press releases

New Mexico Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall were among Democrats who blocked a Republican police reform bill Wednesday, calling it “flawed” and “inadequate.” The legislation, called the Justice Act, failed to receive the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate. It failed on a 56-44 vote. The House is expected to vote on...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representative Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.) announced that the Bureau of Reclamation within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), has awarded $499,377 to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and New Mexico State University for desalination and...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) delivered remarks on the bipartisan Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act today in a key hearing on pending legislative items in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. This is a critical step forward on Senator Heinrich’s legislation to prohibit the exporting of sacred...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) are urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to consider meaningful, comprehensive police reforms instead of a woefully inadequate Republican plan. The senators voted to block the Republican bill from advancing in the Senate today. Senators Udall and Heinrich are...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) joined a group of 41 Senate Democrats, led by Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), calling on Senate leadership to include at least $175 billion for the Elementary and Secondary Education Relief Fund in any future coronavirus relief package. As health and education officials...

REI President and CEO Eric Artz hosted a virtual fireside chat last Thursday with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), two legislators who have supported outdoor recreation and public lands policy. Artz began by acknowledging how fortunate it was for the co-op “to be joined by two champions for the outdoors … [who]...

On June 17th, the U.S. Senate passed the Great American Outdoors Act with a vote of 73 yays and 25 nays. This news made headlines across an America that was reeling from protests, amid the profound uncertainty of a pandemic, at a time of polarized politics at a scale and fury not seen since the Civil War. As Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico...

WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, June 24, at 2:30 p.m. ET/ 12:30 p.m. MT, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich’s (D-N.M.) legislation to prohibit the exporting of sacred Native American items and increase penalties for stealing and illegally trafficking tribal cultural patrimony will be included in a key hearing on pending...

WASHINGTON – Following the recent historic Supreme Court ruling rejecting President Donald Trump’s repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich sent a letter to President Trump, insisting he end his crusade against immigrants and stop deporting Dreamers. The...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representatives Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) and Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.) announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded $15,455,067 to the state of New Mexico and the City of Albuquerque to respond to...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) joined a bipartisan group of 48 senators in calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring the Equality Act to the Senate floor for a vote. The senators’ push comes after the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling to confirm that that the...

New Mexico’s national laboratories would recieve an increase in funding from the 2021 defense spending bill before the U.S. Senate, if approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. Los Alamos National Laboratory would receive $3.22 billion, up from $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2020, through the National Nuclear Security...

WASHINGTON –U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) announced that the Small Business Administration (SBA) has responded to their and other Democratic Senators' request to simplify the application for small businesses seeking forgiveness from loans obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). After hearing from...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, along with every Senate Democrat, have introduced a Senate resolution recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month. The resolution highlights the contributions LGBTQ individuals have made to American society, notes several major milestones in the fight for equal treatment of LGBTQ Americans and...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) is urging New Mexico small business owners and nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to apply for funding through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program before the deadline on Tuesday, June 30. These loans are fully guaranteed by the SBA, and can be...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) sent a letter to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield, after recent reporting by Politico that the federal government had turned down tribal epidemiologists’ requests for data showing how the coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading around their...

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) is calling on the CDC to share coronavirus data with the nation’s 12 Tribal Epidemiology Centers, warning that its refusal is hampering Native Americans’ ability to respond to the pandemic. “By not allowing Native communities access to this data, your agency is playing a role in widening the...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) joined Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), and U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and John Sarbanes (D-Md.) to introduce the Coronavirus Oversight and Recovery Ethics (CORE) Act (S. 3855), legislation...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) released the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the Trump administration cannot move forward with its plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “This ruling is a major relief for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers whose lives...

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...