FRI: New Mexico Gov.-elect Haaland names state labor secretary as chief of staff, + More
By KUNM News
November 6, 2026 at 5:55 AM MST
New Mexico Gov.-elect Haaland names state labor secretary as chief of staff
—Source New Mexico staff
New Mexico Gov.-elect Deb Haaland on Friday morning announced that the state’s current secretary of the Department of Workforce Solutions would be her chief of staff.
The New Mexico State Senate confirmed Sarita Nair as DWS secretary in February of 2023. She worked previously as chief administrative officer for the City of Albuquerque
“I am confident that Sarita will serve as a trusted partner and tireless advocate for all New Mexicans,” Haaland said in a statement. “She is a distinguished leader with over 20 years of experience in public service and the law. Her expertise will be essential as we build a state government that is accountable to New Mexicans and is focused on cutting costs for working families.”
A news release says Nair’s responsibilities as chief of staff will include guiding the transition to Haaland’s administration, and coordinating her staffing, cabinet appointments and policy priorities.
“It is an honor to serve the people of New Mexico as the Chief of Staff for Governor-elect Haaland. I am committed to supporting her and the incoming Cabinet to lower costs, expand access to healthcare, and strengthen public safety,” Nair said.
When asked during a Friday joint news conference with Haaland if if Nair would remain as DWS secretary through the end of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s term this year, Lujan Grisham said she has “no doubt” Nair “can manage that department while assisting and leading in a transition.”
New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham, Gov.-elect Haaland begin transfer of power after historic victory
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Outgoing New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham met with her successor, fellow Democrat Deb Haaland, Friday morning on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe to offer some parting advice.
“This job places you at the center of America’s heartbeat,” Lujan Grisham said at a Friday news conference with Haaland, outgoing Lt. Gov Howie Morales and incoming Lt. Gov. and current state Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. “I want the governor-elect and the lieutenant governor-elect to take every opportunity to advance everything they can that makes a difference for New Mexicans; to get through the tough times, and there will be many; and to celebrate all of the things that really matter.”
Lujan Grisham said she was glad to be in a position where she was handing over control of the state’s executive branch to someone she has long known and respected. The transition marks the second one between the two as Haaland also succeeded Lujan Grisham in Congress representing the state’s 1st Congressional District after the latter was elected governor in 2018.
“This is a gift, I believe, to New Mexico — a true New Mexican who understands what we can do and accomplish,” Lujan Grisham said.
Haaland, who Tuesday became the first Native American woman to be elected governor in U.S. history, was visibly emotional as she embraced Lujan Grisham in the lobby of the governor’s office.
Even as New Mexico has continued to struggle in recent years with poor national rankings in regard to metrics such as crime, education and child welfare, Lujan Grisham oversaw significant growth in the state’s trust funds, established scholarships for tuition-free college degrees and pioneered the first-in-the-nation universal childcare program.
Once she’s sworn in in January, Haaland has pledged to sign an executive order implementing a moratorium on new large-scale data center developments while the state Legislature crafts guardrails around such projects. Earlier this week, she also said she would prioritize naming a new leader for the state’s beleaguered child welfare agency. Beyond that, she has said she’ll immediately get to work on a state budget for the 60-day legislative session that starts Jan. 19.
“The only real promise I made to New Mexicans is that I’ll work as hard as I can to ensure that we are lifting New Mexicans up across the state,” she said Friday.
Haaland added that she will “protect and expand Gov. Lujan Grisham’s legacy,” particularly as it relates to universal childcare and early childhood education.
“She has also done a phenomenal job on lifting so many New Mexicans out of poverty,” Haaland said. “I’m also excited to build upon the accomplishments of this current administration with investments in healthcare, affordable housing, affordability in general for New Mexico families across this state.”
Lujan Grisham and Haaland spoke alongside their running mates, who can often get overlooked in conversations about the state’s leadership. Both mentioned the important, behind-the-scenes role a lieutenant governor often plays.
When Lujan Grisham signed the universal childcare program into law earlier this year, for instance, she credited Morales for taking up the issue when he was a state senator and continuing to prioritize it after he joined her administration.
At Friday’s news conference, he said he told his successor to continue a practice that she and Haaland employed on the campaign trail: traveling outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque to hear the concerns of New Mexicans everywhere.
“New Mexico is very much a rural state,” he said. “Those relationships will be so instrumental when you come into the legislative session that you’re prepared to advocate for the smallest parts of the state.”
Garcia Richard, who attended the same Silver City high school as Morales, said she planned to do so and to continue Morales’ tradition of working closely alongside the governor.
“A lieutenant governor is only as effective as their relationship with the governor,” she said.
