in the news

If you believe in good government and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars keep an eye on New Mexico’s Interstate Stream Commission (ISC) today. The ISC will vote on whether to continue studying controversial plans for dams and diversions on the Gila River. This is the first major vote on the Gila after the U.S. Department of Interior...

The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is poised to receive permanent funding after the U.S. Senate passed legislation Wednesday. The fund, created by Congress in 1965 to support public land management using offshore oil and gas royalties, will receive $900 million annually under the bill, marking just the second time since its...

Billions of dollars were earmarked to support nuclear operations in New Mexico in the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). U.S Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) said he worked to secure funding in the Act for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and the state’s two national laboratories: Los Alamos and Sandia, along with...

Earlier today the Senate passed the Great American Outdoors Act, allocating billions to support outdoor recreation in two separate ways. The first is by providing $9.5 billion over the next five years to help the National Park Service and other federal land-management agencies address their maintenance backlogs. Federal public lands are...

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich is now asking that Confederate names be removed from military bases. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Heinrich and 11 other members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee are asking President Trump to support the proposal that would be made to the 2021 defense spending...

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich is now asking that Confederate names be removed from military bases. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Heinrich and 11 other members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee are asking President Trump to support the proposal that would be made to the 2021 defense spending...

Confederate statues and monuments have come down across the country amid protests after the death of George Floyd. The removal of Confederate names from military bases could be next if a group of lawmakers has its way, and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., is in that group. Heinrich, a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, and 11 of his...

It’s been two and a half weeks since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and protests and demonstrations calling for police accountability have continued to increase. Calls to action include a push to defund police forces, demilitarization of police and a reform of use of force standards.  Now, many federal lawmakers are...

New Mexico Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich are calling for changes in the culture of how law enforcement agencies operate around the country. And they said legislation that has been introduced in Congress this week is a step in that direction. The two Democratic senators have thrown their support behind the Justice in Policing Act introduced by...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — National parks, monuments, forests and wildlife refuges in New Mexico have a maintenance backlog of more than $121 million, according to U.S. Sen. Tom Udall. And some of that backlog can be cleared if legislation that has the rare support of both the Democratic senator and President Donald Trump is passed by Congress...

As New Mexico’s energy production looks to bounce back from historic lows, some regulators and lawmakers support the idea of a new federal fund to give oil and gas workers jobs plugging abandoned wells. There are more than 700 orphaned or abandoned oil and natural gas wells in New Mexico, said Adrienne Sandoval, director of the Oil...

A proposed public works program would send conservation crews to scores of national parks and other federal sites, such as Bandelier National Monument, to complete up to $2 billion in improvements each year. It would not be the first time the federal government put unemployed people to work at Bandelier. In the 1930s, young men working with...

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats stood in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds Thursday at the U.S. Capitol to honor the lives of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, all unarmed black individuals whose deaths have spurred worldwide protests against racism and police brutality.  Senate Democrats, some...

New Mexico lawmakers sought increased federal funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells across the country as the industry struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent decline in fuel demands that caused an historic bust in the price of oil. The state’s Congressional delegation called upon the House Natural Resources...

The U.S. Transportation Department has awarded $2.9 million to a regional transit district to help replace fuel-powered buses with electric vehicles.  The money will be used to replace three diesel- and two gasoline-powered buses within the North Central Regional Transit District's 55-vehicle fleet.  Boosting the green bus program is...

New Mexico congressional delegates are pushing for the creation of a federal fund to help cover the costs of plugging and reclaiming abandoned oil and gas wells. U.S. Reps. Ben Ray Luján, Xochitl Torres Small and Deb Haaland, all New Mexico Democrats, participated in a virtual congressional hearing on the proposal earlier this...

Situated between Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range is a large swathe of gypsum desert. White Sands National Park was designated a national park in November and is considered to be a local jewel in Otero County. Under more regular conditions, tourists visiting White Sands National Park would stop at one of the City of...

FARMINGTON — Congressional members from New Mexico and Arizona are seeking answers from the Indian Health Service over a $3 million purchase of respirator masks that may be unsuitable for use by medical workers. They were procured from a company recently started by a former White House official. U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin...

Hundreds of thousands of potential voters will be ineligible to cast ballots in November unless the Trump administration resumes citizenship ceremonies and clears a pandemic-related backlog of immigrants waiting to take the naturalization oath, according to rights groups and lawmakers from both parties. President Trump, who claims falsely that...

In a phone call from the Santa Fe Penitentiary, Vincent Delara tells his wife that if he’s going to die, he would rather die at home. Currently behind bars on a probation violation, the 43-year-old suffers from diabetes, sleep apnea and autoimmune deficiencies. “My husband, if you were to look at him you’d probably say he’s...