New Mexico voters in November will decide who will lead the state’s executive branch now that Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is term limited out. Republican candidate Greg Hull served as mayor of Rio Rancho for 12 years. This past June, he won the three-way Republican primary, defeating Doug Turner and Duke Rodriguez. Nash sat down with New Mexico in Focus host Nash Jones on New Mexico PBS.
NEW MEXICO PBS: Housing is top of mind for a lot of New Mexico voters. I'm sure you hear it all the time. Half of renters are cost-burdened in the state. Estimates put the state short anywhere from 58,000 to 90,000 units. You've pointed to tax reform as a significant part of the solution. What are the specifics of that plan?
GREG HULL: We have a high burden of GRT [gross receipts tax] costs and tax costs on building on building projects. So, working through the state legislature on where builders might be able to apply for a rebate on some of those GRT costs to keep affordability, or let me let me turn that around to keep costs from rising so quickly, because right now market prices are really driving a lot of the things that are happening right now. If you look at a pre-owned home or one that's already built and it's gone onto the market, it really has nothing to do with GRT or construction costs at that point. It's the market rate on that house, so that's what it's going to sell for when they list it. So, what is driving that lack of inventory because we have a shortage of houses.
NMBPS: Well, let's talk about stock. What would you do differently to get more homes built?
HULL: We'll do what we did in Rio Rancho, is streamline processes, help our local communities, really streamline the process, streamline the zoning issues, the site plan approvals, helping them develop the master plans, helping them get through the specific area plans that are absolutely necessary to build out these communities. Because when you bring in these plans to build out houses or communities, developments, you've got drainage issues, you've got utility issues, infrastructure issues. And that's another thing that I'd like to look at because a lot of planned developments, like what we saw built in Rio Rancho, after the developer builds those, those utilities get dedicated back to the city. So perhaps there's an infrastructure fund that we could set up through the state that would allow developers building affordable housing communities in specific, that once the houses are sold, they're allowed to apply for a rebate through the state or a tax credit that would help them reduce the total over cost of that development because one of the really, really major issues around cost for building homes is all the infrastructure.
NMPBS: Moving us on to healthcare, New Mexico has the highest rate of private equity-owned hospitals in the country. At a recent business forum, you said that you were interested in working with private equity to create more opportunities to practice medicine here in New Mexico. What do you say to New Mexicans who fear that profit-driven healthcare leads to worse outcomes, leads to fewer services, and even in some cases even more costly care?
NMPBS: Correct, and I think as soon as we can wean ourselves off of private equity. Private equity is just a single step or a single process that solves an immediate problem. If there's not services in a community and a community needs certain level of services, I would rather see that there than nothing. And so, if we don't have a state-run agency or we don't have a local, a county-run agency or if we don't have a city-run facility, any of those things because they don't have the tax base to support that, or they don't have the population base to support that, sometimes private equity is a solution. But it can't be the total overall solution. It can only be a component, and that has to be a means to an end.
NMPBS: And you support Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's efforts to reform the state's medical malpractice laws to address our doctor shortage? You vowed to join more provider compacts, which she kicked off this year. Do you have any criticisms of how Lujan Grisham has dealt with the doctor shortage?
HULL: No, not really, because I think I think the only criticism I have to go back to the 2021 medical malpractice reform that put all of this into play in the first place and opened up these limitless lawsuits.
NMPBS: But you like what reforms you saw?
HULL: The reforms that came in in HB 99 are absolutely good first steps.
NMPBS: Water resources are incredibly scarce in New Mexico, increasingly so. You've named that as a top issue of yours. You've called for using every responsible option, including brackish water, in a careful, common-sense way. If that's the case, how do you feel about produced water fracking, wastewater being used beyond the oil fields? There's a proposal in front of the Water Quality Control Commission to do just that.
HULL: What we're looking at is in Orla, Texas, recently, a fractional freeze facility, a desal facility that actually cleans this water to potable quality, was successfully tested and built down there in Orla, Texas. And it's taking New Mexico-produced water, but because of the restrictions here in New Mexico, we had to take it out of state to actually bring this pilot project online and see if it was applicable. So yes, while produced water, I think if you don't want to use it for for potable reasons, if you don't want to use it for watering food crops, if it's clean enough, let's use it for watering sod farms.
NMPBS: So would you back this proposal if Governor?
HULL: I would, but only in a safe use because one. Again, I've invested so much resources into making sure we have a sustainable water future in Rio Rancho, there's nothing I'm going to do that's going to allow a program to come forward that's going to jeopardize a freshwater supply.
NMPBS: Now, if elected, you would inherit a nearly $15 billion dollar general fund, a record for New Mexico. Our revenue, though, is volatile because so much of it is relying on the oil and gas industry. What's the right balance of spending and saving in this moment, and what would your budget priorities be, and how do they differ from Lujan Grisham's, or what could be under Deb Haaland?
HULL: Right. Well, my budget priorities are going to be to continue to follow through on education because I think that we need a lot of effort there. Whether we increase funding or just evaluate the funding that's already there to make sure that we're getting the education for our kids that we're paying for. Other budget priorities would be looking at job creation. But the big one that I think that I'm just really going to lean into is water infrastructure. So being responsible with the water in northern New Mexico so that we can transfer as much as possible down to southern New Mexico so that it doesn't have an adverse effect on agriculture is going to be a critical plan that we have to now look at and how we're going to do that.
NMPBS: So you're talking a lot about a lot of spending what about saving how do you balance that what what's the right balance?
HULL: We continue to save just like we did in Rio Rancho. We meet our needs, but also put a little away, and you continue to build on that. Right now, New Mexico's sitting on $75 billion dollars worth of sovereign funds, and I know some of those are in different funds, and we're continuing to get record revenues in from the oil and gas industry. So I think that we can balance saving with investing in what we need right now, and let me say this: the longer we put these projects off, I don't care how much you save over here. This is getting more expensive day by day, and we never saw a greater time and a more critical need than what we just saw with the Rio Grande running dry for the last three or four months, and not having water to supply our communities and not being able to recharge Elephant Butte Dam, and that's a huge recreational facility and a draw for the state of New Mexico. Those are the things that we have to work on protecting because if you're saving money over here, but all of this is crumbling and decaying, what are you saving for? I would say that as far as infrastructure and water go, the rainy day fund needs to start being invested a little bit. Not that I want to get into the principal, but reallocating some of those interest payments to make sure that we're investing for long-term future and sustainability of the state of New Mexico.