Desert icons collapse as southwestern US gets pummeled with rain and flooding
–Associated Press
There are stretches of high desert in northwestern New Mexico where Mother Nature has sculpted otherworldly forms using wind, rain and the passage of time.
Hefty planks of rock defy gravity as they balance atop spindly pedestals of clay, while some columns of sandstone take on the appearance of lace, elaborately eroded by the seasons.
Tour guide Kialo Winters shares this piece of his homeland on the edge of the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness with visitors regularly. On a recent Friday afternoon, the founder of Navajo Tours USA rounded a bend and found one of the area's most famous features had collapsed.
The Alien Throne — or Tsé Bináká Níyol as it's known in his language — was no more. His heart dropped.
“It was surreal,” he told The Associated Press. “I had to sort of just pause. A lot of things ran through my head.”
The Alien Throne and the nearby King of Wings formation collapsed within weeks of each other, toppled by the very forces of nature that created them.
Back-to-back storms destroy homes and hoodoos
The southwestern U.S. has endured major rounds of storms over recent weeks, with rain falling on ground already soaked from an especially wet fall.
Parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona have watched rivers crest and floodwaters course through usually dry washes, destroying homes, further saturating the soil and eroding the landscape.
The water is receding and cleanup is underway, but officials estimate the damage could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Winters still is concerned for relatives on the Navajo Nation, where many dirt roads became impassable or were washed away altogether by what he described as a series of massive storm fronts.
Experts have estimated that more than 20 trillion gallons (75.7 trillion liters) of rain fell across the Four Corners states and Nevada during late October and early November as tropical moisture was funneled into the region.
In early October, the demise of the King of Wings began circulating on social media. Visitors documented the large slab of rock on the ground near the mound of clay on which it once stood.
It's not entirely clear when the Alien Throne came down, as poor road conditions kept Winters from visiting for a couple weeks. He had not seen any other posts about the feature's status until he rounded that corner Oct. 30 and saw it in pieces.
Social media posts ranged from those who were thankful they were able to see the formations and immortalize them with photographs to those lamenting that they never had the chance.
Condolences also were sprinkled in with debates about physics and the fragility of natural wonders.
“Gravity. It’s not just a good idea … it’s the law,” one joked.
For Winters and other Native Americans from the region, they’re more than just rock formations. They have served as waypoints, guiding ancestors along trade routes for thousands of years, and as connecting threads in stories handed down through generations.
“They are culturally relevant to our identity and our stories,” he said, adding that their legacies will be carried on through photographs, illustrations and in the stories people share about their time spent in this stretch of desert.
He called on people to let the sites “rest.” So no climbing on what remains, and certainly don't take any pieces home.
It's far off the beaten path down a rutted, washboard dirt road. But it's worth it, said Alan Studt of Parma, Ohio, who made his first visit in 2019 and then again last April as part of a 50-day road trip.
In looking back through his earlier photographs, he could see the formations were weathering. There were new holes forming in the throne and cracks along the wing's base, making it no surprise they would not last forever.
Studt spent hours exploring and photographing the hills and washes during this last trip. He described being drawn in each time he saw a new set of spires in the distance, marveling at the petrified wood along the way and the rainbow of colors in the soils.
“It is really so magical to be out there,” he said.
New analyses contend New Mexico US Sen. Heinrich’s permitting bill would cut emissions, costs
– Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New analyses of a permitting reform bill U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) has championed say that its provisions would reduce emissions and costs to ratepayers, as well as recover billions of dollars from data center developers.
The analyses, released separately in recent days by four independent nonprofit and industry groups, including the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, modeled what would happen to energy transmission and green energy production with and without Heinrich’s Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act in effect through 2040.
They found that the bill would lower household electricity bills by $50 to $78 annually by 2040. Moreover, it would reduce power sector emissions by about 20%, which would subsequently help prevent approximately 6,700 deaths and save $54 billion in cumulative public health costs.
Heinrich, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, announced the proposal along with Chair U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and other bipartisan senators in recent weeks. He has touted the bill as a way to reform the federal permit review process to reduce delays and give renewable energy developers more certainty and quicker reviews, as well as a way to ensure data center developers don’t pass energy costs onto nearby households.
The bill has received backlash from tribal and environmentalist groups concerned it will fast-track fossil fuel production and reduce tribal input on sensitive developments. Last week, protesters from the YUCCA Alliance railed against the bill outside Heinrich’s downtown Albuquerque office.
But Heinrich has maintained the bill will prevent vital carbon-free energy and transmission projects from facing years of regulatory delays. His office has pointed to the analyses as proof the bill is necessary to achieve climate goals.
