FRI: New Mexico environment leaders push back at EPA proposed climate change rollback, + More
By KUNM News
August 1, 2025 at 6:00 AM MDT
New Mexico environment leaders push back at EPA proposed climate change rollback - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico climate groups struck a defiant tone in the wake of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to dismantle federal authority to reduce one of the drivers of climate change: greenhouse gases.
On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in Indianapolis that the agency would scrap what’s called the “endangerment finding” established in 2009 under the Obama Administration. In that finding, the agency determined climate change was a threat to human health, which allowed the EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gases.
After the proposal is published, the EPA will solicit public comment over the next 45 days and finalize the rule, most likely within the next year.
The 2009 finding formed the basis for a number of ensuing EPA regulations, including a 2024 rule requiring increasingly strict tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks. In his announcement this week, Zeldin contended the framework established in 2009 hurt the wider economy.
“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” Zeldin said in a written statement, claiming that under the Obama and Joe Biden administrations, the EPA “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”
New Mexico’s top environmental official said the Trump administration’s proposal “ignores decades of established climate science,” and threatens New Mexicans’ health and economy.
“Clean energy means good jobs — thousands of them already here in New Mexico, with more on the way,” Environment Secretary James Kenney said in a statement provided to Source NM. “We’ll continue working with lawmakers to ensure New Mexico has the tools we need to keep reducing emissions and growing our clean energy economy, regardless of what happens in Washington. New Mexico will continue standing behind the science and leading on climate action because it protects our families, our economy, and our future.”
In recent years, New Mexico has adopted laws and rules to lower state emissions, including the 2019 Energy Transition Act requiring more renewable energy for electricity generation, and a 2022 law requiring oil and gas producers to lower methane emissions.
New Mexico adopted rules from California to phase-out gas-powered cars and ramp up sales of electric vehicles available for purchase starting in 2026. President Donald Trump blocked the rule in June, prompting a lawsuit from New Mexico and 10 other states that enforce California’s emissions rules.The state is also moving forward in September with rule-making to reduce pollution over time from “cleaner fuels,” following the adoption of the law in 2024.
Currently, the state government is acting under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2019 executive order setting reduced emission goals through 2050. Several lawmakers have introduced measures to enshrine these goals into state law, which have thus far stalled out at the Roundhouse.
‘We’re going to need to see action’
New Mexico conservation and environmental groups said the decision, which is not yet final, will roll back progress on clean energy and worsen risk from disasters linked to climate change, and said local governments have to work to fill the gaps.
“The idea that we are turning back 16 years of progress and turning our backs on the detrimental effects of climate change on human existence is heartbreaking,” Carlos Matutes, executive director of GreenLatinos, told Source NM. “We know full well that climate change is impacting the lives of New Mexicans, look no further than the Rio Grande running dry while we have floods in the Southeastern part of the state.”
While New Mexico’s regulations can still continue, the federal government’s move will have a “ripple effect” throughout climate policy, said Kyle Tisdel, an attorney and the Climate & Energy program director at the Western Environmental Law Center.
“This is an abandonment of EPA’s fundamental duty to put the U.S. in the lead in terms of our emissions and our economy going forward, but also to put people first before the oil and gas industry and before the coal industry,” Tisdel told Source NM. “It’s this abdication of the federal government’s fundamental role to do what’s in the best interests of the public.”
The policy will likely be challenged in the courts, said Conservation Voters New Mexico Climate and Energy Advocate Justin Garoutte.
“The Trump EPA’s plan makes blatant climate denial official U.S. policy,” Garoutte said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: eliminating the endangerment finding and methane regulation is a Polluters’ First agenda, allowing the industries responsible for more than 50% of climate pollution in the country to evade regulation.”
The EPA decision to scrap endangerment is “a direct attack” on the health and futures for young people, said Zoey Craft Communications Manager Youth United for Climate Crisis Action.
“The endangerment finding is really one of the few protections that at the federal level acknowledges how harmful these emissions actually are to our health and our futures,” Craft told Source NM. “Rolling it back doesn’t just weaken policy, it ultimately is giving polluters more power, and our communities simultaneously less protection.”
Craft said focus will have to include local responses to extreme-weather disasters.
“When our government won’t step up to protect us, we’re going to have to continue to step up to keep protecting each other,” Craft said.
New Mexicans can participate in local rulemaking hearings and upcoming legislative sessions to put more urgency into reducing emissions, said Nini Gu, the Environmental Defense Fund’s western regulatory and legislative manager.
