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The 2008 regular session of the NM Legislature began January 15 at noon and ended February 14 at noon. Our lobbying efforts during the session had mixed results.
The Rio Grande Chapter's lobbying of the Legislature was done as a member of an informal coalition of environmental organizations called the Environmental Alliance of New Mexico (EANM). Its mission is to pass strong legislation to protect the environment and to defend against legislation harmful to the environment.
EANM's member organizations, representing 30,000 NM voters, are:
Our chapter's lobbying wa led by the new chair of our Legislative Committee, Judith Bunney, and our lobbyist, Dan Lorimier, with help from volunteers. See Dan's weekly updates on our Action Alerts page.
Legislation that EANM and the Rio Grande Chapter favored included:
Measures that EANM and the chapter would attempt to defeat if introduced included:
See EANM's Fact Sheet.
Partial funding passed by House and Senate. Signed by Governor.
This one-time special appropriation, originally projected at $5 million, would fund community supported projects, throughout the state that protect and restore river ecosystem function and watershed health. NM lags other western states in efforts to protect and restore river ecosystems. This is a Governor’s bill and has been designed with strong input from the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy.
The Senate/House executive consensus budget for statewide capital projects (HB43) was passed with 2.8 million for RERI. The "statewide" capital budget is taken off the top of the available capital funding. Then, the remainder of the capital budget is split three ways between the Governor, the Senate and the House.
The goal then was to make up the remaining $2.2 million for RERI funding from the Governor's individual capital outlay budget. The Governor, however did not do this. In fact, he vetoed HB43 entirely. Both houses of the legislature then passed SB471 which is identical.
History:
Budget cuts defeated. Bill with no cuts passed by House and Senate. Signed by Governor.
The Legislature feels disempowered and resentful after strong action by the Richardson administrative action to protect New Mexico’s citizens with strict waste "pit rules" for gas and oil drilling and with adoption of Clean Car emission standards. It was expected that some legislators would try to "push back" by exerting legislative authority over selected budget items.
The Senate Finance Committee made some conspicuous cuts in several agency budgets. Most notably they trimmed about $495,000 from the budgets of the Environment Department (NMED) and the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) to eliminate six full-time staff positions - all lawyers. The jobs and the money would be transferred to the Attorney General’s Office. NMED and EMNRD are the departments that spearheaded the ‘pit rules’ and the Clean Cars standards.
The Governor’s office described the action in these terms: “The Senate Finance Committee tucked cuts into its version of the state budget that would essentially punish state agencies that have the audacity to hold oil and gas companies accountable for protecting New Mexico’s environment. The budget cuts look like an effort to retaliate against tough but fair rules and regulations implemented by the Richardson Administration to protect the environment.” The administration summed up the committee actions by saying, “Effectively, such a move would weaken the state’s ability to enforce environmental regulations and allow those who contaminate our water, pollute our air, and abuse our land to go unregulated and unpunished."
The Senate Finance Committee yielded to pressure from the Governor and restored funds and positions for the lawyers.
History:
Partial funding passed by House and Senate. Signed by Governor.
Low-income weatherization is a win/win effort to reduce heating bills for the poor and slash the amount of CO2 and other pollutants from coal fired electrical generating plants created by inefficiently heated homes.
General Appropriation Act (House Bill 2) appropriated $800,000 for weatherization. The Chapter wanted Governor Richardson to supplement this with $2.5 million from funds reserved to him. The Governor provided a special appropriation of $300,000-$500,000. So the total will be $1.1 million to $1.3 million.
For what you can do, see Legislative Special Alert for Feb. 9.
History:
Partial funding passed by House and Senate.
The Senate/House executive consensus budget for statewide capital projects was passed with $1.5 million for "land and wildlife projects, conservation easements and fee land acquisitions for working farms and ranches, forests and watersheds, natural areas, outdoor recreation and trails and wildlife habitat and for land and habitat restoration."
The "statewide" capital budget is taken off the top of the available capital funding. Then, the remainder of the capital budget is split three ways between the Governor, the Senate and the House.
The goal then was to get an additional $2 million in funding from the Governor's individual capital outlay budget. The Governor, however did not do this. In fact, he vetoed HB43 entirely. Both houses of the legislature then passed SB471 which is identical.
History:
2008 Legislative Strategy
Budget Cuts for NMED and
EMNRD
Forest Policy on
Off-Road Vehicles
Land and Wildlife Projects
Leave No Child Inside
Low-Income Weatherization
Miscellany
River Ecosystem Restoration
Initiative
Smart Investments
in Public Buildings
Utility Customer
Load management Act
Died in committee.
The Leave No Child Inside Act proposed a 1% excise tax ("sin tax") on the purchase of new televisions, video games, and video game equipment. Proceeds, estimated at $4 million a year, would go into a fund to be spent on outdoor education. This fund would be administered by the State Parks Division of the NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the NM Public Education Department. The goal was to fight obesity and poor school performance which may result from excessive TV, movie, and video game exposure.