“Americans are tired of paying more in utility bills while projects that could lower costs sit stuck in the planning phase for years,” Heinrich said in a statement touting the outside reviews. “These independent analyses show exactly what we stand to gain by fixing our broken permitting system: lower electricity bills, cleaner air, healthier communities, and more reliable energy infrastructure.”
One of those reviews, released Thursday by the nonpartisan Center for Climate and Energy Solutions thinktank, found that passing the bill would reduce annual electricity bills by $2.5 billion by 2035, partially by reducing the queue that power plants, energy storage facilities and energy storage projects idle in before getting approval to connect to the grid.
“It takes years for projects to connect to the grid and be able to deliver that energy,” the center’s president, Nat Keohane, said during a virtual news conference. “When demand is growing and supply can’t keep up, costs go up.”
A separate analysis from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, evaluated provisions in the 417-page bill related to data centers. The bill would require electrical utilities to impose additional costs on data centers, funding that utilities would then use to reduce transmission costs to ratepayers.
In total, Grid Strategies estimates that data centers would pay $55 billion to utilities over the next decade if the bill goes into effect, a figure that represents an additional $35 billion more than they would pay under existing policy.
Heinrich and his cosponsors have announced they intend to try to shepherd the bill through both chambers of Congress before the next session begins next year. U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) announced last week that she does not support the bill as written.
The bill sponsors’ push to pass the bill in 2026 has drawn additional criticism from the bill’s skeptics, who argue Democrats’ new majorities in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House in Tuesday’s election means a better bill can be achieved.
Moreover, in January, Heinrich may take over as chair of the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, giving him even more power over the bill’s provisions.
However, in an emailed statement Thursday provided to Source NM, Heinrich said he still thinks the climate and country can’t wait any longer to pass the permitting reform bill. He said if he becomes committee chair that his priorities will be reducing energy costs for New Mexicans and protecting public lands, including in Chaco Canyon and the Pecos River.
“But our priority right now is passing the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which would make it illegal for data centers to shift the costs of their grid upgrades and infrastructure onto consumers,” he said. “We’ve been working toward permitting reform for the better part of a decade, and this is the closest we’ve come to getting something signed into law. I’m not going to wait, and I’ll negotiate in good faith, whether I’m the Chair or the Ranking Member.”
Judge rules New Mexico's Yazzie-Martinez education reform plan insufficient
– Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
A Santa Fe judge has ruled that the New Mexico Public Education Department’s plan to provide better schooling for underserved students is not sufficient, the latest development in an ongoing court case known as Yazzie-Martinez.
Judge Matthew Wilson issued an order Monday determining that the plan was not fully comprehensive because it failed to completely address all previous judicial orders in the case and did not include specific targeted services like summer school and reduced class sizes.
Though the court rejected the plaintiffs’ requests to completely rewrite the document or to dictate specific policies, the order requires that PED submit a supplement by March 26, 2027. The supplement must explicitly connect PED’s corrective actions to prior decisions and provide clear methods for measuring compliance in the future. The PED must also create a high-level overview to summarize how the state will fulfill its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to underserved groups.
The 2018 Yazzie-Martinez court decision ruled that the state of New Mexico has a constitutional obligation to provide every student with an equal opportunity and a sufficient education, especially Native American students, English-language learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students — all of whom make up around 70% of New Mexico’s student population, according to the Public Education Department.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
New Mexico utility regulators advance transfer of troubled water company that ran dry last year
– Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
New Mexico utility regulators on Thursday approved an expedited process for reviewing a potential takeover of a small-town water company that suffered a “complete” water outage in 2025.
For much of this year, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has received regular updates about Melody Ranch Water Co., a utility that serves a small town outside of Edgewood. One of the company’s primary wells didn’t produce enough water to keep up with demand last year, resulting in a widespread water outage. In a 2025 email to the commission, company representatives said they had depleted much of their financial reserves to address the problem.
The commission unanimously voted Thursday to accelerate its review of a proposal that would let the Estancia, Moriarty, Williard and Torrance County Regional Water Association take control of Melody Ranch Water Co.’s operations. The commission will notify Melody Ranch customers by Nov. 9 and give interested parties until Nov. 16 to weigh in.
The commission could consider a final decision as soon as Dec. 3, according to a PRC news release.
If approved, the regional water association would take control of Melody Ranch’s water system, wells, equipment and water rights at no cost, but would not assume the company’s debts or add new fees to customers’ bills. It would also let the association build a new well and connect Melody Ranch’s system to Moriarty’s with a pipeline. Earlier this year, the state Legislature dedicated $4 million to water infrastructure improvements.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had previously signed an executive order that facilitated hauling water to the community. However, that agreement is set to expire at the end of the year.
