ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Today, at the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, joined Conservation Voters of New Mexico President Demis Foster and New Mexico Wilderness Alliance Executive Director Mark Allison to celebrate their successful efforts to keep public lands in public hands during the reconciliation process and prevent plans to sell off our public lands. Heinrich, Stansbury, Foster, and Allison also highlighted how Valle de Oro is one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the nation and honored how New Mexicans came together to restore Valle de Oro as a refuge for local wildlife and transformed it into one of New Mexico’s public lands crown jewels.
As Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Heinrich successfully fought Senate Republican provisions to sell off public lands in the Big Bad Bill, lead an amendment to prevent the privatization of our public lands, hosted a roundtable and sounded the alarm about New Mexico public lands that were at risk of being sold off by Republicans, continuously uplifted New Mexicans’ voices who called his office to raise their concern with Republicans’ plan to sell off these lands, and released a statement immediately criticizing Senate Republicans’ plan to sell off public lands following the release of the reconciliation text.
“I take a great amount of solace and pride in the coalition that we built to kill land privatization in the reconciliation bill,” said Heinrich, Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “We were backed by an uprising on social media, from bird watchers to bow hunters — it spanned the entire political spectrum, and they made themselves heard.”
“The reason why lands sales got stripped out of the reconciliation bill is because it was so deeply unpopular, and because people were making their voices heard in every single state,” Heinrich continued. “Now we need to take this incredible coalition that we have built, and we need to do things like defend the Land and Water Conservation Fund. You can count on your congressional delegation to be at the tip of the spear when we do that.”
“I am proud to stand with the New Mexico delegation to protect our vital public lands, water, and wilderness across New Mexico,” said Stansbury. “Our story as New Mexicans is a story of generations of resilience. When New Mexicans face hard times, we fight back for our communities and continue to build. Every day I am proud to be in the fight for our public lands, waters, and the federal workforce that supports their stewardship. This is the fight of our generation.”
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