On Monday, the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) announced that it projects around a $1.1 billion increase in new revenue for the fiscal year 2024 thanks to the oil and gas industry.
The report projects $3.6 billion in recurring revenue for the year, a massive 42.7 percent increase from the roughly $2.5 billion revenue estimate for the 2023 fiscal year.
The “new” money will mean more funds for legislators to spend or save during the next legislative session, which starts on January 17, 2023.
Despite Democrats being hell-bent on knee-capping the oil, gas, and coal industries in every possible way, the funding to the state coffers for education, health care, and other key pieces of the budget comes thanks to extractive energy industries.
Many legislators have urged the state to use excess funds for one-off projects that benefit the long-term fabric of the state, such as infrastructure projects to fix roads and rebuild aging government buildings.
One project Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is adamant about ramming through is $10 million to build a new abortion center in Las Cruces to abort even more Texas mothers’ children.
State Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), the Senate Finance Committee chairman, said after the LFC report, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, “No one in this state’s history has ever had this opportunity, and if we don’t use this opportunity to fix problems within our agencies, fix problems within our schools, then we’re going to lose out.”
During a Sunday CNN Newsroom With Jim Acostainterview, leftist Democrat commentator James Carville rambled about his hatred for Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake alongside leftist commentator S.E. Cupp. The discussion came after Lake filed a lawsuit pointing to illegal actions that spoiled the election.
Acosta said, “James, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Arizona these days. Maybe you can help us figure this out. We learned late yesterday that Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the race for governor, is suing state election officials, challenging the vote count, asking the court to declare her the winner. Is this life after Trump now election losers disputing the results?”
Carville responded, “All right, Kari Lake is, she’s out there. She’s goofy and stupid and ignorant. Let me tell you what’s going on in Arizona. Proposition 211, which is the citizens ballot measure to tell people I spent over $5,000 a dark money in Arizona they have to disclose. That pass[ed] by 73 percent.”
“Arizona had a ballot measure that would allow non-citizens to pay to Arizona intuition rate at Arizona colleges and universities. That’s big news. Kari Lake being goofy, right-wing stupid is hardly big or startling news. Let me see, loss, she’s done.”
He then invoked New Mexico’s far-left constitutional amendment that recently passed paying for socialist “free” (taxpayer-funded) daycare. He said, “And by the way, New Mexico would have 70 percent had a ballot measure to guarantee daycare for all New Mexicans. They are big stories going on in the southwestern United States that don’t involve Kari Lake. And, you know, we should be very aware of these, Jim, very aware. She’ll keep doing everything, every stunt she can pull to get attention. But I don’t really think that’s the big story coming out of here.”
New Mexico’s socialist free pre-kindergarten program that robs billions from the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund passed with 70 percent support (472,826 votes), while only 30 percent (199,347) voted against it.
On Thursday, Lea County made pro-life history by becoming the first sanctuary county for the unborn in the United States, according to Mark Lee Dickson, director of Right to Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement.
The County Commission unanimously (5-0) passed the ordinance banning mail-order abortions in the County.
In New Mexico, abortion up to birth was legalized on the state level in 2021 after the Democrat-dominated legislature stripped all protections for the unborn, mothers, and medical professionals. In the 2023 Legislative Session, Democrats hope to codify abortion up-to-birth and infanticide into state statute.
“This is an issue that’s got the country divided, but there’s a right thing to do,” Commissioner Gary Eidson said prior to the Lea County vote, as reported by Life News.
Although the ordinance only takes effect in the county, exclusive of cities and localities within the county, Eunice, Jal, Lovington, and Tatum, could follow suit with the ordinances in their jurisdictions.
Lovington Mayor Robbie Roberts said, “It takes a lot of strength to stand up and vote your heart on an issue,” adding, “I applaud you for pursuing … this.”
Right to Life of Lea County leader Lori Bova said, “Because of your swift action and the action of the City of Hobbs, the second largest abortion provider in our country has done an about-face and decided to withdraw from our community. Their property deal fell through.”
Other counties, such as Roosevelt County, as well as many other cities in New Mexico, are considering similar measures to protect babies from being killed in New Mexico, especially as Texas pro-abortion groups are shipping women across the border to kill their children in the Land of Enchantment where there are no protections whatsoever for women, babies, or medical professionals.
Many pro-life resolutions have recently passed, including in the City of Alamogordo and Otero County.
Democrat U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico’s Third Congressional District recently joined some of her colleagues on a list of members of Congress who violated a federal stock trade law known as the STOCK Act.
Leger Fernandez is now one of 76 congressional representatives who bucked the law designed to prevent insider trading and stop conflicts of interest.