While commissioners voted on the expedited review with little discussion, they said finding a permanent solution — such as connecting Melody Ranch to Moriarty with a pipeline — is a top priority.
“I share the sense of urgency…for me, it’s just making sure that whatever we do sticks,” PRC Chair Pat O’Connell said during Thursday’s meeting.
Melody Ranch officials have already signed a transfer agreement with the regional water authority, according to a recent PRC filing, and in 2025 requested PRC support in expedited measures to restore service.
Less than a month after resigning, former Rep. Andrea Reeb says she'll rejoin the Legislature
– Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Former state Rep. Andrea Reeb reversed course Thursday, saying she would rejoin the Legislature in January after winning election to an eastern New Mexico-based state House seat.
The announcement comes less than a month after Reeb abruptly resigned from the state House after a federal judge in a case involving actor Alec Baldwin ruled Reeb was violating state law by simultaneously working as a special prosecutor and as a legislator.
The Republican former district attorney said Thursday she had to act quickly in response to the judge’s ruling so as not to jeopardize victims in criminal cases she was involved with.
“I just don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong,” Reeb said in an interview, while adding she is still considering appealing the judge’s ruling.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
New Mexico observers report ‘generally smooth’ 2026 election
– Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The 260 certified observers enlisted to watch key steps of New Mexico’s 2026 general election said the process went “smoothly overall,” according to a news release this week from Observe New Mexico Elections, though a small number of voters seeking to register and vote on Tuesday faced delays.
Observe New Mexico Elections, a nonprofit group funded by the Carter Center, which former President Jimmy Carter founded, has sent hundreds of observers to monitor the last five New Mexico elections.
Observers watched statewide this year during voting machine and equipment certification, poll worker training, early voting, absentee ballot processing and Election Day monitoring. The group’s aim was to watch every early voting location in the state at least once, as well as be in 50% of statewide polling places in each county and all of Bernalillo County’s polling places on Election Day, the group’s co-leader Carmen Lopez told Source NM in a pre-election interview last week.
In addition to Observe New Mexico Elections’ observers, five other groups deployed hundreds of watchers throughout the state on Election Day, and the United States Department of Justice sent approximately 10 monitors to observe Bernalillo County polling places on Tuesday.
In a news release Wednesday, Lopez said observers saw strong voter turnout and smooth voting processes across the state.
“Initial feedback from ONME observers shows that the General Election ran smoothly overall, with a handful of polling sites impacted by delays in the same-day voter registration system,” she said. “In addition, poll workers in flood-affected areas sought creative solutions to keep the lines moving.”
San Juan County and others in northern New Mexico have been recovering from widespread flooding that damaged thousands of homes in the days leading up to Election Day.
According to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office, San Juan County voters turned out at a lower rate than in the last midterm election. In 2022, roughly 51% of voters cast ballots; this year, a little less than 45% of voters turned out.
Statewide, Observe New Mexico Elections has repeatedly noted delays in recent elections with same-day registration, which enables voters to register to vote at a polling place and cast ballots afterward, once the Secretary of State’s Office has processed their applications.
On Tuesday, the group said delays or system shutdowns affected same-day voters in a small number of locations, but the observer group received “positive reports about the creativity of poll workers in high turnout areas by shifting resources between polling locations” to address the issue, Lopez said.
Lindsey Bachman, the secretary of state’s communications, legislative and executive affairs director, did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment.
The Secretary of State’s Office, in a news release Tuesday night, celebrated what Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said was a “safe, secure, and accessible general election in New Mexico.” On Thursday, the state’s Office of Cybersecurity announced that the state’s electronic election networks and systems stayed secure throughout the election, thanks to months of planning between the office and other state agencies.
“New Mexicans cast their ballots with confidence, and they had every reason to,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Our agencies, election officials and partners spent months preparing for every scenario so voters never had to wonder whether their vote was safe. That is the strong foundation we’ll hand off to the next administration.”
Like it does after every election, Observe New Mexico Elections will send out a full, comprehensive report on New Mexico’s election processes in the coming weeks. The group will also send observers to witness the ballot certification process beginning soon.
UNM graduate student workers demand dental, vision insurance
– Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
More than 100 graduate students at the University of New Mexico demonstrated in front of Scholes Hall on Thursday, demanding that the administration guarantee them vision and dental insurance.
Though the 1,500 students in the bargaining unit work up to 20 hours a week in teaching or research, they do not receive dental or vision benefits like the rest of the UNM faculty.
UNM is the only public university in New Mexico to provide health insurance to its graduate student workers, though the coverage does not include dental and vision, which students have the option to buy at an additional cost.
