New Mexico

New Mexico's Martin Heinrich Embraced a Struggling Electric Bus Industry. Campaign Cash from Lobbyists Followed.

Published

2 years ago

February 20, 2024

New Mexico's Martin Heinrich Embraced a Struggling Electric Bus Industry. Campaign Cash from Lobbyists Followed.

When Senator Martin Heinrich’s chief of staff Joe Britton left his role, the New Mexico Democrat heaped praise on his former right-hand man, saying Britton would “continue to make a difference in the lives of everyone he meets.”

In the years following his departure, Britton did make a difference—to Heinrich’s campaign coffers.

After leaving Heinrich’s office, Britton launched both a green energy lobbying shop and an electric vehicle trade association, through which he has routinely lobbied the Senate on energy policies that would benefit his clients. Heinrich in at least one case co-sponsored a bill that Britton lobbied the upper chamber to pass, federal disclosures show. That bill, the Bidirectional Act, would have propped up an electric bus industry that has since suffered significant setbacks. One industry leader, Proterra, declared bankruptcy last year, while others have struggled to turn a profit.

In Heinrich’s case, however, embracing the electric bus industry appears to have helped his campaign’s bottom line. Days before Heinrich co-sponsored the Bidirectional Act, in September 2022, Britton and a partner at his firm contributed $2,000 to his campaign. In March 2023, meanwhile, Britton and his employees gave Heinrich another $8,500—the Democrat again co-sponsored the Bidirectional Act less than two months later. In total, Britton and his employees have contributed nearly $37,000 to Heinrich’s campaign since Britton left the Senate in November 2019, according to campaign finance disclosures.

The ordeal contradicts Heinrich’s rhetoric on “special interest lobbyists,” which the Democrat has argued wield “outsized influence” thanks to a “broken campaign finance system.” In 2021, Heinrich vowed to “break special interests’ stranglehold on Congress and the White House” through a bill that would create a public financing program for congressional campaigns. Heinrich also attacked former president Donald Trump for embracing energy industry lobbyists.

“Your decisions permit industry lobbyists to advance their agendas in your administration, confer with former clients and employers to craft government policy behind closed doors, and cash out by returning to their high-paying lobbying jobs to take advantage of those new policies,” he wrote in a 2017 letter.

Neither Heinrich nor Britton responded to requests for comment.

Britton’s foray into the lobbying world began in April 2020, roughly five months after he left Heinrich’s office. Britton at that time founded Pioneer Public Affairs, a climate-focused firm that provides green energy companies and advocacy groups with “legislative engagement” and other services. The firm’s clients include NextEra Energy and the League of Conservation Voters, both of which have contributed thousands to Heinrich in recent years.

One month later, in May 2020, Britton helped launch the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), a group of electric vehicle providers and other green companies. Britton served as the group’s inaugural executive director and remains its “founding board chair,” according to his LinkedIn. The group—which advocates for the “full adoption of electric vehicles” by 2030—counts Proterra as a member, as well as a number of electric vehicle charging companies.

“For the first time in a generation, transportation is the leading emitter of U.S. carbon emissions. By embracing EVs, federal policymakers can help drive innovation, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and improve air quality and public health,” Britton said at ZETA’s launch.

Britton went on to lobby the Senate on behalf of both ZETA and individual green energy companies and groups, such as NextEra and the League of Conservation Voters. In the third quarter of 2022, disclosures show, he lobbied the Senate to pass a slew of electric vehicle-related bills, including the Bidirectional Act, which Britton’s lobbying disclosure said would “require the Secretary of Energy to establish a program to encourage deployment of electric school buses and vehicle-to-grid technologies and applications.”

One day before the end of the quarter, Heinrich introduced the bill alongside Sens. John Hickenlooper (D., Colo.), Michael Bennet (D., Colo.), Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), and others. In a press release that touted support for the bill from Proterra and Xcel Energy—another ZETA member—Heinrich said the legislation would “make it easier for New Mexico public school districts to afford the upfront costs of replacing their aging diesel vehicles.”

“The bus fleets that take our kids to school are an ideal place to demonstrate the long-term cost and health benefits of electric vehicles,” Heinrich added.

