New Mexico Court of Appeals: Oil and gas producers can't reassign cleanup duties 鈥�
The New Mexico Court of Appeals has said in a recent ruling that dozens of oil and gas wells in McKinley County need to 鈥渃lean up their own mess.鈥�
Phaedra Haywood reports for the Santa Fe New Mexican that a previous case brought by the State Land Office against one of the companies that leased the land near Chaco Canyon has been reversed, according to a May 14th ruling.
In 2022 the state had asked the court to order the company to take responsibility and pay damages. Marathon Petroleum, which has since bought the company originally leasing the land, argued it wasn't responsible because it had transferred the lease to another owner, and the state couldn鈥檛 enforce contract provisions on leases it no longer owned. State District Judge Matthew Wilson sided with Marathon in 2022.
But, according to the appeals court ruling, Marathon is now responsible for remediating the land: which means plugging wells, removing old equipment and reseeding the land.
In his ruling, Retired State Supreme Court Justice Richard Bosson writes 鈥淟arger oil and gas companies tend to assign their leases to smaller and less profitable companies, which then reassign the leases to even smaller and less profitable operations鈥� even though they are less likely to have the resources to remediate the land.鈥�
State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard says the state has compelled companies to plug nearly 700 abandoned oil and gas wells on state lands- all at zero cost to taxpayers.
According to Land Office attorney Ari Biernoff, there are still about 800 inactive wells that need to be plugged.
NM Department of Health falls in line with CDC reversal on COVID vaccines for kids and pregnant women - Gillian Barkhurst,
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for children and pregnant women, contradicting the medical consensus among pediatricians and OB-GYNs. The New Mexico Department of Health will follow this protocol 鈥渁s of now,鈥� officials said.
Kennedy is perhaps best known for questioning the safety of vaccines and other governmental health interventions. This fear and vaccine hesitancy cumulated in Kennedy鈥檚 鈥淢ake America Healthy Again鈥� initiative, his platform when he ran for president in 2020 before dropping out and endorsing President Donald Trump.
Kennedy鈥檚 unilateral overturning of established vaccine norms is also a shakeup in CDC protocol. Typically, such decisions are made by advisory panels of experts and the final call is made by the CDC鈥檚 director, not the health secretary. Right now, however, the CDC has no permanent director as Trump from the Senate of his appointee Susan Monarez. In contrast to Kennedy, Monarez is an infectious disease researcher who has been supportive of COVID-19 vaccines.
This change on the federal level will trickle down, making the vaccine less affordable and accessible, said Dr. Tina Tan, an infectious disease physician at Lurie Children鈥檚 Hospital of Chicago. Insurance providers often make decisions about what vaccines they do or don鈥檛 cover based on recommendations from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, Tan said.
鈥淟ast year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children,鈥� Kennedy said in a video released on social media.
Tan called this claim 鈥渃ompletely incorrect鈥� and even dangerous.
Pregnancy is a 鈥渕ajor risk factor鈥� for developing serious COVID-19 complications, Tan said, which for pregnant women can involve early delivery, blood clots, heart disease and preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition that can be life-threatening.
For children, most infections are mild, but there is a slight chance of contracting multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a disease where organs and tissues swell, months after their initial symptoms leading to hospitalization, Tan said. Kids also may suffer from long COVID, in which children are chronically sick for three months or more.
As an infectious disease doctor working in a children鈥檚 hospital during the pandemic, Tan saw major COVID-19 complications among children first hand. People turned 鈥渁 blind eye鈥� to these child cases then, Tan said, and this announcement only furthers the assumption that kids are not affected by the disease that claimed the lives of more than 7 million people to date, according to the World Health Organization.
With fewer people qualifying for vaccination, Tan expects pharmacies, urgent cares and hospitals to order less doses, making the vaccine harder to get, even for those willing to pay out of pocket.
This announcement may not only end coverage for those under private insurers, but recipients of federal assistance like the decades-old Vaccines for Children program, which pays for uninsured youth under 19 to receive certain vaccinations for free. The program covers all vaccinations recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices under the CDC. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also oversees Medicaid, Medicare and numerous other assistance programs.
According to the CDC , one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine can cost between $57 to $141 per dose. And that鈥檚 just the price the hospital pays.
Higher prices get passed on to patients. CVS Pharmacy nearly $200 per dose for those paying out of pocket. Most people need to receive multiple doses of the vaccine for maximum efficacy.
鈥淢edicine is not based on politics,鈥� Tan said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 occurring right now is that this administration does not think about anybody else but themselves. They don鈥檛 think about the consequences of the very poor decisions that they鈥檙e making and the major impact it鈥檚 going to have on all Americans of every single age.鈥�
NM's near-universal childcare a 'life-saver' for many families 鈥� Roz Brown, New Mexico News Connection
Predominantly free statewide childcare is helping lift many New Mexico families out of poverty.
Three years ago, the state became the to offer the program to a majority of families. Expanding on pandemic-era assistance, childcare is now free for those earning up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level, or about for a family of four.
Hailey Heinz, research scientist and deputy director of the Cradle to Career Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico, said without childcare costs, many families are thriving instead of just surviving.
"Because childcare is just so expensive that, if you do not have to pay that bill anymore, for many families this is more than $1,000 a month," Heinz pointed out. "It's helping in, families even use the phrase, 'life-changing' ways."