“New Mexicans should tell their policy makers very clearly how they have been impacted by climate pollution, oil and gas emission and that they are really looking to their governor and state regulators to step in and fill that void left by the federal government,” Gu told Source NM. “The state does not, and should not, wait for a mandate from the federal government in order to step in and protect New Mexicans.”
The decision should spur further action in the governor’s last 30-day session in 2026, said Camilla Feibelman, the director of the Rio Grande Chapter of Sierra Club.
“We are going to need to see action in this coming legislative session, this last 30-day session with this governor, real action, because we’re being left so exposed by the federal government,” Feibelman told Source NM.
Feibelman noted that New Mexico has worked to implement its own methane rules and car emission even as the second-largest producer of oil and gas and that New Mexico has to “be a leader on climate.”
“People need to remember that we have the power to change things,” she said. “We have the power to change things at home by picking better products and by picking better candidates, who are willing to act on climate.”
Former NM congresswoman Yvette Herrell appointed to Trump administration post - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Former New Mexico congresswoman Yvette Herrell has been appointed to a Trump administration post and is not planning to run next year for the southern New Mexico-based seat she represented for a single term after winning the 2020 election.
A Herrell campaign spokesman confirmed her plan to not run in 2026 for the 2nd Congressional District seat, which is currently held by U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat.
The seat has been one of the nation’s most hotly contested districts in recent years, but became more favorable to Democrats under a new congressional map that took effect in 2022. Vasquez defeated Herrell in last year’s general election, getting about 52% of the votes cast in the race.
The vote spread between the two candidates was larger than it was in 2022, when Vasquez ousted Herrell by a razor-thin margin.
Herrell, a former state legislator, was appointed by the president in June to be an assistant secretary for congressional relations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
She has not yet been confirmed by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where her nomination was sent. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is a member of that committee.
Herrell has worked as a real estate broker in Alamogordo since leaving Congress. She also owns an ice and water vending machine company and would transfer ownership of the company to a family business if confirmed, according to a public financial disclosure report obtained by the Journal.
As assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Herrell would hold a key post in a federal agency that employs nearly 100,000 people and oversees the U.S. Forest Service and other departments. If confirmed, she would replace Adrienne Wojciechowski, who stepped down in January after Trump took office.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently led by Brooke Rollins, who announced during a June meeting of the Western Governors Association in Santa Fe that her agency intends to repeal a rule that prohibits road construction and logging on 91,000 square miles of Forest Service land.
Rollins also recently announced plans to restructure the USDA by transferring most of the agency’s employees in Washington, D.C., to offices in five cities around the nation: Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Fort Collins, Colorado, Kansas City, Missouri, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, Herrell’s appointment could lead to other Republicans entering next year’s CD2 race.
Eddy Aragon, a radio talk show host and former Albuquerque mayoral candidate, announced his candidacy in May and is currently the only GOP candidate in the race, according to federal election filings.
Vasquez is seeking reelection in the district, which now includes all of southern New Mexico and stretches north into Albuquerque’s South Valley.
Gallup Indian Medical Center limits care because of Trump executive order on contract review - Santa Fe New Mexican
Members of New Mexico’s Congressional delegation are calling on the federal government to act in response to reports that the Gallup Indian Medical Center has reduced and suspended some medical services.
U.S. Senators Ben Ray Lujan, and Martin Heinrich along with U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fernandez and Melanie Stansbury authored a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Indian Health Service Acting Director Benjamin Smith.
The letter says that the Gallup Indian Medical Center has reduced and suspended some services due to recently implemented bureaucratic red tape.
Since then, the result of the policy has been what the lawmakers called “wasted resources, staffing shortages, and preventable delays in care.”
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the Gallup Indian Medical Center has restricted birth services in its Women’s Health Unit.
An internal email obtained by the New Mexican says scheduled c-sections are “limited,” while births involving induction or attempted vaginal delivery following a C-section are referred to other facilities.
The center has the only maternity ward in Gallup.
The email also said surgeries are being limited only to people arriving in the emergency room who need immediate intervention.
Sen. Heinrich said he’s “appalled” at what he called the “dismal state” of Gallup Indian Medical Center and called the new federal policies “a blatant and unacceptable violation of treaty obligations.”
