New Mexico

New Mexico Senate advances seven bills with few opponents – Source New Mexico

Published

2 years ago

February 9, 2024

New Mexico Senate advances seven bills with few opponents – Source New Mexico

The New Mexico Senate on Thursday passed seven pieces of legislation in a series of unanimous votes — with two narrow exceptions.

Senators passed Senate Bill 148 in a 34-0 vote. Sponsored by Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto (D-Albuquerque), SB 148 would eliminate a 3% fee charged to local governments by the state Taxation and Revenue Department for collecting and distributing sales taxes.

The bill was a priority for the New Mexico Municipal League and New Mexico Counties.

If passed into law, it would begin phasing out the fee on July 1, 2026 and completely go away two years later.

Next, senators passed Senate Bill 300 in a 37-0 vote.

Sponsored by Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), SB 300 would allow the State Board of Finance to raise up to $527.8 million for building and maintaining state and federal highways.

Then, senators passed Senate Bill 129 in a 37-0 vote.

Sponsored by Sen. Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque), SB 129 would create minimum standards for state agencies to protect themselves from cyber attacks that threaten assets, private information or reputation.

The first exception of the day in the Senate was Senate Bill 135, which passed by a38-2 vote.

SB 135 would ensure doctors can ask health insurers to cover medications without the patient having to first try a cheaper version, a strategy insurers use to save money called “step therapy.”

The bill adds medications approved for treating substance use disorder, autoimmune disorders, behavioral health conditions and cancer to the list of drugs that cannot be subject to step therapy or prior authorization requirements.

The two opponents were Sens. Martin Hickey (D-Albuquerque) and Mark Moores (R-Albuquerque). Hickey said he supported the bill but it could lead to more complications and drug-to-drug interactions.

The second exception was Senate Bill 106, which passed in a 38-1 vote.

Sponsored by William Sharer, (R-Farmington), SB 106 which would create a committee to plan a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the U.S. on July 4, 2026.

The lone opponent was Sen. Brenda McKenna (D-Corrales) who did not take the opportunity to explain her vote.

Next, the Senate passed Senate Bill 17 in a 40-0 vote.

Sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Stefanics (D-Cerrillos), SB 17 would create a new program run by the Health Care Authority with the goal of maximizing the impact of state money for health care by redirecting money from certain hospitals to rural hospitals and small urban ones.

Finally, senators passed Senate Bill 108 in a 41-0 vote.

Sponsored by Muñoz, SB 108 would allow the Secretary of State’s Office to pull from a new $20 million pot of money three months after a statewide election, to stabilize the agency’s annual budget.

Each bill now heads the House chamber where they must receive committee review before a full vote. The New Mexico legislative session ends Feb. 15.

Source link

Click to comment

New Mexico

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

Published

10 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

State

Zip Code

Country

Source link

New Mexico

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

Published

22 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.

SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.

Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images

Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.

Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.

There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.

Source link

New Mexico

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
| Las Cruces Sun-News

After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.

It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.

Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.

Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:

Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).

What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.

That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.

With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.

New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.

But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.

Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.

What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

Source link