After a kick to the face while working as a gymnastics coach in 2019 left her with dental trauma, earth and planetary sciences Ph.D. student Lexi Kenis said she was forced to delay care when she started graduate school at UNM in 2021.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
—Source New Mexico staff
New Mexico Gov.-elect Deb Haaland on Friday morning announced that the state’s current secretary of the Department of Workforce Solutions would be her chief of staff.
The New Mexico State Senate confirmed Sarita Nair as DWS secretary in February of 2023. She worked previously as chief administrative officer for the City of Albuquerque
“I am confident that Sarita will serve as a trusted partner and tireless advocate for all New Mexicans,” Haaland said in a statement. “She is a distinguished leader with over 20 years of experience in public service and the law. Her expertise will be essential as we build a state government that is accountable to New Mexicans and is focused on cutting costs for working families.”
A news release says Nair’s responsibilities as chief of staff will include guiding the transition to Haaland’s administration, and coordinating her staffing, cabinet appointments and policy priorities.
“It is an honor to serve the people of New Mexico as the Chief of Staff for Governor-elect Haaland. I am committed to supporting her and the incoming Cabinet to lower costs, expand access to healthcare, and strengthen public safety,” Nair said.
When asked during a Friday joint news conference with Haaland if if Nair would remain as DWS secretary through the end of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s term this year, Lujan Grisham said she has “no doubt” Nair “can manage that department while assisting and leading in a transition.”
New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham, Gov.-elect Haaland begin transfer of power after historic victory
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Outgoing New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham met with her successor, fellow Democrat Deb Haaland, Friday morning on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe to offer some parting advice.
“This job places you at the center of America’s heartbeat,” Lujan Grisham said at a Friday news conference with Haaland, outgoing Lt. Gov Howie Morales and incoming Lt. Gov. and current state Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. “I want the governor-elect and the lieutenant governor-elect to take every opportunity to advance everything they can that makes a difference for New Mexicans; to get through the tough times, and there will be many; and to celebrate all of the things that really matter.”
Lujan Grisham said she was glad to be in a position where she was handing over control of the state’s executive branch to someone she has long known and respected. The transition marks the second one between the two as Haaland also succeeded Lujan Grisham in Congress representing the state’s 1st Congressional District after the latter was elected governor in 2018.
“This is a gift, I believe, to New Mexico — a true New Mexican who understands what we can do and accomplish,” Lujan Grisham said.
Haaland, who Tuesday became the first Native American woman to be elected governor in U.S. history, was visibly emotional as she embraced Lujan Grisham in the lobby of the governor’s office.
Even as New Mexico has continued to struggle in recent years with poor national rankings in regard to metrics such as crime, education and child welfare, Lujan Grisham oversaw significant growth in the state’s trust funds, established scholarships for tuition-free college degrees and pioneered the first-in-the-nation universal childcare program.
Once she’s sworn in in January, Haaland has pledged to sign an executive order implementing a moratorium on new large-scale data center developments while the state Legislature crafts guardrails around such projects. Earlier this week, she also said she would prioritize naming a new leader for the state’s beleaguered child welfare agency. Beyond that, she has said she’ll immediately get to work on a state budget for the 60-day legislative session that starts Jan. 19.
“The only real promise I made to New Mexicans is that I’ll work as hard as I can to ensure that we are lifting New Mexicans up across the state,” she said Friday.
Haaland added that she will “protect and expand Gov. Lujan Grisham’s legacy,” particularly as it relates to universal childcare and early childhood education.
“She has also done a phenomenal job on lifting so many New Mexicans out of poverty,” Haaland said. “I’m also excited to build upon the accomplishments of this current administration with investments in healthcare, affordable housing, affordability in general for New Mexico families across this state.”
Lujan Grisham and Haaland spoke alongside their running mates, who can often get overlooked in conversations about the state’s leadership. Both mentioned the important, behind-the-scenes role a lieutenant governor often plays.
When Lujan Grisham signed the universal childcare program into law earlier this year, for instance, she credited Morales for taking up the issue when he was a state senator and continuing to prioritize it after he joined her administration.
At Friday’s news conference, he said he told his successor to continue a practice that she and Haaland employed on the campaign trail: traveling outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque to hear the concerns of New Mexicans everywhere.
“New Mexico is very much a rural state,” he said. “Those relationships will be so instrumental when you come into the legislative session that you’re prepared to advocate for the smallest parts of the state.”
Garcia Richard, who attended the same Silver City high school as Morales, said she planned to do so and to continue Morales’ tradition of working closely alongside the governor.
“A lieutenant governor is only as effective as their relationship with the governor,” she said.
Desert icons collapse as southwestern US gets pummeled with rain and flooding
–Associated Press
There are stretches of high desert in northwestern New Mexico where Mother Nature has sculpted otherworldly forms using wind, rain and the passage of time.