WNMU regents ax Joseph Shepard’s severance and teaching contract - Joshua Bowling, Searchlight New Mexico
Unanimously, the newly appointed regents at Western New Mexico University have approved a plan to strike down former President Joseph Shepard’s previously awarded $1.9 million severance payment and five-year teaching contract, on the grounds that they were awarded in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.
Regents at the July 31 meeting acknowledged that they aren’t sure if or how their move can pull back the nearly $2 million that the Silver City school already paid to Shepard following his December resignation — regent chair Steven Neville said the votes leave the agreement “unapproved and basically in limbo at this point.” But it appears likely that the board’s decision will influence the ongoing lawsuit from Attorney General Raúl Torrez that seeks to recover the severance money and void Shepard’s teaching contract.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s decision does not affect another court challenge Shepard is facing. In June, the New Mexico State Ethics Commission filed a lawsuit alleging that, while president, Shepard misdirected funds meant for an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant project toward an outdoor patio that he used for his daughter’s wedding.
“I know there’s going to be a lot of questions after these votes,” regent John V. Wertheim said at the meeting. “Shepard’s separation agreement and faculty appointment are no longer in existence … The best resolution for everyone is to get this in front of a retired judge or justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court to hammer out a fair, negotiated settlement. That’s certainly my goal in making the motion I made.”
Shepard and the New Mexico Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
In an unprecedented occurrence for WNMU’s regents, Friday’s meeting, which was held in person and on Zoom for virtual attendees, was derailed by hackers. Shortly after people initially logged on to the meeting’s virtual component, several hackers joined and displayed pornographic videos, racial slurs and swastikas on their video feeds. Attendees in the room appeared not to notice the chaos — regents were unfazed as they continued to discuss routine government business — but even presentations shared by the host of the meeting were quickly replaced by the explicit pornographic videos.
Several of the hackers’ video feeds featured text that read: “hacked by nuenze.” The same group seems to have carried out a similar operation in Mississippi earlier this week. After WNMU administrators ejected bad actors from the meeting, everyone in remote attendance had their cameras turned off. Earlier this year, in April, Russian cyberattackers appeared to infiltrate WNMU employee computers.
Thursday’s vote was the latest step in what has been a busy year for Shepard and WNMU. Concerns over his conduct as president were first widely raised in late 2023, after Searchlight New Mexico broke the story of how he; his wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame; and several other university officials used taxpayer dollars to pay for lavish lifestyles in an otherwise impoverished town. Searchlight found Shepard had adorned his on-campus house with nearly $28,000 worth of exotic furniture from Seret and Sons, a Santa Fe business known for imported pieces and steep prices.
Within weeks, state lawmakers grilled Shepard at the Capitol over Searchlight’s reporting. The Higher Education Department and the Office of the State Auditor both announced they were looking into WNMU’s finances and sent the university scathing letters questioning many of Shepard’s purchases. Employees at the university and its sister foundation told Searchlight that the foundation had been reduced to being “the presidential piggybank.”
After that, though, things were relatively quiet for most of 2024. The Amazon Prime streaming show “The College Tour” released an episode set at WNMU; Shepard appeared in it to laud how the school serves students in unique circumstances, such as first-generation college students. “We’re that small place that gives that big experience,” he said.
By fall of 2024, developments picked up. In November, the state auditor released a blistering report detailing the highlights of his office’s investigation. It alleged $363,525.99 in “wasteful” and “improper” spending, including a trip to the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs, California.
A month after the auditor’s findings were made public, Shepard resigned from his post as university president. At a Dec. 20, 2024, regents meeting, Shepard was awarded $1.9 million in severance and a five-year teaching contract in the university’s business school for $200,000 per year. He had been in his job for more than 13 years.
Since then, Shepard has been the target of multiple lawsuits relating to the terms of his departure and his conduct as president. In January, the New Mexico Department of Justice filed suit against Shepard and the regents to nullify his severance and teaching contract and to recoup the nearly $2 million “golden parachute.”
Thursday’s unanimous decision from the new Board of Regents has the potential to affect the NMDOJ’s lawsuit over Shepard’s severance and employment contract. But it does not appear poised to affect a lawsuit filed in June by the State Ethics Commission, which accused Shepard of violating the state Governmental Conduct Act, which regulates how employees at all levels of New Mexico government comport themselves.
“As WNMU President, Shepard had a practice of authorizing university expenditures from which he benefited that were only loosely connected to university purposes,” the 106-page lawsuit alleges. “While a university president has wide latitude to authorize university expenditures for university purposes, the Governmental Conduct Act places a limit on the expenditure of public funds for a private purpose. Shepard transgressed that limit.”