According to Business Insider, “Federal records show that Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a freshman member of Congress from New Mexico, violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, which in part requires members of Congress to disclose within 45 days stock trades they’ve made for themselves, spouses, or dependent children.”
Leger Fernandez sold between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of the investment company Golub Capital BDC. She waited until December to disclose the January 2021 stock trade — made just after she took office. That is well after the 45-day requirement for members of Congress.
An aide to Leger Fernandez, who refused to go on record, defended the stock trade, saying she “made the trade as part of her retirement portfolio, which is normally managed by an independent firm. In this particular instance, the aide noted, Fernandez directed the firm to sell the stock,” according to the report.
The aide claimed the Democrat congresswoman had “drafted” the report of the sale within the 45-day period but blamed an “electronic error” for the trade only being reported this month.
Leger Fernandez’s aide claimed the congresswoman “supports a ban on members of Congress owning individual stocks,” although Congress has refused to act on legislation to implement such policies.
According to reports from leftist and more right-of-center news organizations, there is a consensus that gas prices are likely headed upward in the near future.
Due to the Saudi-ruled Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) decision to reduce oil output by two million barrels per day could lead to higher oil prices and, thus, higher gasoline prices at the fuel pump, according to Fox Business.
“Gas prices are dropping sharply and are only a nickel more per gallon than a year ago,” Andrew Gross, AAA spokesperson, said to Fox. “But with oil being the main ingredient in gasoline, OPEC+’s move could slow this decline.”
CNNadded, in a report titled, “Big Oil stocks are pointing to higher gas prices to come,” “The S&P 500 is down more than 17% this year while shares of Exxon, Halliburton and Chevron are all up more than 45%. Oil prices and energy stocks are closely interlinked — so this discrepancy is an odd one and could mean that lower gas prices may not be here to stay.”
“While crude prices are dropping, equities traders appear to be taking on a different bet: They’re hoping that OPEC’s recent decision to stick with supply cuts and Europe’s agreement to cap the price of Russian oil at $60 a barrel will keep the global supply of oil very tight, even if demand drops.”
The report continued that prices are likely to go up, though, according to historical trends, noting, “In the end, the divergence may be temporary: In four of the five major splits between oil and energy stock prices since 1990, oil returned to a rally in the year that followed, according to Bespoke Investment Group.”
Gas price averages across the country are down by one cent versus last week, while down by an average of 14 cents versus last month, according to AAA.
New Mexico’s average gas price is $3.13. The county with the lowest price is reported to be Valencia County at $2.82. Under the Joe Biden administration, New Mexico recorded its highest-ever average gas price of $4.83 for regular unleaded and $5.60 for diesel in June of 2022.
Democrat ex-Gov. Bill Richardson is decrying the state Public Regulation Commission (PRC) nominees submitted by the Public Regulation Commission Nominating Committee as non-representative of New Mexico, specifically in regard to Native Americans.
Richardson told the Associated Press that the exclusion of these rural-area individuals was “a glaring omission.”
He said, “To ignore northwestern New Mexicans and the Navajos in Cibola, McKinley, and San Juan counties is both short-sighted and insensitive,” adding, “The PRC needs to go back to the drawing board. Period.”
Most of the nine nominees selected to fill the three spots on the newly created governor-appointed commission are from the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas.
Former Four Corners Power Plant engineer Jeff Peace, who applied but was not selected as a nominee, said, “We don’t have [representation] now. And if it’s not me, then somebody else,” saying, “But like I said, we just keep getting shortchanged up here.”
Regarding the outrage over the nominees, Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s press secretary Nora Sackett told the AP, “The governor’s role is just one aspect of the comprehensive process that seeks to ensure qualified professionals can be relied upon to work on these technical matters that affect every New Mexican.”
Joseph Little is among those who will be considered by the governor. From the Mescalero Apache Nation in southern New Mexico, Little has worked with tribes on everything from water rights to utility easements.
The others are Cholla Khoury, New Mexico’s chief deputy attorney general for civil affairs; Amy Stein, who has worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and California before teaching in Florida; former Public Service Co. of New Mexico resource planner Patrick O’Connell; former Republican state lawmaker Brian Moore; FERC senior policy adviser Gabriel Aguilera; Carolyn Glick, who worked for years at the PRC as general counsel and a hearing examiner; Sandia National Laboratories engineer James Ellison; and Arthur O’Donnell, who has served as a PRC consultant.
But still, Richardson insisted, “I just think it was very insensitive and wrong not to include a Navajo.”
On Tuesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center held its 2022 Elections Summit in Washington, D.C., where Democrat New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver was a panelist. Toulouse Oliver joined moderator Carrie Levine, a story editor at election reporting site Votebeat.org, as well as Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, Nevada County, CA Clerk-Recorder-elect Natalie Adona, and U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Ben Hovland.
During the panel, Toulouse Oliver repeatedly took sly jabs at county commissioners, such as those in Otero County, who audited votes and also decertified potentially fraudulent election results and then were forcibly mandated to go back and certify upon the threats of removal.
She also spoke about the close relationship between her office and the media to “pre-bunk” so-called “election myths.”
“The field of election administration, over time, has just become incredibly more professional, incredibly more diverse. It used to be, you know, whoever sort of the local political favorite was got the job of being election administrator in a jurisdiction,” she said.
Regarding her campaign to try and quell supposed misinformation, Toulouse Oliver said, “I’ll also add I think we started doing this pretty darn well in 2020: foreseeing the post-election challenges. We didn’t know exactly what they were going to be, but we did a good job as a community of ‘pre-bunking,’ if you will, some of the things we could see coming down the pipeline of, you know, ‘We’re not gonna know on election night, you know, because we have all of these critical states that are still gonna have ballots to count and this is how the process works.’ I think we did an even better job of that, and that isn’t just the work of election administrators.”
She then praised the media, telling the panel, “I think we did an even better job of that, and that isn’t just the work of election administrators. It’s also the work of the media, which has really invested incredible amounts of time and effort working with offices like mine and local election offices to get information — how does this actually work? — because the media wants to be good partners and helping us pre-bunk or debunk some of the election myths that are out there. As a result, I think the electorate, whether they want to be or not, is much more informed about how the election process works, and I think that significantly contributed to the success of the 2022 election and to the fact that we didn’t see as much strife, or we’re not seeing as much strife – We’re still immediate post-election 2022 — than we did in 2020.”
Then, Toulouse Oliver attacked citizens who asked for public records from her office, claiming their requests for data were political. She said, “When we’re dealing with not the normal level, I mean, any government office should expect and anticipate public records requests, and we should be responsive to them. That is not the question we are talking about here. We are talking about this coordinated, weaponized effort to make it so hard for us to fulfill those requests that we can’t do the rest of our job properly or we can’t fulfill the record requests properly. And that’s intentional. That is a tactic, and it is intended to keep us from being able to do our jobs properly.”
She added on that note, “like many states, we’re looking at how we can better craft our public records laws. For example, one thing we want to make sure, in my state, that we aren’t doing is giving away the keys to the castle, right? What is a public record that anybody should be able to just take a look at whenever they want, and what is something that is, you know, what we need to keep internal so that we can keep hackers from getting into our system, right? So we are taking a look at that, and I think those are conversations that are happening in legislatures throughout the country. But again, I don’t want to be a broken record, but as Ben said, it’s resources, resources, resources. We do want to be able to give out this information, but we need to make it so we can all have an office that functions like Seth’s where they can focus on their work. We can focus on the work and not on fulfilling records requests.”
Toulouse Oliver bashed local leaders who defy her edicts, saying, “I think county government is sort of the most obscure to folks. And I would like to start with just my commissioners understand what their job is. I don’t think they want me coming to their county telling them how to do dogs, dumps, and driving. Likewise, I don’t want them making election policy because that’s not their job.”
She concluded in her commentary on the panel, “So I think just demystifying local government is important. One thing I think was good about COVID — many bad things — is that I think that was part of the reason we did have such great turnout in 2020 because people really started to realize the impact that state and local government had n ther daily lives. And so whatever we can do… to continue to sort of expand that understanding is a plus.”
According to new reports, the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) is requesting the state Public Regulation Commission to allow it to raise rates — the first time in six years. The proposal includes a first-year billing increase of 1.74 percent, which is around $1.20 more per month for residential customers, according to reports.
The rate hike will help the company pay to “begin a six-year grid modernization project with $344 million in upgrades to its distribution system,” according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
“But in a news conference Monday, Darnell said the total average impact for residential customers will be lower than 1 percent, or about 75 cents a month. However, when commercial and industrial rates are added in, the overall increase would be about 9 percent.”
The cost hikes are due to the passage and forced implementation of the anti-energy “Energy Transition Act,” the state’s version of the Green New Deal signed by Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2019.
The New Mexican notes, “PNM’s proposed grid updates would apply to the company’s entire service area and are a response to the state’s zero-carbon initiatives stemming from the 2019 Energy Transition Act.”
