New Mexico

Legislature looks to address ramifications of Sackett decision – NM Political Report

Published

2 years ago

January 26, 2024

Legislature looks to address ramifications of Sackett decision – NM Political Report

Legislation that would help protect waters in New Mexico after a U.S. Supreme Court hearing last year removed federal protections advanced on Thursday. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency case that officials say place many waters in New Mexico at risk. The ruling resulted […]

Legislation that would help protect waters in New Mexico after a U.S. Supreme Court hearing last year removed federal protections advanced on Thursday.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency case that officials say place many waters in New Mexico at risk. The ruling resulted in a loss of protection for most ephemeral waterways.

Now the legislature is considering a bill that would address some of those concerns.

SB 111 passed the Senate Conservation Committee on a 5-3 vote.

The legislation would appropriate $840,000 to the New Mexico Environment Department for additional monitoring and enforcement of existing regulations and also for mapping efforts that will help understand how the Supreme Court decision may impact water in New Mexico.

Rachel Conn with Amigos Bravos said the funding is necessary to support interim protections and said “our waters are at risk now.”

“This special appropriation would give the agency the resources to be able to monitor the impacts from the Sackett decision and to implement existing regulations in the near term,” she said.

She said the Sackett decision left much of New Mexico’s waterways without federal protections.

Conn said that while the New Mexico Water Quality Act gives the state the authority to regulate discharges of pollutants into waterways, the state currently only has a permitting program for groundwater. It is, however, in the process of developing a permitting program for discharges into surface waters.

But the allocation of $840,000 to help NMED protect waters in the state is not without opposition, including from agriculture groups like the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau and the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.

Abby O’Connor, a Stanley resident, spoke on behalf of the cattlegrowers.

“New Mexico farmers and ranchers provide our state and nation in the world with healthy, wholesome and nutritious products,” she said. “We rely on food and water for our families, our livestock and the wildlife that we support. Sustaining and enhancing our waters in the land is a commitment the agriculture producers take seriously. We simply have no choice.”

But she argued that the agricultural producers are faced with burdensome regulations and said they are already “overwhelmed with regulation, permits, paperwork, and remote bureaucrats who don’t understand that we often work multiple jobs from daylight to dusk, not just the nine to five.”

She argued that the legislation would create more bureaucracy and more burdensome regulations.

Meanwhile, the New Mexico Acequia Commission supports the legislation. Ralph Vigil, a farmer and chairman of the acequia commission, spoke about the continued acid drainage from mines in the Pecos River watershed that impacts both surface and groundwater quality. He said that while the mining occurred nearly a century ago, it still impacts people.

“This uncertainty from the Sackett decision leaves our communities at risk for contamination of water. And I’m just concerned about what can come out of this, for the future of our children and the quality of water that they will inherit from us,” he said.

Also on Thursday, the House Agriculture, Acequias and Water Resources Committee discussed two bills related to water and passed one of those two bills.

The first, HB 201, provides an extra $150 million to address water projects in New Mexico. According to the fiscal impact report, this would help bridge an approximate $161 million funding gap.

“If this is the year that we’re going to have a $10.8 billion budget, it’s probably the time to get started on these water projects that have been vetted, approved. They’re shovel ready. They’re ready to go. And so that’s what this bill is really about,” said bill sponsor Rep. Susan Herrera, D-Embudo.

The committee also discussed HB 211, Water Project Prioritization, however the members chose to delay the vote on that legislation for a future meeting.

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New Mexico

New Mexico Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 Day results for Dec. 15, 2025

Published

6 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

The New Mexico Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Dec. 15, 2025, results for each game:

Powerball

23-35-59-63-68, Powerball: 02, Power Play: 4

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Pick 3

Day: 2-3-6

Evening: 4-5-5

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Lotto America

08-11-29-36-50, Star Ball: 07, ASB: 02

Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.

Pick 4

Evening: 2-5-0-2

Day: 7-2-1-6

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Roadrunner Cash

01-12-17-26-29

Check Roadrunner Cash payouts and previous drawings here.

