding, Utah.
New Mexico Environmental Law Center Legal Director Eric Jantz told Source NM on Tuesday that the plan represents the company’s renewed intent to receive a permit following more than a decade on hiatus.
“We’re taking it seriously,” he said of the plan. “And we’re going to be doing what we can to make sure that this environmental review is done properly, and that community interests are protected.”
The company’s plan describes how it would pump groundwater from the mineshaft to access the uranium ore, then treat the water and release it into the nearby Rio San Jose. Jantz told Source NM that the “dewatering” of the mine is an immense technical undertaking and one that threatens to deplete the groundwater supply during a period of prolonged drought.
“It’s gonna deplete the water table in a significant radius around the proposed mine, and that water table won’t recover for decades, if ever,” he said.
Energy Fuels officials did not respond to Source NM’s emailed request for comment Tuesday.
In addition to the “dewatering,” the proposed mine site lies within the boundaries of the Mount Taylor Traditional Cultural Property. Mount Taylor is sacred to several Indigenous tribes and pueblos in New Mexico, including the Navajo and Laguna peoples.
Energy Fuels’ operations plan notes that if its permit is approved, the company will take steps to preserve the “viewshed” of Mount Taylor in recognition of the sacred mountain and will, to the extent possible, “protect scenic values” at the site.
After reading that section of the plan, Diné anti-nuclear advocate Leona Morgan told Source NM that Energy Fuels officials clearly do not understand the value of Mount Taylor to the Navajo people.
“It’s not just a visual aspect. It’s not just to look at the mountain. It’s for the integrity of the mountain itself,” she said. “When we’re talking about sacred places and Mother Earth, these are our relatives. That’s how we consider them. They themselves have rights and definitely should not be basically raped and pillaged, which is what mining is.”
The Roca Honda undertaking is one of two that Cibola National Forest officials deemed “priority projects” shortly after President Donald Trump began his second term and declared an energy “emergency” that sought to boost domestic production of oil, gas and uranium, among other resources.
Laramide Resources, Inc., the company behind the other priority uranium mine, known as La Jara Mesa project, submitted its operations plan in January. Following a groundswell of comments in opposition to the mine proposal, state officials agreed to hold a public hearing. It has not yet been scheduled.
In addition to their priority designation, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council has identified both La Jara Mesa and Roca Honda as deserving of fast-tracked federal permits.
But both projects also require state permits from the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division before they can proceed any further.
Now that Energy Fuels has submitted its plan to the state, the state will accept public comments until July 19, 2026, said Sidney Hill, public information officer for the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, in an email Tuesday Source NM.
Unlike the Jara Mesa plan, the state has not yet deemed the Roca Honda plan “administratively complete,” Hill added. That means the company will likely have to submit additional information to proceed to the next step in the permitting process.
Despite rising uranium prices and Trump’s efforts to reduce the regulatory burden, Jantz said he remains skeptical that a new uranium venture in New Mexico would be profitable.
Nonetheless, he said the public should take the company’s plans seriously and weigh in at the next opportunity.
“Given the heft of this document, I definitely think that it’s really important for the public to have some shot at giving their opinion on this and providing additional technical perspectives,” he said.
New Mexico has spent $500M on housing in last 3 years as homelessness persists, new report says
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Homelessness in New Mexico has increased, particularly in the Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe areas, despite a half-billion dollar investment in recent years, according to a new report from the Legislative Finance Committee.
Housing leaders last week briefed state lawmakers at a hearing at Central New Mexico Community College. Analysts with the LFC found that Bernalillo County’s unhoused population, in particular, doubled between 2022 and 2024.
“I want everyone to be able to have the dream of owning their own home,” Gilbert Ramirez, Albuquerque’s Health, Housing and Homelessness director, told the panel of state lawmakers, adding that the cost of home construction and ownership has significantly increased in recent years, which has shifted increased costs onto rentals.
Indeed, nearly half of New Mexico renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and related housing expenses.