New Mexico climate groups struck a defiant tone in the wake of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to dismantle federal authority to reduce one of the drivers of climate change: greenhouse gases.
On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in Indianapolis that the agency would scrap what’s called the “endangerment finding” established in 2009 under the Obama Administration. In that finding, the agency determined climate change was a threat to human health, which allowed the EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gases.
After the proposal is published, the EPA will solicit public comment over the next 45 days and finalize the rule, most likely within the next year.
The 2009 finding formed the basis for a number of ensuing EPA regulations, including a 2024 rule requiring increasingly strict tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks. In his announcement this week, Zeldin contended the framework established in 2009 hurt the wider economy.
“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” Zeldin said in a written statement, claiming that under the Obama and Joe Biden administrations, the EPA “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”
New Mexico’s top environmental official said the Trump administration’s proposal “ignores decades of established climate science,” and threatens New Mexicans’ health and economy.
“Clean energy means good jobs — thousands of them already here in New Mexico, with more on the way,” Environment Secretary James Kenney said in a statement provided to Source NM. “We’ll continue working with lawmakers to ensure New Mexico has the tools we need to keep reducing emissions and growing our clean energy economy, regardless of what happens in Washington. New Mexico will continue standing behind the science and leading on climate action because it protects our families, our economy, and our future.”
In recent years, New Mexico has adopted laws and rules to lower state emissions, including the 2019 Energy Transition Act requiring more renewable energy for electricity generation, and a 2022 law requiring oil and gas producers to lower methane emissions.
New Mexico adopted rules from California to phase-out gas-powered cars and ramp up sales of electric vehicles available for purchase starting in 2026. President Donald Trump blocked the rule in June, prompting a lawsuit from New Mexico and 10 other states that enforce California’s emissions rules.The state is also moving forward in September with rule-making to reduce pollution over time from “cleaner fuels,” following the adoption of the law in 2024.
Currently, the state government is acting under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2019 executive order setting reduced emission goals through 2050. Several lawmakers have introduced measures to enshrine these goals into state law, which have thus far stalled out at the Roundhouse.
‘We’re going to need to see action’
New Mexico conservation and environmental groups said the decision, which is not yet final, will roll back progress on clean energy and worsen risk from disasters linked to climate change, and said local governments have to work to fill the gaps.
“The idea that we are turning back 16 years of progress and turning our backs on the detrimental effects of climate change on human existence is heartbreaking,” Carlos Matutes, executive director of GreenLatinos, told Source NM. “We know full well that climate change is impacting the lives of New Mexicans, look no further than the Rio Grande running dry while we have floods in the Southeastern part of the state.”
While New Mexico’s regulations can still continue, the federal government’s move will have a “ripple effect” throughout climate policy, said Kyle Tisdel, an attorney and the Climate & Energy program director at the Western Environmental Law Center.
“This is an abandonment of EPA’s fundamental duty to put the U.S. in the lead in terms of our emissions and our economy going forward, but also to put people first before the oil and gas industry and before the coal industry,” Tisdel told Source NM. “It’s this abdication of the federal government’s fundamental role to do what’s in the best interests of the public.”
The policy will likely be challenged in the courts, said Conservation Voters New Mexico Climate and Energy Advocate Justin Garoutte.
“The Trump EPA’s plan makes blatant climate denial official U.S. policy,” Garoutte said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: eliminating the endangerment finding and methane regulation is a Polluters’ First agenda, allowing the industries responsible for more than 50% of climate pollution in the country to evade regulation.”
The EPA decision to scrap endangerment is “a direct attack” on the health and futures for young people, said Zoey Craft Communications Manager Youth United for Climate Crisis Action.
“The endangerment finding is really one of the few protections that at the federal level acknowledges how harmful these emissions actually are to our health and our futures,” Craft told Source NM. “Rolling it back doesn’t just weaken policy, it ultimately is giving polluters more power, and our communities simultaneously less protection.”
Craft said focus will have to include local responses to extreme-weather disasters.
“When our government won’t step up to protect us, we’re going to have to continue to step up to keep protecting each other,” Craft said.
New Mexicans can participate in local rulemaking hearings and upcoming legislative sessions to put more urgency into reducing emissions, said Nini Gu, the Environmental Defense Fund’s western regulatory and legislative manager.