Powerball Double Play

20-23-38-42-65, Powerball: 19

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Las Cruces Sun-News editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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New Mexico

New Mexico expanding use of gun and bullet scanning technology to more easily link crimes

Published

18 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

New Mexico expanding use of gun and bullet scanning technology to more easily link crimes

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – State-of-the-art tech, credited with cracking some of the metro’s highest profile gun crimes, is now getting deployed across the state. A handful of new bullet casing scanners are being deployed in four new regional hubs stretching from Farmington to Roswell. The goal is to link evidence from shooting cases across city and county lines in rural communities. “What makes this different is that we very intentionally distributed these machines and the personnel necessary to run the machines across the state, so that the state itself could conduct its own comprehensive analysis,” said New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.

The New Mexico Department of Justice will be at the center of the effort with their new Crime Gun Intelligence Center. He said they’ll be the only AG’s office in the country managing a statewide program that scans bullet casings and guns found at crime scenes. Analysts will then figure out what crime scenes could be connected. The AG is deploying the scanning machines to Farmington, Gallup, Roswell, and Las Cruces. The scans get uploaded in the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN database, to see if the same gun was used at different scenes.

It’s the same technology the Albuquerque Police Department used to figure out and arrest the people tied to shootings at elected officials’ homes in Albuquerque. “Instead of waiting weeks and months to connect discovery, investigators now can link shootings from firearms, shell casings, and suspects in a matter of hours or days, and cases that once appeared isolated can now quickly be connected, helping us identify repeat offenders and patterns of violent activity more quickly,” said San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari.

Right now, almost every community outside the metro has to bring in its bullet casing evidence to Albuquerque in order to get it scanned and sent into the federal NIBIN system. The process can take six to 12 months. “Rural communities often cover large geographical areas with limited resources, and crime does not stop at the city limits,” said Sheriff Ferrari.

The attorney general said the machines being deployed will be used as regional hubs, available for any New Mexico police agency to use.

The New Mexico Department of Justice got a million dollars from the feds, with the help of Senator Martin Heinrich, to stand up the system, which they said is ready to start on Tuesday. AG Torrez called out state lawmakers for not helping fund the initiative. “It is a system that is broken. It’s a system that can be fixed. and the only thing we lack at this moment is the political will to do so,” said AG Torrez.

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New Mexico

Event spreads holiday cheer and aims to stop spread of viruses

Published

1 day ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

Event spreads holiday cheer and aims to stop spread of viruses

An event allowed families and their kids to spread holiday cheer and prevent the spread of viruses and illnesses this season.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — One could say that holiday cheer is usually infectious as you see pure joy on kids faces as they line up to see Santa Claus or light the menorah.

Unfortunately, this time of the year, that’s not the only thing that is infectious. Flu season is now in full swing but local organizations recently came together to spread the good and try to prevent the bad.

“We want to make sure that we’re there for the community as a destination point, not just for culture and celebration, but also for everyday needs, like health care,” Zackary Quintero, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Families came to the National Hispanic Cultural Center on Sunday to meet Pancho Claus – or Santa Claus – and get their holiday fun on but many also came to get protected.

“The main goal is for all New Mexicans to be proactive in the prevention and not just when they have to go to the emergency room. We want them to be proactive in seeking medical care regardless of if they have insurance,” said Monica Toquinto, coordinator for Ventanilla de Salud.

Being proactive includes getting flu shots or glucose testing. These are services the Mexican Consulate’s Ventanilla de Salud (Window of Health) offers for free.

“In the day-to-day, the community may not go, because of work or other things, to the Consulate. We try to bring all these services we do along with our partners to the communities,” Head Consul Patricia Pinzón said.

According to Pinzón, people are coming to the Consulate in Albuquerque not just for the Ventanilla but because they’re scared as they see more and more immigration raids nationwide and locally.

“It’s an opportunity to inform the community to let them know that they are not alone, that we are here,” Pinzón said.

The Mexican Consulate partners with University of New Mexico Health Science Services on Ventanilla de Salud. They see how the the fear of deportation or arrest is keeping people at home during a time when vaccine hesitancy is already high.

“In this particular administration, there’s even more fear among Latino populations for their relatives that are immigrants. That plays into interfacing with anywhere in the public. People have come to be afraid of what vaccines do and don’t do and we want to overcome that,” said Cosette Wheeler, executive director of Ventanilla de Salud.

Ventanilla de Salud is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Consulate. They offer other services, like legal help, every weekday.

To learn more about services at the Consulate of Mexico in Albuquerque, click here. For information about the Ventanilla de Salud, click here.

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