This idea is supported by the National Sierra Club and was sponsored by Representative Gail Chasey (D-Bernalillo). Her bill, HB583, was tabled by the House Business and Industry Committee.
While we were disappointed in the final outcome, we knew from the beginning that the bill faced a difficult uphill battle. Although Democrats and Republicans alike supported the concept of outdoor education and recreation, they did not support a new tax to fund it, especially in an election year. They felt that paying an additional $0.50 on a $50 video game was too much to ask (of retailers) to provide tens of thousands of underserved NM children an outdoor education experience that would improve their health and academic performance. Of course, we disagreed and will be exploring different funding mechanisms for the next session.
A predecessor to this proposal died in the 2007 Legislature. But that Legislature approved $250,000 for the Public Education Department for a related "Outdoor Classroom" project. EANM requested an additional $500,000 for Outdoor Classroom this year and $150,000 was approved in HB2.
History:
Passed by House and Senate. Signed by Governor.
This is a set of amendments to the Efficient Use of Energy Act of 2005 intended to encourage electric utilities to promote energy efficiency among their customers to offset energy demand. This would save rate-payers money by reducing the need to build more power plants which cost more than efficiency. The amendments would require utilities to help customers find ways to save energy. The savings by 2014 must equal 5% of each utility's 2005 sales and by 2020 must equal 10% of 2005 sales. (The chapter's goals are 15% by 2015 and 20% by 2020.) Each utility must develop programs to do this, such as by giving rebates for purchase of high-efficiency appliances.
The amendments also direct the Public Regulation Commission to consider giving utilities financial incentives for encouraging efficiency -- incentives that equal or exceed the financial rewards they currently get for building new power plants. Finally, the amendments enables the commission to consider giving low-income rate payers special financial assistance to participate in energy efficiency programs. This is a Governor’s bill that was created with the help and guidance of the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy.
Studies have shown that NM could become 33% more energy efficient across all sectors of the economy, including at least 10% in the energy sector. NM utilities currently have little profit motive to encourage customer efficiency. This legislation will reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, save consumers money, improve economic productivity, and increase quality of life. It is also expected to create jobs.
History:
Died in committee.
This legislation was also known as the "2% Solution." It proposed to avoid saddling communities with high energy bills over the lives of public buildings by adding 1-2% more to construction budgets to install energy-efficient features when the buildings are constructed or renovated. It would have assured a 50% energy savings over the lives of these buildings and would have applied to buildings identified in each legislator's capital outlay bill.
The legislation would have amended the Severance Tax Bonding Act to require all new and renovated buildings funded from this source containing over 3,000 square feet, and all additions over 3,000 square feet, to use half the energy projected to be used by such a building by the U.S. Department of Energy. All other smaller projects funded by the bonding act would have been required to pursue energy efficiency to the maximum extent possible.
The amendment would have affected such projects as senior centers, police stations, libraries and public housing projects. This concept was proposed by the Sierra Club and was being sponsored by Sen. Pete Campos (Guadalupe, Mora, San Miguel, Santa Fe, and Torrance).
The Senate Committees Committee, which decides if a Senate bill is "germane" to the reduced scope of a short session, didn’t release SB403 despite our efforts to convince them the impact on New Mexico’s budget was real. We are likely to push this legislation again next session.
History:
Both passed by House and Senate, signed by Governor.
Our National Forests are under assault by off-road vehicles -- ATV's, Dirt-bikes, Jeeps, etc. The National Forest is implementing a Travel Management Rule, supposedly to reign in Off-Road Abuse. It seems however, that the Forest Service has a huge bias towards the off-road community in implementing this rule.
Senator Phil Griego and Representative Jeanette Wallace sponsored Senate Joint Memorial 13 (SJM13) which asks the Forest Service to follow their guidelines in implementing this Rule and preserve the Traditional New Mexican way of life. It also asks the Forest Service to design a Travel Management Plan for off-road vehicles that is enforceable. The Memorial mentions the destruction by off-roaders in the Jemez and on Glorieta Mesa and asks that the Forest Service take environmental and wildlife habitat into consideration when designing these off-road routes.
SJM13 was passed by both houses and signed by the Governor. In addition, Senate Joint Memorial 40 from Sen. Dede Feldman calls for a study of off-road motorized vehicle use to be conducted by the NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the Department of Game and Fish.
History:
Died in committee.
Several bills designed to logjam administrative rulemaking and revenge the legislature for the administrative agencies’ promulgation of new "pit rules" for oil & gas exploration and Clean Cars tailpipe emissions standards were stopped in committee because of their obviously destructive intent. These included HJR12 Legislative Review Of Regulatory Rules, Constitutional Amendment, sponsored by Representative Dan Foley and SJR5 Legislative Review Of Regulatory Rules, Constitutional Amendment sponsored by Senator Stuart Ingle. These Joint Resolutions called for a Constitutional Amendment that would give legislative authority over agency rulemaking.