“New Mexicans should tell their policy makers very clearly how they have been impacted by climate pollution, oil and gas emission and that they are really looking to their governor and state regulators to step in and fill that void left by the federal government,” Gu told Source NM. “The state does not, and should not, wait for a mandate from the federal government in order to step in and protect New Mexicans.”
The decision should spur further action in the governor’s last 30-day session in 2026, said Camilla Feibelman, the director of the Rio Grande Chapter of Sierra Club.
“We are going to need to see action in this coming legislative session, this last 30-day session with this governor, real action, because we’re being left so exposed by the federal government,” Feibelman told Source NM.
Feibelman noted that New Mexico has worked to implement its own methane rules and car emission even as the second-largest producer of oil and gas and that New Mexico has to “be a leader on climate.”
“People need to remember that we have the power to change things,” she said. “We have the power to change things at home by picking better products and by picking better candidates, who are willing to act on climate.”
Former NM congresswoman Yvette Herrell appointed to Trump administration post - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Former New Mexico congresswoman Yvette Herrell has been appointed to a Trump administration post and is not planning to run next year for the southern New Mexico-based seat she represented for a single term after winning the 2020 election.
A Herrell campaign spokesman confirmed her plan to not run in 2026 for the 2nd Congressional District seat, which is currently held by U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat.
The seat has been one of the nation’s most hotly contested districts in recent years, but became more favorable to Democrats under a new congressional map that took effect in 2022. Vasquez defeated Herrell in last year’s general election, getting about 52% of the votes cast in the race.
The vote spread between the two candidates was larger than it was in 2022, when Vasquez ousted Herrell by a razor-thin margin.
Herrell, a former state legislator, was appointed by the president in June to be an assistant secretary for congressional relations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
She has not yet been confirmed by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where her nomination was sent. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is a member of that committee.
Herrell has worked as a real estate broker in Alamogordo since leaving Congress. She also owns an ice and water vending machine company and would transfer ownership of the company to a family business if confirmed, according to a public financial disclosure report obtained by the Journal.
As assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Herrell would hold a key post in a federal agency that employs nearly 100,000 people and oversees the U.S. Forest Service and other departments. If confirmed, she would replace Adrienne Wojciechowski, who stepped down in January after Trump took office.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently led by Brooke Rollins, who announced during a June meeting of the Western Governors Association in Santa Fe that her agency intends to repeal a rule that prohibits road construction and logging on 91,000 square miles of Forest Service land.
Rollins also recently announced plans to restructure the USDA by transferring most of the agency’s employees in Washington, D.C., to offices in five cities around the nation: Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Fort Collins, Colorado, Kansas City, Missouri, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, Herrell’s appointment could lead to other Republicans entering next year’s CD2 race.
Eddy Aragon, a radio talk show host and former Albuquerque mayoral candidate, announced his candidacy in May and is currently the only GOP candidate in the race, according to federal election filings.
Vasquez is seeking reelection in the district, which now includes all of southern New Mexico and stretches north into Albuquerque’s South Valley.
Gallup Indian Medical Center limits care because of Trump executive order on contract review - Santa Fe New Mexican
Members of New Mexico’s Congressional delegation are calling on the federal government to act in response to reports that the Gallup Indian Medical Center has reduced and suspended some medical services.
U.S. Senators Ben Ray Lujan, and Martin Heinrich along with U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fernandez and Melanie Stansbury authored a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Indian Health Service Acting Director Benjamin Smith.
The letter says that the Gallup Indian Medical Center has reduced and suspended some services due to recently implemented bureaucratic red tape.
Since then, the result of the policy has been what the lawmakers called “wasted resources, staffing shortages, and preventable delays in care.”
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the Gallup Indian Medical Center has restricted birth services in its Women’s Health Unit.
An internal email obtained by the New Mexican says scheduled c-sections are “limited,” while births involving induction or attempted vaginal delivery following a C-section are referred to other facilities.
The center has the only maternity ward in Gallup.
The email also said surgeries are being limited only to people arriving in the emergency room who need immediate intervention.
Sen. Heinrich said he’s “appalled” at what he called the “dismal state” of Gallup Indian Medical Center and called the new federal policies “a blatant and unacceptable violation of treaty obligations.”
WNMU regents ax Joseph Shepard’s severance and teaching contract - Joshua Bowling, Searchlight New Mexico
Unanimously, the newly appointed regents at Western New Mexico University have approved a plan to strike down former President Joseph Shepard’s previously awarded $1.9 million severance payment and five-year teaching contract, on the grounds that they were awarded in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.