Hefty planks of rock defy gravity as they balance atop spindly pedestals of clay, while some columns of sandstone take on the appearance of lace, elaborately eroded by the seasons.
Tour guide Kialo Winters shares this piece of his homeland on the edge of the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness with visitors regularly. On a recent Friday afternoon, the founder of Navajo Tours USA rounded a bend and found one of the area's most famous features had collapsed.
The Alien Throne — or Tsé Bináká Níyol as it's known in his language — was no more. His heart dropped.
“It was surreal,” he told The Associated Press. “I had to sort of just pause. A lot of things ran through my head.”
The Alien Throne and the nearby King of Wings formation collapsed within weeks of each other, toppled by the very forces of nature that created them.
Back-to-back storms destroy homes and hoodoos
The southwestern U.S. has endured major rounds of storms over recent weeks, with rain falling on ground already soaked from an especially wet fall.
Parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona have watched rivers crest and floodwaters course through usually dry washes, destroying homes, further saturating the soil and eroding the landscape.
The water is receding and cleanup is underway, but officials estimate the damage could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Winters still is concerned for relatives on the Navajo Nation, where many dirt roads became impassable or were washed away altogether by what he described as a series of massive storm fronts.
Experts have estimated that more than 20 trillion gallons (75.7 trillion liters) of rain fell across the Four Corners states and Nevada during late October and early November as tropical moisture was funneled into the region.
In early October, the demise of the King of Wings began circulating on social media. Visitors documented the large slab of rock on the ground near the mound of clay on which it once stood.
It's not entirely clear when the Alien Throne came down, as poor road conditions kept Winters from visiting for a couple weeks. He had not seen any other posts about the feature's status until he rounded that corner Oct. 30 and saw it in pieces.
Social media posts ranged from those who were thankful they were able to see the formations and immortalize them with photographs to those lamenting that they never had the chance.
Condolences also were sprinkled in with debates about physics and the fragility of natural wonders.
“Gravity. It’s not just a good idea … it’s the law,” one joked.
For Winters and other Native Americans from the region, they’re more than just rock formations. They have served as waypoints, guiding ancestors along trade routes for thousands of years, and as connecting threads in stories handed down through generations.
“They are culturally relevant to our identity and our stories,” he said, adding that their legacies will be carried on through photographs, illustrations and in the stories people share about their time spent in this stretch of desert.
He called on people to let the sites “rest.” So no climbing on what remains, and certainly don't take any pieces home.
It's far off the beaten path down a rutted, washboard dirt road. But it's worth it, said Alan Studt of Parma, Ohio, who made his first visit in 2019 and then again last April as part of a 50-day road trip.
In looking back through his earlier photographs, he could see the formations were weathering. There were new holes forming in the throne and cracks along the wing's base, making it no surprise they would not last forever.
Studt spent hours exploring and photographing the hills and washes during this last trip. He described being drawn in each time he saw a new set of spires in the distance, marveling at the petrified wood along the way and the rainbow of colors in the soils.
“It is really so magical to be out there,” he said.
New analyses contend New Mexico US Sen. Heinrich’s permitting bill would cut emissions, costs
– Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
New analyses of a permitting reform bill U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) has championed say that its provisions would reduce emissions and costs to ratepayers, as well as recover billions of dollars from data center developers.
The analyses, released separately in recent days by four independent nonprofit and industry groups, including the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, modeled what would happen to energy transmission and green energy production with and without Heinrich’s Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act in effect through 2040.
They found that the bill would lower household electricity bills by $50 to $78 annually by 2040. Moreover, it would reduce power sector emissions by about 20%, which would subsequently help prevent approximately 6,700 deaths and save $54 billion in cumulative public health costs.
Heinrich, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, announced the proposal along with Chair U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and other bipartisan senators in recent weeks. He has touted the bill as a way to reform the federal permit review process to reduce delays and give renewable energy developers more certainty and quicker reviews, as well as a way to ensure data center developers don’t pass energy costs onto nearby households.
The bill has received backlash from tribal and environmentalist groups concerned it will fast-track fossil fuel production and reduce tribal input on sensitive developments. Last week, protesters from the YUCCA Alliance railed against the bill outside Heinrich’s downtown Albuquerque office.
But Heinrich has maintained the bill will prevent vital carbon-free energy and transmission projects from facing years of regulatory delays. His office has pointed to the analyses as proof the bill is necessary to achieve climate goals.
“Americans are tired of paying more in utility bills while projects that could lower costs sit stuck in the planning phase for years,” Heinrich said in a statement touting the outside reviews. “These independent analyses show exactly what we stand to gain by fixing our broken permitting system: lower electricity bills, cleaner air, healthier communities, and more reliable energy infrastructure.”