The report highlighted recent efforts in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County to build new and transitional housing for low-income families, and found that such projects can range in cost from $36,000 per unit to more than $350,000 per unit.
Albuquerque officials in recent years have expanded operations at the city’s Gateway Center, which provides overnight beds and services for sobering and case management, after previously promising to house 1,000 people by this summer. Ramirez said that as of last week, the city was serving more than 1,200 people experiencing homelessness and instability. Recent Gateway Center improvements include 50 new beds for women and 41 new “young adult” beds.
Issues of instability and homelessness increasingly impact New Mexico’s youth. Another recent LFC report found that 32,000 New Mexicans between the ages of 16 and 24 don’t work or go to school, which increases their likelihood of experiencing housing instability.
Last week’s report also found the state Department of Workforce Solutions and the Office of Housing are projected to invest more than $58 million in nearly 1,000 affordable housing units, the majority of which are rentals.
Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), who serves as the vice chair of the interim Legislative Finance Committee, told state, county and local housing officials that affordable housing projects need to be “attainable,” as well.
“It has to be affordable and attainable,” he said. “If you’re generating money off the rent…are you going to use it to lower the rent? Because that’s what affordable is, to me.”
US Rep. Vasquez calls for New Mexico county to approve data center moratorium
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) is calling on county officials in New Mexico to approve a temporary moratorium on building new data centers after a Canadian developer made the controversial proposal to build a data center and solar array on 10,000 acres in Socorro County.
Residents first learned of Green Data’s proposal to build in partnership with the local university, New Mexico Tech, in March, when company CEO Jason Bak spoke before the Socorro Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees.
Since then, residents have mobilized against the project, which Bak has said would be the world’s largest “renewable-led” data center.
Residents have packed the room to voice their opposition to the project at town halls hosted by the Socorro City Council and New Mexico Tech, arguing that the proposal would threaten their views, land and water. The Socorro County Board of Commissioners recently voted to begin the process of considering a data center moratorium.
“I’ve heard it loud and clear from folks in Socorro County: they don’t want one of the world’s largest data centers in their backyard,” Vasquez said in a statement. “The current proposal offers limited transparency and a lack of clear answers, and it should not be considered at this time. This massive data center would likely degrade quality of life for many residents who have strongly voiced their opposition.”
Vasquez, whose congressional district includes much of Southern New Mexico, said the proposal would “permanently alter” the region’s night sky and imperil its wildlife corridors.
Bak has previously said that the “vast majority” of water for the project would come from cutting-edge “atmospheric water generation,” a technology that aims to pull moisture from the air and convert it into usable water. Vasquez said the “uncertain impact” on the area’s water resources is cause for concern.
“I encourage the County to approve the temporary moratorium it is considering to ensure there is more time to listen to the community and better understand the short and long-term impacts of such a project on the community as a whole,” Vasquez said.
When reached by phone, Bak would not respond to Vasquez’s statement beyond saying, “We’re currently reviewing the moratorium and we’ll comment later.”
In a follow-up written statement, Bak said his company “shares the community’s deep appreciation for what makes Socorro special and we welcome a thoughtful, fact-based conversation about our project.”
“Our design reflects that commitment, it’s built around solar and battery as primary power and uses atmospheric water generation, minimizing reliance on the region’s land, grid and water resources,” Bak wrote. “We respect the county’s process, including its consideration of a temporary moratorium, and we’re committed to engaging openly with residents, local leaders and elected officials as the review moves forward. We believe responsible development and a thriving Socorro go hand in hand, and we look forward to demonstrating that in the months ahead.”
UNM's $636M medical school aims to double doctor training - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
Officials at the University of New Mexico say the college’s new $636 million School of Medicine, designed to double the size of its incoming class, will be completed in time to welcome the new class of students in 2030.
The plan would add a new 350,000-square-foot facility on the northeast corner of Lomas and University NE that will replace the School of Medicine’s main facility, Reginald Heber Fitz Hall, which was built in 1967.
