November 23, 2018
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The State Land Office has set a record for its monthly oil and gas lease sale, generating more than $43 million for public schools and other trust land beneficiaries as the oil boom continues in New Mexico.
The November sale represents the highest single-month yield in the agency’s history. The previous record of just over $30 million was set in July 2017.
Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn said in a statement issued Tuesday that he was expecting a good month but was surprised by the outcome. He said it will help with the goal of generating $1 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.
The State Land Office, one of the most powerful agencies in New Mexico, oversees oil and gas drilling, renewable energy projects and other development on millions of acres of state trust land. Revenues from the monthly oil and gas lease sales and other activities help to fund public schools, higher education, hospitals, the state penitentiary and infrastructure projects.
In all, 35 tracts covering more than 12 square miles (32 square kilometers) were up for bid this month in Lea, Chaves and McKinley counties. All but one tract was leased and another ended up being withdrawn....
Allocation by New Mexico for educational materials - $10,385,518.00 (click here)
How does a state have a $40.3 million as a budget gap with an income of $43 million in sales of oil leases?
March 14, 2018
By Sylvia Ulloa
New Mexico school districts (click here) that had hoped to put a little more cushion in their budgets managed to persuade a sympathetic Legislature, but couldn’t get it past the governor’s veto pen.
When she signed the 2018-2019 budget on March 7, Gov. Susana Martinez struck a line through $5 million state lawmakers had set aside to repay some school districts whose cash accounts had been swept by $40. 3 million to help fill a large budget gap in 2017.
Martinez had called the cash accounts of school districts “slush funds.” State superintendents — who drove to the capital en masse during the session to lobby lawmakers for repayment — call them reserve accounts that are used to make large payments like annual insurance, as well as extras like giving teachers stipends to take students to science camp.
School leaders said during testimony in Santa Fe that taking the cash out of their accounts had hurt their ability to deal with unexpected expenses....
Sunday, December 02, 2018
Lessons in Bipartisanship: the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
By Travis Madsen
Director, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Campaign
Twenty-seven years ago today (November 15, 1990), President George H.W. Bush, backed by a supermajority of Congress, improved the Clean Air Act. The new law was one of the most significant steps the nation has ever taken to protect public health and the environment. Looking back on it today, we can clearly see that when our leaders work together across party lines to cut pollution and protect public health, we all win.
The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act were designed to curb four major threats to both the environment and the health of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban smog, toxic air pollution and the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer. 27 years later, we have made massive progress on all four fronts...
....And we are facing an even more serious air pollution problem — climate change. Not only is climate change making air pollution worse (Exhibit A: this summer’s terrible fire season and heat waves), but it poses its own far-reaching threats to our health and well-being and the future of communities across the nation. Already, global warming pollution is acidifying the ocean, driving extreme storms, fueling drought and floods and causing the oceans to rise. These changes pose serious threats to our safety, our homes and businesses, our food and water supplies, and the natural ecosystems upon which we depend....
...Pres. George H.W. Bush negotiated the landmark climate treaty that underpins the Paris Climate Agreement — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — in 1992. The president said at the time that the United States “fully intends to be the world’s preeminent leader in protecting the global environment.” The Senate then ratified the treaty, which. Sen. McConnell called “a fine agreement,” according to The Hill....
Richard Nixon passed landmark legislation e National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Clean Air Act amendments of 1970, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments and The Clean Act. President Geoge H. W. Bush continued that legacy and recognized the difficult mission facing the country in regard to the Climate Crisis.
I wish his family solace. May he rest in peace.
The blog will continue with Slovakia next Sunday.
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