Regents at the July 31 meeting acknowledged that they aren’t sure if or how their move can pull back the nearly $2 million that the Silver City school already paid to Shepard following his December resignation — regent chair Steven Neville said the votes leave the agreement “unapproved and basically in limbo at this point.” But it appears likely that the board’s decision will influence the ongoing lawsuit from Attorney General Raúl Torrez that seeks to recover the severance money and void Shepard’s teaching contract.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s decision does not affect another court challenge Shepard is facing. In June, the New Mexico State Ethics Commission filed a lawsuit alleging that, while president, Shepard misdirected funds meant for an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant project toward an outdoor patio that he used for his daughter’s wedding.
“I know there’s going to be a lot of questions after these votes,” regent John V. Wertheim said at the meeting. “Shepard’s separation agreement and faculty appointment are no longer in existence … The best resolution for everyone is to get this in front of a retired judge or justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court to hammer out a fair, negotiated settlement. That’s certainly my goal in making the motion I made.”
Shepard and the New Mexico Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
In an unprecedented occurrence for WNMU’s regents, Friday’s meeting, which was held in person and on Zoom for virtual attendees, was derailed by hackers. Shortly after people initially logged on to the meeting’s virtual component, several hackers joined and displayed pornographic videos, racial slurs and swastikas on their video feeds. Attendees in the room appeared not to notice the chaos — regents were unfazed as they continued to discuss routine government business — but even presentations shared by the host of the meeting were quickly replaced by the explicit pornographic videos.
Several of the hackers’ video feeds featured text that read: “hacked by nuenze.” The same group seems to have carried out a similar operation in Mississippi earlier this week. After WNMU administrators ejected bad actors from the meeting, everyone in remote attendance had their cameras turned off. Earlier this year, in April, Russian cyberattackers appeared to infiltrate WNMU employee computers.
Thursday’s vote was the latest step in what has been a busy year for Shepard and WNMU. Concerns over his conduct as president were first widely raised in late 2023, after Searchlight New Mexico broke the story of how he; his wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame; and several other university officials used taxpayer dollars to pay for lavish lifestyles in an otherwise impoverished town. Searchlight found Shepard had adorned his on-campus house with nearly $28,000 worth of exotic furniture from Seret and Sons, a Santa Fe business known for imported pieces and steep prices.
Within weeks, state lawmakers grilled Shepard at the Capitol over Searchlight’s reporting. The Higher Education Department and the Office of the State Auditor both announced they were looking into WNMU’s finances and sent the university scathing letters questioning many of Shepard’s purchases. Employees at the university and its sister foundation told Searchlight that the foundation had been reduced to being “the presidential piggybank.”
After that, though, things were relatively quiet for most of 2024. The Amazon Prime streaming show “The College Tour” released an episode set at WNMU; Shepard appeared in it to laud how the school serves students in unique circumstances, such as first-generation college students. “We’re that small place that gives that big experience,” he said.
By fall of 2024, developments picked up. In November, the state auditor released a blistering report detailing the highlights of his office’s investigation. It alleged $363,525.99 in “wasteful” and “improper” spending, including a trip to the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs, California.
A month after the auditor’s findings were made public, Shepard resigned from his post as university president. At a Dec. 20, 2024, regents meeting, Shepard was awarded $1.9 million in severance and a five-year teaching contract in the university’s business school for $200,000 per year. He had been in his job for more than 13 years.
Since then, Shepard has been the target of multiple lawsuits relating to the terms of his departure and his conduct as president. In January, the New Mexico Department of Justice filed suit against Shepard and the regents to nullify his severance and teaching contract and to recoup the nearly $2 million “golden parachute.”
Thursday’s unanimous decision from the new Board of Regents has the potential to affect the NMDOJ’s lawsuit over Shepard’s severance and employment contract. But it does not appear poised to affect a lawsuit filed in June by the State Ethics Commission, which accused Shepard of violating the state Governmental Conduct Act, which regulates how employees at all levels of New Mexico government comport themselves.
“As WNMU President, Shepard had a practice of authorizing university expenditures from which he benefited that were only loosely connected to university purposes,” the 106-page lawsuit alleges. “While a university president has wide latitude to authorize university expenditures for university purposes, the Governmental Conduct Act places a limit on the expenditure of public funds for a private purpose. Shepard transgressed that limit.”