The goal is to grow the medical school class from about 100 students a year to 200 students, UNM Executive Vice President of Health Sciences Dr. Mike Richards told the Legislative Finance Committee in Albuquerque on Wednesday.
UNM has the state’s largest medical school and the only program issuing M.D. degrees. Though almost all UNM School of Medicine students are originally from New Mexico, the majority will leave the state to practice medicine after completing their training, according to the LFC report.
New Mexico ranks 32nd in the country for physicians per capita, and every county in the state, except Los Alamos, has been federally designated a health professional shortage area, according to the Texas-based think tank Cicero Institute.
New Mexico has around 30% fewer medical students per capita than the national average, according to a university report.
State Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, vice chair of the LFC, said Wednesday that the new medical school — funded by a total of $576 million from the state and $60 million from UNM — is the Legislature’s “largest ever” investment in UNM.
“We’ve given you a ton of money,” Muñoz said Wednesday. “You guys are going to have to have cost containment. I don’t know if I’m going to be willing to look back and have spent $650 million and now you say, ‘Oh, I need another $200 million to complete the hospital.’”
Stewart Livsie, director of the UNM Health Sciences Center Capital Projects Office, told legislators that the university had a “robust” cost management program and that despite nationwide inflation, officials were running cost estimates about every six weeks, which showed the project was largely on track.
“If you’re within $5 million on this project, I need to hire you guys,” Muñoz said.
Construction is planned to start in the spring of 2027, Livsie said.
UNM currently trains 795 medical residents and fellows. After the new medical school is finished, Richards said the school hoped to have more than 1,000 residency and fellowship slots, which could put UNM among the top 10 graduate medical education programs in the country in terms of size.
“We know that individuals who train in these programs are really important for us to deliver clinical care,” Richards said. “This is at a time of life where they then make connections to the community and oftentimes will stay.”
The new medical school will create 565 new jobs at the university, Richards said, with thousands more indirect jobs projected as well. Officials said they hoped a hotel would go up near the construction for staff, student and patient use.
The UNM Hospital unveiled its new $842 million critical care tower in September — the largest and most expensive non-road construction project in New Mexico history — designed to increase patient capacity at the often-overcrowded hospital. UNMH is the state’s only Level 1 trauma center, equipped to provide 24-hour care for patients with the most serious injuries.
Dr. Steve Goldstein, a physician and health sciences administrator from the University of California, Irvine, will become UNM’s new president in the fall, succeeding President Garnett Stokes, who will retire this summer after eight years.
State Rep. Liz Thomson, D-Albuquerque, said she was “tickled beyond belief” that the new president had a health sciences background at a time when the school was undergoing a major medical facility expansion.
“This is going to be a game changer,” Thomson said of the new medical school. “I wish we could wave our magic wand and have it tomorrow, but I’ll try to be patient.”
Voluntary departures spike as immigrants face squalid detention, pressure to leave - Tim Henderson, Stateline via Source New Mexico
A surge in voluntary departure agreements in immigration courts is raising concerns that Trump administration tactics are unfairly pressuring immigrants into leaving the United States, even if they have a legal right to stay.
Voluntary departures during the second Trump administration reached 89,494 cases as of May 1, according to a Stateline analysis of immigration court data processed by the Deportation Data Project, an academic research initiative. That’s more than seven times the number recorded in the last 16 months of the Biden administration (11,977).
A 10-month-old policy of mandatory detention without bond, now being challenged in appeals courts and likely to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, increases the pressure on immigrants to leave. Mandatory detention for immigrants who crossed a border illegally to get into the United States was upheld by an appeals court for Texas and Louisiana, which are the most common locations for voluntary departure cases, according to Stateline’s analysis.
“Conditions in some detention facilities are dire and, especially in the locations where bond is unavailable, individuals may feel voluntary departure is their best option in those circumstances,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Voluntary departure is a court agreement that requires an immigrant to pay for the trip out of the country and face fines for any delay. A possible benefit for the immigrant is avoiding a court order of removal that could make it all but impossible to return to the U.S. and live here legally.