In the weeks before and after that statement’s release, Britton and two other Pioneer Public Affairs employees combined to give Heinrich $7,000. The money continued to flow in 2023, when Heinrich again co-sponsored the electric bus bill—that year, Britton and his employees combined to give Heinrich $13,500. Xcel, an electricity provider, also gave Heinrich $2,500 two days before he co-sponsored the bill for the second time, disclosures show.

While Heinrich touted the ZETA-backed electric bus bill for its ability to help New Mexico school’s phase out their gas-powered vehicles, such a phaseout would hurt the state’s vibrant oil and gas industry.

New Mexico was America’s second-largest oil producing state in 2022, when it accounted for more than 13 percent of the nation’s production. The fuel sector employed nearly 30,000 New Mexicans in 2022, a 26 percent increase from 2021.

For Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of energy advocacy group Power the Future, New Mexico’s reliance on the oil and gas industry shows Heinrich is out of touch with his state. Last month, Turner’s group released a statewide survey showing 66 percent of New Mexicans oppose efforts to phase out oil and gas.

“The only people who dislike the industry, sadly, are the elected officials,” Turner told the Washington Free Beacon. “They go out of their way to punish the only bright spot in the state’s economy. It makes no sense whatsoever.”

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New Mexico

New Mexico State women’s basketball’s 3 best March Madness moments

Published

3 hours ago

April 1, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico State women’s basketball’s 3 best March Madness moments

New Mexico State’s women’s basketball team has entered a new era with the hiring of Adeniyi Amadou as its new coach. He’ll try to take the Aggies back to the NCAA Tournament, where they appeared multiple times in the 1980s and 2010s.

NM State has six NCAA Tournaments, four conference tournament championships (all won as part of the Western Athletic Conference) and eight regular-season conference championships to its name in women’s basketball. The Aggies have reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament once in 1988, although that was when teams could receive first-round byes if they were a high enough seed (they were a No. 6 seed then and lost to Washington in their first NCAA Tournament game).

Let’s look back on some of those seasons. Here are the three best March Madness moments in NM State’s women’s basketball history:

First conference tournament win (2015)

NM State began its WAC dynasty in 2015.

The Aggies won their first-ever conference tournament in women’s basketball in the 2015 WAC Tournament. NM State was the regular-season conference champion and earned the No. 1 seed and a bye to the semifinals of the WAC Tournament as a result. The Aggies went 2-0 to secure a conference tournament championship.

Bolstered by 22 points from Sasha Weber and 16 rebounds from Brianna Freeman, NM State pulled out a 79-75 overtime win in the semifinals over Seattle. Another 20 points from Weber helped the Aggies win the WAC Tournament championship game 70-52 over UT-Pan American (which has since merged with UT-Brownsville to form UTRGV) and reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. Freeman was named the WAC Tournament MVP.

Three in a row (2017)

The Aggies would then make it three consecutive WAC Tournament championships two years later.

NM State entered the 2017 WAC Tournament with a perfect 14-0 conference record, and it kept that unbeaten run going. The Aggies defeated UMKC (now referred to as Kansas City) 71-63 in the semifinals thanks to four players scoring in double figures, including Moriah Mack’s 21 points in 40 minutes of action. NM State then took down Seattle 63-48 in the championship game off the back of a double-double from Tamera William at 19 points and 10 rebounds.

Mack won the WAC Tournament MVP that year. She scored 18 points against the Redhawks in the championship game. It was the third and final WAC Tournament championship for then-coach Mark Trakh before he joined USC.

Resilience in overtime (2019)

Another regular-season conference championship wasn’t enough in 2018, as the Aggies lost to Seattle in the semifinals. But NM State got back on its perch in the WAC in the following year.

Guided by second-year coach Brooke Atkinson, the Aggies needed two overtime victories to win the 2019 WAC Tournament after defeating Chicago State in the quarterfinals (the WAC Tournament went from seven to eight teams starting in 2018, with no byes to the semifinals). The first one came in a 91-80 win over UMKC after NM State allowed just five points in overtime. The Aggies were forced into double overtime during the championship game against UTRGV, which ended with a 76-73 win.

Gia Pack scored 86 points across the WAC Tournament, including 36 against UMKC, to win the tournament’s MVP. Brooke Salas scored a team-high 29 points in the championship game.