As we previously reported, utilities such as PNM and El Paso Electric are bracing for blackouts and brownouts due to the Green New Deal:
During a special Public Regulation Commission meeting [in September], Public Service Co. of New Mexico (PNM) said it is being forced to PNM executives said the utility will fill “quite a hole” next summer due to “green” replacements taking longer to materialize as the San Juan Generating Station is set to close next week.
According to PNM spokesman Ray Sandoval, PNM “generally has a 2,000-megawatt system with about 500 megawatts provided by the San Juan Generating Station.”
With the closure of the San Juan Generating Station, it has purged countless jobs, with only around 80 employees able to retire. “For the rest of the employees, though, they’re going to have to go find some other form of employment,” said plant manager Omni Warner.
The AP reports, “El Paso Electric, a utility that serves customers in southern New Mexico, also is expecting a capacity gap next summer. Like PNM, El Paso Electric will have to buy power from other producers to ensure adequate capacity when customers crank up their air conditioners during the hottest of days.”
PNM’s senior vice president for public policy, Ron Darnell, said the utility expects “a final decision within 10 to 13 months” on the rate hike to keep the company afloat.
Retiring New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) has resigned from his position on the Public Regulation Commission Nominating Committee after appointing himself to the post. The committee was formed after voters in 2020 changed the PRC from an elected board to a governor-appointed board. A legal challenge to the constitutional amendment was thrown out by the majority Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham-appointed New Mexico Supreme Court.
The move comes amid an ethics complaint filed by state Rep. Miguel García (D-Bernalillo), who charged that Egolf broke the law and the state Constitution with his self-appointment.
According to the State Ethics Commission (SEC), García’s charges were found to be valid. SEC executive director Jeremy Farris wrote that the Commission “has determined that probable cause supports allegations asserted by the complainant [García] … that you violated the Governmental Conduct Act.”
The Santa Fe New Mexican further reported, “Farris wrote that Egolf could ‘correct the violation’ by resigning from the nominating committee in 10 days. Otherwise, he wrote, Hearing Officer Alan Torgenson would preside over a public hearing ‘to determine whether a preponderance of the evidence establishes a violation of the Governmental Conduct Act.’”
Now that Egolf has resigned no hearing on the matter will occur, according to House Democrats’ spokeswoman Camille Ward.
The resignation came the same day the committee had nominated nine individuals for Lujan Grisham to pick from for the PRC. The previous five-member elected commission is now a three-member panel — all of whom Lujan Grisham will select.
On Saturday, members of the New Mexico Republican Party’s State Central Committee (SCC) met in Las Cruces to vote on state leadership positions in the GOP.
Running for his third term as party chairman, former Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico’s Second District won the race, taking 213 votes (55.2 percent) to Bernalillo County GOP officer Sarah Jane Allen’s 80 votes (20.7 percent). Attorney Robert A. Aragon garnered 51 votes (13.2 percent), Eddy Aragon had 40 votes (10.4 percent), and Rodney Tahe got two votes (0.5 percent).
Following the chairmanship results, newly reelected Chairman Pearce wrote in a press release, “This was a spirited campaign, and I thank the grassroots Republican leaders from across New Mexico for trusting me to lead for another term as RPNM chairman. An overwhelming number of these leaders agree that our data-driven approach to identifying and turning out conservative leaning voters is working, proven by the fact that Republican candidates are getting closer and closer to defeating the Democrats in competitive races.”
“Turning New Mexico red is a marathon, not a sprint, and as we look toward 2024, I am excited about helping our future Republican nominees be successful in their campaigns.”
For the first vice-chairman spot, members selected newly elected Otero County Commissioner Amy Barela with 291 votes to Torrance County GOP Chairman Richard Lopez’s 100 votes.
SCC members selected Leticia Munoz Kaminski for the second vice-chair position, with 305 votes to Santa Fe County Republican Party chairman Robert “Bob” Graham’s 87 votes.
Maricela “Mari” Trujillo-Spinelli won the secretary spot, with 288 votes to former Doña Ana County Commissioner Isabella Solis’ 78 votes.
Members picked Kim James Kvamme for party treasurer with 257 votes to Leonard-David Chavez’s 106 votes.
For each congressional district’s vice-chairmanships, SCC members selected Donelle Inventor for the First Congressional District with 74 votes to Eric Lucero’s 25 votes. In the Second District, state Rep. Rebecca Dow ran unopposed with 107 votes, and in the Third District, Drew Degner clenched the spot with 120 votes versus Anita Statman’s 37 votes and Paul Morrison garnering no votes.
Regarding the other officers’ election results, Pearce wrote, “I am so pleased that Republicans chose this outstanding team of young and diverse leaders who represent the future of our party.”