Voluntary departure doesn’t include people who used a government app to leave with a federally paid plane ticket and a cash incentive, now $2,600.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pushing to quickly build and open new detention centers, with human rights groups describing crowded, often unsanitary conditions. Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, 51 people have died in the facilities, ICE reported.
The Department of Homeland Security wants to reach 1 million deportations a year.
“We see people choosing to take voluntary departure, not because they don’t have a right to stay in the United States, but because they can’t handle being in these really inhumane conditions in detention any longer,” said Shayna Kessler, director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Advancing Universal Representation Initiative, which advocates for a system like public defenders for immigration court.
Voluntary departure could be the best option, Kessler acknowledged, but “without consulting an attorney it’s impossible to know.”
Indefinite incarceration
Under the Trump policy, people who crossed the border illegally and were later arrested by immigration enforcement are incarcerated without bond. The Laken Riley Act, signed into law last year, had extended mandatory detention to immigrants arrested on suspicion of crimes as minor as shoplifting, even if the charges are later dropped.
The newer policy — which was described in the Project 2025 blueprint before Trump was elected in 2024 — would affect millions of people, no matter how long ago they came to the U.S. and even if they legally applied for asylum.
Three federal appeals courts have put the mandatory detention requirement on hold but two have let it stand, meaning the policy’s constitutionality likely will be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in Oregon accused immigration authorities of using the threat of extended detention to “win the numbers game at the cost of debasing the rule of law.”
“For the one detainee who has the audacity to challenge the legality of her detention and gains release, several more remain detained or succumb to the threat of lengthy detention, and then instead ‘voluntarily’ deport,” U.S. District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai wrote in a February opinion. He was referring to an agricultural worker arrested en route to the fields who won release after resisting pressure to sign voluntary departure papers.
One long-time immigrant in the same lawsuit, called Victor C.G. in court papers, said he was pressured to sign papers agreeing to leave for Mexico during a three-week detention after being arrested on his way home from work. He refused to sign and was released on bond after an attorney intervened; the man has lived in the United States for 26 years and had legal work authorization based on a pending visa for cooperating crime victims.
Similarly, an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit in Illinois filed in October accused immigration authorities of “coercing and threatening detainees” to sign voluntary departure agreements while held in squalid, crowded conditions at a detention center, giving up their right to fight deportation cases in court.
A November restraining order in that case required immigration authorities at the Broadview facility near Chicago to hold immigrants in sanitary conditions with access to attorneys, and to give them enough time and language help to understand paperwork such as voluntary departure agreements. The restraining order is still in place during settlement negotiations, according to court papers.
Pressure from judges
Immigration judges can also apply pressure for voluntary departure, said Jacquelyn Pavilon, coauthor of a report on voluntary departure for the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York City-based nonprofit with a mission to limit mass incarceration.
Notes from court observers, shared with the Vera Institute, show a pattern of judges suggesting voluntary departure, especially Republican-appointed judges speaking to immigrants without attorneys, Pavilon said. The Trump administration has fired immigration judges seen as too lenient and hired new ones, most recently 82 new judges announced May 21.
In a Newark, New Jersey, immigration court observed by Stateline on May 21, one Trump-appointed judge suggested voluntary departure to a family from Colombia after denying their asylum claim. “This would at least avoid a removal order,” said the judge, Leila McNeill Mullican.
The family, a married couple from Bridgeton, New Jersey, with a 20-year-old son who arrived in 2023, did not have an attorney. They chose to appeal McNeill Mullican’s decision instead of taking voluntary departure, saying they feared crime and Venezuelan-based gangs when they left in 2023. They told Stateline they would consider hiring an attorney for the appeal.
There were similar immigrant complaints about unfair pressure for voluntary departure during the first Trump administration and also under the Obama administration. Numbers peaked at around 3,000 a month under Obama and the first Trump administration, but reached more than 9,000 a month recently, according to the Stateline analysis.