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New Mexico

‘Just incredibly creative’: Tinkertown near Albuquerque prepares for the season

Published

15 hours ago

March 31, 2026

Press Room

‘Just incredibly creative’: Tinkertown near Albuquerque prepares for the season

BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) — Wood carvings, glass bottles, and other odds and ends help make up an art museum tucked away on Sandia Crest Road. It all started over 40 years ago with a man aiming to be as creative, as curious, and as open to experience as possible – Ross Ward.

“I often describe a walk through the museum as kind of walking through the head and the heart of my dad… You begin to understand that this person was very passionate, very curious, very excited, and just incredibly creative,” said Ross’s daughter, Tanya Ward Goodman. “And it inspired you to do the same.”

Tinkertown is an artist-built environment that first opened its doors in 1983. There you can find animated miniature figures, various artifacts from Ross’s travels, and thousands of glass bottles, among much more. The spot has been around for quite a bit now, but they’ve recently made an exciting new change that’s been in the works for years.

“We have turned the entire museum into a 501(c)(3),” said Tanya. “And our mission is to preserve and protect the work and the artistic legacy of Ross Ward and translate his vision into a rousing call to live a more creative and colorful life.” Tanya added that it “has always been a little bit of a self-sustaining enterprise… the fact that all proceeds already went into the operation and management of the museum, it really isn’t a huge leap for us.”

Their main goal as a non-profit? To ramp up art and writing workshops while encouraging rural collaboration between New Mexico artists. It’s also a way to potentially bring more helping hands to the museum.

“My dad died in 2002. He had early onset Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed at 57, and he died at 62. And my stepmother, Carla Ward, has been running the museum since his death, and she’s getting to a place where she would like to retire or take some steps back,” said Tanya. “I think she’ll always be involved because she loves it and it’s been such a deep labor of love on her part… We had been sort of exploring different options and thinking about how to keep the museum open while also having some sort of retirement for her, and we would need to bring in extra people.”

The change comes in time for Tinkertown’s 2026 season opening on Friday, April 3, with a grand opening celebration on Sunday, April 5 – Ross’s birthday. There will be live music, cake, book signings, and more. “I wrote a memoir called ‘Leaving Tinkertown’ that was published by the University of New Mexico Press,” said Tanya. “I will be signing books. University of New Mexico Press will sell that book. We have other books about Tinkertown. Other authors will be there.”

As for the 2026 season overall, Tinkertown hopes to see more familiar faces and new faces alike come through the doors. “People come from not only all over New Mexico and the rest of the U.S., but all over the world,” said Tanya. “We have a huge map and there are, by the end of the season, there are colored pins in almost every continent and country in the world… I think what I hope that they learn is just that if you have an idea and an interest that you can follow that and wonderful things will happen.”

You can learn more about Tinkertown on their website.

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New Mexico

Warm weather around New Mexico for now, but stormier & cooler tomorrow

Published

1 day ago

March 31, 2026

Press Room

Warm weather around New Mexico for now, but stormier & cooler tomorrow

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Mostly mild air has started off across the region with morning temperatures being warmer than average. Clouds are passing through with moisture aloft coming in from the Pacific. Despite the drop in the jet stream compared to last week, the southwesterly flow with mostly dry surface conditions will lead to very mild air this afternoon before rain chances increase.

Air temperatures in the north are starting off from around the high 20s to the 40s, while elsewhere to the southwest, air temperatures are ranging from around the upper 30s to near 60°.

Many areas from eastern New Mexico to the Pecos River Valley area will range from the high 60s to around 90°, from north-northwest to south-southeast from high to low elevation. Southwesterly winds are set to go up, over, and down more of the northeast-sloped mountain faces out west will contribute to warm surface air and some gusty surface conditions. The northern higher elevations will mostly range from the upper 30s to the 50s, while the northern valley floors to western and central areas will mostly range from the 60s to the 80s.

More clouds will move in on top of the very mild surface conditions, leading to more isolated pockets of rainfall, as dry thunderstorms may spark up more fires. Stronger winds from the approaching system will elevate the fire threat even more tomorrow in southeastern areas. However, the drop in the jet stream will bring in better rain chances late today into the first half of tomorrow, with mountain peak snow, as well as colder air.

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