One of those reviews, released Thursday by the nonpartisan Center for Climate and Energy Solutions thinktank, found that passing the bill would reduce annual electricity bills by $2.5 billion by 2035, partially by reducing the queue that power plants, energy storage facilities and energy storage projects idle in before getting approval to connect to the grid.
“It takes years for projects to connect to the grid and be able to deliver that energy,” the center’s president, Nat Keohane, said during a virtual news conference. “When demand is growing and supply can’t keep up, costs go up.”
A separate analysis from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, evaluated provisions in the 417-page bill related to data centers. The bill would require electrical utilities to impose additional costs on data centers, funding that utilities would then use to reduce transmission costs to ratepayers.
In total, Grid Strategies estimates that data centers would pay $55 billion to utilities over the next decade if the bill goes into effect, a figure that represents an additional $35 billion more than they would pay under existing policy.
Heinrich and his cosponsors have announced they intend to try to shepherd the bill through both chambers of Congress before the next session begins next year. U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) announced last week that she does not support the bill as written.
The bill sponsors’ push to pass the bill in 2026 has drawn additional criticism from the bill’s skeptics, who argue Democrats’ new majorities in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House in Tuesday’s election means a better bill can be achieved.
Moreover, in January, Heinrich may take over as chair of the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, giving him even more power over the bill’s provisions.
However, in an emailed statement Thursday provided to Source NM, Heinrich said he still thinks the climate and country can’t wait any longer to pass the permitting reform bill. He said if he becomes committee chair that his priorities will be reducing energy costs for New Mexicans and protecting public lands, including in Chaco Canyon and the Pecos River.
“But our priority right now is passing the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which would make it illegal for data centers to shift the costs of their grid upgrades and infrastructure onto consumers,” he said. “We’ve been working toward permitting reform for the better part of a decade, and this is the closest we’ve come to getting something signed into law. I’m not going to wait, and I’ll negotiate in good faith, whether I’m the Chair or the Ranking Member.”
Judge rules New Mexico's Yazzie-Martinez education reform plan insufficient
– Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
A Santa Fe judge has ruled that the New Mexico Public Education Department’s plan to provide better schooling for underserved students is not sufficient, the latest development in an ongoing court case known as Yazzie-Martinez.
Judge Matthew Wilson issued an order Monday determining that the plan was not fully comprehensive because it failed to completely address all previous judicial orders in the case and did not include specific targeted services like summer school and reduced class sizes.
Though the court rejected the plaintiffs’ requests to completely rewrite the document or to dictate specific policies, the order requires that PED submit a supplement by March 26, 2027. The supplement must explicitly connect PED’s corrective actions to prior decisions and provide clear methods for measuring compliance in the future. The PED must also create a high-level overview to summarize how the state will fulfill its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to underserved groups.
The 2018 Yazzie-Martinez court decision ruled that the state of New Mexico has a constitutional obligation to provide every student with an equal opportunity and a sufficient education, especially Native American students, English-language learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students — all of whom make up around 70% of New Mexico’s student population, according to the Public Education Department.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
New Mexico utility regulators advance transfer of troubled water company that ran dry last year
– Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
New Mexico utility regulators on Thursday approved an expedited process for reviewing a potential takeover of a small-town water company that suffered a “complete” water outage in 2025.
For much of this year, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has received regular updates about Melody Ranch Water Co., a utility that serves a small town outside of Edgewood. One of the company’s primary wells didn’t produce enough water to keep up with demand last year, resulting in a widespread water outage. In a 2025 email to the commission, company representatives said they had depleted much of their financial reserves to address the problem.
The commission unanimously voted Thursday to accelerate its review of a proposal that would let the Estancia, Moriarty, Williard and Torrance County Regional Water Association take control of Melody Ranch Water Co.’s operations. The commission will notify Melody Ranch customers by Nov. 9 and give interested parties until Nov. 16 to weigh in.
The commission could consider a final decision as soon as Dec. 3, according to a PRC news release.
If approved, the regional water association would take control of Melody Ranch’s water system, wells, equipment and water rights at no cost, but would not assume the company’s debts or add new fees to customers’ bills. It would also let the association build a new well and connect Melody Ranch’s system to Moriarty’s with a pipeline. Earlier this year, the state Legislature dedicated $4 million to water infrastructure improvements.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had previously signed an executive order that facilitated hauling water to the community. However, that agreement is set to expire at the end of the year.
While commissioners voted on the expedited review with little discussion, they said finding a permanent solution — such as connecting Melody Ranch to Moriarty with a pipeline — is a top priority.