One partner of an immigrant told Stateline in a chat message that signing the agreement seemed like the safest way to preserve an application for a green card. The couple left Los Angeles for Costa Rica last year through voluntary departure.
“Thankfully my partner was not detained but they were on basically weekly surveillance and being monitored with a Smart Link app,” the person wrote. “I think we just felt the pressure of what could happen if they remained in the U.S. and continued in removal proceedings. I would like to think that it’s working out for us.”
The Department of Homeland Security replied to Stateline questions with an unattributed statement: “We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.
“The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”
In the past, DHS has said “tens of thousands” have used the app, which is not the same as a voluntary departure outcome in court that requires travel at the immigrant’s expense.
The department did not offer a new estimate in response to Stateline’s questions, but maintained that “more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations” and that there had been 900,000 arrests and 900,000 deportations during the administration as of May 17.
It’s true that the noncitizen population has dropped sharply in government surveys — a Stateline analysis of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey shows it dropped by 2.3 million to about 25 million between January 2025 and April 2026. But many experts such as those at the Center for Migration Studies see the reported drop as being caused not by self-deportations, but rather by fear of responding to government surveys in an atmosphere of hostility to immigrants.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Trump administration will make green card hopefuls return to home countries before applying - Tim Henderson, Stateline via Source New Mexico
Immigrants seeking green cards will have to return first to their home countries and wait despite years of potential backlogs, the Trump administration announced Friday.
“An alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply,” Zach Kahler, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a statement.
The change would apply to workers on temporary visas, as well as to people living here illegally but hoping for legal status through sponsorship by relatives such as spouses or children who are U.S. citizens.
The immigration advocacy group FWD.us said the new policy “will create chaos and impose massive costs on immigrants who have lived and worked legally in the United States for many years” in a statement to Stateline.
Business leaders said the move is disruptive to tech industries that rely on foreign workers who have temporary visas and sometimes hope for a green card and eventual citizenship.
Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera and an adjunct professor of computer science at Stanford University, in an X post called the change “a capricious attack on legal immigration” that will “hurt families, leave us with fewer doctors, teachers and scientists, and hurt American competitiveness in AI.”
“This is the worst imaginable way to disrupt important work for the country and pretend you’re fighting some loophole,” Silicon Valley venture capitalist Nick Davidov wrote on X, saying at least three large startups in his portfolio would be hurt by the policy.
The so-called green cards represent a status called lawful permanent residence, a legal immigration status that can lead to citizenship.
The administration’s intent, Kahler said in the statement, is to prevent temporary visitors from seeking permanent legal status while they’re in the United States.
“Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose,” Kahler wrote. “Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process.”
Those affected include many tech workers on temporary visas that might lead to green cards.
“This includes top scientists in our universities, founders of billion dollar companies,” Davidov wrote in his post, referring to temporary visas such as O-1 (extraordinary ability) and H-1B (highly skilled specialties) visas that can lead to citizenship with employer sponsorship. FWD.us estimates H-1B visa holders and their families in the United States number about 1.3 million.
People from India would have to wait through years of backlogs if they stopped working and went home to apply for green cards, and people from Russia would be unable to apply at all because there’s no U.S. embassy there, he noted.
The USCIS announcement did refer to “extraordinary” circumstances that might allow continued processing of green cards in the United States but did not elaborate.
According to a policy memo issued Friday, USCIS agents “must consider and weigh all the relevant evidence” and determine “if approval of the alien’s adjustment of status application is in the best interest of the United States.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
VA hasn't budged on reduced veteran home health rates in New Mexico, rural Texas - Santa Fe New Mexican
Providers of home health care for New Mexico veterans are continuing to advocate against newly lowered federal compensation rates for providing care.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that between 2025 and 2026, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs slashed reimbursement rates for home health aide services in New Mexico by almost 20%.
State officials and care providers said the move reduces access to care for some of the state’s 150,000 veterans.
The VA said the decrease resulted from an agency mandate to ensure the rates align with prevailing rates in regional markets.
New Mexico Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich has urged Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins to undo the rate reductions.
Heinrich also said he plans to introduce legislation to address the decreased rates.
In 2025, the VA paid New Mexico home health aides $16.75 for every 15 minutes of work.
Starting Jan. 1, the reimbursement rate for home health aides dropped to $13.50 in New Mexico. That’s a 19% decrease.
Homeless seniors in expiring Santa Fe motel program will move to Pallet village, officials say - Santa Fe New Mexican
A Santa Fe program that placed homeless senior citizens in motel rooms where case managers would work with them to find permanent housing is set to expire next month.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that city leaders said they will continue to house the current program participants for now.
They said participants will eventually be placed in a planned community of small, individual shelter units known as Pallet Village. “Pallet” is the name of the manufacturer of the tiny houses.
The program was launched in early 2025 as a partnership between Interfaith Community Shelter and the city of Santa Fe. So far, 21 people have found permanent housing after living in the motel program, which is currently operating out of the Motel 6 on Cerrillos Road.
But with the contract for the program set to expire at the end of June, Interfaith officials have been worried about what would happen to the 23 seniors currently living in the motel.
The issue is on the agenda for Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Lovelace, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico reach new deal - KOB-TV
Lovelace Health System and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico have reached a deal to keep Lovelace patients insured by Blue Cross in-network.
KOB-TV reports the agreement covers the next four years.
The current contract between Lovelace and Blue Cross expires at the end of May.
Bugging out: New Mexico insects face significant declines - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The chirrup of a cricket. The stark flash of orange and black wings fluttering around flowers. The drunken looping flight of grasshoppers. The familiar sights and sounds of New Mexico summer are less frequent as populations of insects dwindle due to hotter and drier weather, pesticide use and habitat loss.
New Mexico, like many other states, is experiencing what experts describe as a startling decline of bugs, a shift that poses critical threats to ecosystems.
While bugs are often seen as pests, entomologists told Source NM an estimated three-fourths of wild plants rely on them to help them reproduce, as do about one-third of food crops. Insects often serve as the main course for a host of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles; they act as nature’s cleanup crew and control other pests.
Insects are the “backbone of ecosystems,” said David Lightfoot, a research associate professor in the biology department at the University of New Mexico. Lightfoot has spent over three decades studying grasshopper populations in the state, and helped author policies to protect insects and other arthropods.
Globally, insects are becoming less abundant, he said, due to a variety of factors amounting to death by a thousand cuts.
He said the recent conservation survey results in New Mexico are similarly grim.
“More than half of the species we’re evaluating are threatened with extinction, endangered or critically endangered based on declines recently,” Lightfoot said. “What people are reporting globally is, in fact, happening right here in New Mexico. That surprised us because we don’t have the land development and human population seen in other parts of the country.”
The losses are not limited to rare bugs, said Kevin Burls, an endangered species conservation biologist with nonprofit research group Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. He pointed to the cratering of the once-widespread Monarch butterfly population, which is 99% smaller now than populations in the 1980s.
“We’re losing common things in large numbers where they’re having cascading effects in other animal communities,” Burl said, noting it’s occurring across many states. “If you talk to any songbird person in the West, they’ll tell you the decline in insects is responsible for fewer birds.”
And while the scope of the problem has unfolded in the last few years, concerns for an extremely hot and dry summer, and continued uses of pesticides and herbicides could worsen the problems.
Bye bye butterflies?
Butterflies are some of the best-studied insects around the world, with data on their populations extending back decades.
In 2025, researchers conducted a review of more than 76,000 butterfly studies and found between 2000 and 2020, butterfly abundance fell by 22% and that 13 times more butterfly populations shrunk than grew over that time period.
The fastest decline occurred in the southwestern states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma, which showed an overall drop in abundance by 36%. More than half of the species documented had shrinking populations.