“I share the sense of urgency…for me, it’s just making sure that whatever we do sticks,” PRC Chair Pat O’Connell said during Thursday’s meeting.
Melody Ranch officials have already signed a transfer agreement with the regional water authority, according to a recent PRC filing, and in 2025 requested PRC support in expedited measures to restore service.
Less than a month after resigning, former Rep. Andrea Reeb says she'll rejoin the Legislature
– Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Former state Rep. Andrea Reeb reversed course Thursday, saying she would rejoin the Legislature in January after winning election to an eastern New Mexico-based state House seat.
The announcement comes less than a month after Reeb abruptly resigned from the state House after a federal judge in a case involving actor Alec Baldwin ruled Reeb was violating state law by simultaneously working as a special prosecutor and as a legislator.
The Republican former district attorney said Thursday she had to act quickly in response to the judge’s ruling so as not to jeopardize victims in criminal cases she was involved with.
“I just don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong,” Reeb said in an interview, while adding she is still considering appealing the judge’s ruling.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
New Mexico observers report ‘generally smooth’ 2026 election
– Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The 260 certified observers enlisted to watch key steps of New Mexico’s 2026 general election said the process went “smoothly overall,” according to a news release this week from Observe New Mexico Elections, though a small number of voters seeking to register and vote on Tuesday faced delays.
Observe New Mexico Elections, a nonprofit group funded by the Carter Center, which former President Jimmy Carter founded, has sent hundreds of observers to monitor the last five New Mexico elections.
Observers watched statewide this year during voting machine and equipment certification, poll worker training, early voting, absentee ballot processing and Election Day monitoring. The group’s aim was to watch every early voting location in the state at least once, as well as be in 50% of statewide polling places in each county and all of Bernalillo County’s polling places on Election Day, the group’s co-leader Carmen Lopez told Source NM in a pre-election interview last week.
In addition to Observe New Mexico Elections’ observers, five other groups deployed hundreds of watchers throughout the state on Election Day, and the United States Department of Justice sent approximately 10 monitors to observe Bernalillo County polling places on Tuesday.
In a news release Wednesday, Lopez said observers saw strong voter turnout and smooth voting processes across the state.
“Initial feedback from ONME observers shows that the General Election ran smoothly overall, with a handful of polling sites impacted by delays in the same-day voter registration system,” she said. “In addition, poll workers in flood-affected areas sought creative solutions to keep the lines moving.”
San Juan County and others in northern New Mexico have been recovering from widespread flooding that damaged thousands of homes in the days leading up to Election Day.
According to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office, San Juan County voters turned out at a lower rate than in the last midterm election. In 2022, roughly 51% of voters cast ballots; this year, a little less than 45% of voters turned out.
Statewide, Observe New Mexico Elections has repeatedly noted delays in recent elections with same-day registration, which enables voters to register to vote at a polling place and cast ballots afterward, once the Secretary of State’s Office has processed their applications.
On Tuesday, the group said delays or system shutdowns affected same-day voters in a small number of locations, but the observer group received “positive reports about the creativity of poll workers in high turnout areas by shifting resources between polling locations” to address the issue, Lopez said.
Lindsey Bachman, the secretary of state’s communications, legislative and executive affairs director, did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment.
The Secretary of State’s Office, in a news release Tuesday night, celebrated what Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said was a “safe, secure, and accessible general election in New Mexico.” On Thursday, the state’s Office of Cybersecurity announced that the state’s electronic election networks and systems stayed secure throughout the election, thanks to months of planning between the office and other state agencies.
“New Mexicans cast their ballots with confidence, and they had every reason to,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Our agencies, election officials and partners spent months preparing for every scenario so voters never had to wonder whether their vote was safe. That is the strong foundation we’ll hand off to the next administration.”
Like it does after every election, Observe New Mexico Elections will send out a full, comprehensive report on New Mexico’s election processes in the coming weeks. The group will also send observers to witness the ballot certification process beginning soon.
UNM graduate student workers demand dental, vision insurance
– Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
More than 100 graduate students at the University of New Mexico demonstrated in front of Scholes Hall on Thursday, demanding that the administration guarantee them vision and dental insurance.
Though the 1,500 students in the bargaining unit work up to 20 hours a week in teaching or research, they do not receive dental or vision benefits like the rest of the UNM faculty.
UNM is the only public university in New Mexico to provide health insurance to its graduate student workers, though the coverage does not include dental and vision, which students have the option to buy at an additional cost.
After a kick to the face while working as a gymnastics coach in 2019 left her with dental trauma, earth and planetary sciences Ph.D. student Lexi Kenis said she was forced to delay care when she started graduate school at UNM in 2021.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.