The impacts of herbicides and pesticides, along with climate change, are harming the insects at all stages of their life cycle, said Simon Doneski, a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico studying butterflies. Too high of heat can harm eggs or dry out vegetation for caterpillars to eat.
He said New Mexico’s recent heat wave and dry winter caused an unprecedented surge in butterflies. He’s recorded nearly two dozen species that emerged from their chrysalises a month earlier than they’ve ever been seen before in New Mexico. He said it’s concerning, because the flowering plants the butterflies feed on may not be blooming, or caterpillars born early could experience the summer’s most intense heat.
“We’re in an uncharted territory,” he said. “This hasn’t happened in at least 100 years, maybe further back than that.”
From planting to policy changes
State lawmakers’ 2025 overhaul of the New Mexico Department of Wildlife has moved the needle on conservation, Lightfoot said, but additional funding and attention to insect protections remain sorely needed.
“Before we protect them, we have to learn about them,” Lightfoot said.
Individuals can take action such as planting native pollinating species and lowering their reliance on herbicides and pesticides, said Kaitlin Haase, a pollinator conservation specialist based in Santa Fe for the Xerces Society.
Political pressure to change herbicide and pesticide policies or advocate for insects in local politics is another way to get involved, said Burls, also with the Xerces society.
“Involvement with local politics and state legislatures is hugely important and speaking on behalf of and advocating for insects is something everybody can do,” he said. “It really does matter because other interests have really good lobby support, lots of advocates, but insects don’t always have that — so every voice counts.”
National energy super PAC faces ethics complaint over spending in NM land commissioner race - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
American Energy Action Fund, a super political action committee that has thrown its weight behind a New Mexico Democratic land commissioner candidate, is facing a state ethics complaint over its alleged failure to disclose spending details.
The Virginia-based fund, which says it boosts candidates who advocate for renewable energy, has purchased mailers and text message campaigns in support of Juan de Jesus Sanchez III, who is running in the three-person Democratic primary for state land commissioner.
Source NM recently reported that, according to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office, the fund has not complied with state law that requires out-of-state super PACs to submit certain spending records to the state.
Federal filings show the company in February spent nearly $700,000 on a “non-federal” campaign that includes digital advertising, text messages and mail, but the filings do not specify which race or races the campaign supported, or where those elections are taking place.
Dede Feldman, a good-government advocate, who served as a Democratic state senator representing Albuquerque for more than a decade, filed a complaint Friday with the New Mexico State Ethics Commission, citing Source NM’s reporting.
Feldman recently endorsed state Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo), who is running against Sanchez in the primary, as is Jonas Moya.
She told Source NM on Friday that an out-of-state organization seeking to influence a New Mexico election should have been able to meet the “easy, but critical” requirement of filing records in New Mexico, a state already plagued with a weak campaign finance reporting system.
“There are a lot of loopholes whereby nonprofits can escape reporting who their donors are or who their expenditures are right now in our state law,” she said.
Sanchez previously told Source NM he had no information about the fund or why it had purchased text messages and mailers on his behalf.
Feldman’s complaint says the organization violated a state law that requires out-of-state super PACs to send the Secretary of State’s Office either a copy of their federal campaign finance filings or excerpts that detail how much the organizations spend on New Mexico candidates.
By failing to file the proper paperwork, she said the Super PAC deprived voters information during a race for a “critically important” elected position in the state, one that oversees energy production and transmission for data centers, among other projects.
“Out-of-state corporations with deep pockets should not be allowed to influence our elections without even a minimal level of transparency,” her complaint said..
Without additional financial disclosures, Feldman said voters don’t know how much money the super PAC spent here and how widespread their campaign has been, among other issues.
The American Energy Action Fund did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Friday about the complaint.
SEC Director Jeremy Farris told Feldman in an email Friday that he would “look into” the matter and that the commission will meet next June 15, which is nearly two weeks after the June 2 primary concludes, to authorize investigations or remedial actions.