The Trump administration has encouraged Americans to have more children. But the U.S. has no federal, universal childcare and according to UNICEF, its child care policies among 41 high-income countries, even while costs are some of the highest in the world.
The 2022 vote amended the New Mexico Constitution, guaranteeing a right to early childhood education. Revenues to fund the program, largely from oil and gas, are distributed through the state's Land Grant Permanent Fund. Heinz noted only Vermont, which does not grapple with extreme poverty like New Mexico, has a similar program.
"We have people talking about being able to afford a reliable car," Heinz reported. "People really talking about just having a little bit of decreased stress and sort-of improved economic breathing room, just from not worrying so much about money all the time."
Geographically, New Mexico is the fifth-largest state, much of it rural and devoted to ranching with only a handful of sizable metropolitan areas. Heinz added childcare affordability is better but in the long term, families said they need more caregivers to choose from.
"They see good things happening for their children's development because they're in higher-quality care, or they're able to be in care," Heinz stressed.
WNMU faculty the latest pushing to unionize in New Mexico - Leah Romero,
Western New Mexico University鈥檚 faculty members say they are forming a local National Education Association union while a search for a new university president commences.
According to a news release from the organizing committee, organizers collected signatures and authorization cards from two-thirds of the university鈥檚 faculty and librarians within weeks of beginning a formal campaign to gain support. They presented the cards to the New Mexico Public Employee Labor Relations Board on May 13.
According to the , the petition for unionization is still pending.
By moving to unionize, WNMU鈥檚 faculty is set to join faculties from Central New Mexico College, New Mexico Highlands University, San Juan College, University of New Mexico鈥檚 Main Campus and New Mexico State University, which petitioned for unionization in March 2024.
鈥淎s WNMU looks to the future, unionizing will ensure that faculty have a voice in any changes that may be considered for programmatic, administrative, and reporting structures,鈥� Andy Hernandez, a professor of history at WNMU, said in a written statement.
He pointed to the 鈥渢umultuous events鈥� at WNMU in the last year, including former President Joseph Shepard鈥檚 termination; the board of regent鈥檚 decision to award Shepard a $1.9 million severance package; the resignation of the board and the ongoing against university administrators for unjust enrichment and violation of fiduciary duties.
A of regents took over early this year and are tasked with searching for a new president to replace Shepard, who left his position in January and moved into a professor position in the university鈥檚 School of Business.
The board voted on May 23 selecting firms to conduct the national search for both an interim university president and permanent president.
鈥淐reating a collective bargaining unit offers us the chance to take important sections from our [faculty] handbook related to critical elements of our working conditions and to give them the strength of an enforceable contract backed by an organization with a proven track record of supporting educators. Doing so lets us put more of our focus back onto our classrooms and our students,鈥� Hernandez said in a written statement to Source NM.
David Scarborough, associate professor of management at WNMU since 2016, said in a written statement that now is the 鈥減erfect鈥� time for faculty to organize. 鈥淥ur new executive will arrive with unionized faculty as one more invested stakeholder among many. For faculty, it represents a positive inflection point signaling renewal and continued commitment to shared governance.鈥�
Affordable Clean Car Coalition forms in response to U.S. Senate vote - Hannah Grover,
Governors of states that have implemented clean vehicle programs, such as New Mexico鈥檚 Advanced Clean Cars rule, are banding together following a U.S. Senate vote this week.
The Senate voted 51-44 this week to overturn a waiver that allowed the State of California to set air pollution standards for vehicles that are stricter than the federal standards. Other states have been able to choose to implement California鈥檚 standards and New Mexico is one of the states that did so.
The U.S. Climate Alliance, which is co-chaired by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced on Friday that the 11 states that have adopted policies to increase the number of zero-emissions vehicles have formed a coalition known as the Affordable Clean Car Coalition.
In addition to California and New Mexico, those states include Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.
The U.S. Senate鈥檚 vote overruled the advice of the parliamentarian, who is a non-partisan staffer tasked with interpreting Senate rules.
Republicans have decried state clean vehicle programs like the Advanced Clean Cars rule as being 鈥渆lectric vehicle mandates鈥� that disproportionately harm low-income and rural communities. At the state level, New Mexico Republicans attempting to overturn the clean cars rule and to prevent the Environmental Improvement Board from adopting or enforcing rules that prioritize one type of vehicle over another. While the bill made it through its first committee, it was tabled in its second committee.
requires manufacturers to send increasing percentages of zero-emissions vehicles to dealerships in the state.
鈥淭he federal government and Congress are putting polluters over people and creating needless chaos for consumers and the market, but our commitment to safeguarding Americans鈥� fundamental right to clean air is resolute,鈥� the 11 governors said in a joint statement on Friday. 鈥淲e will continue collaborating as states and leveraging our longstanding authority under the Clean Air Act, including through state programs that keep communities safe from pollution, create good-paying jobs, increase consumer choice, and help Americans access cleaner and more affordable cars. As we consider next steps for our clean vehicle programs, our states will engage stakeholders and industry to provide the regulatory certainty needed while redoubling our efforts to build a cleaner and healthier future.鈥�
The coalition plans to work together to develop solutions that make lower-emission vehicles more affordable and accessible. That could involve expanding access to charging stations.
The states also plan to explore opportunities for developing and adopting what they call 鈥渘ext-generation standards and programs鈥� aimed at reducing vehicle pollution.
The U.S. Climate Alliance said in a press release that the coalition will also 鈥渇oster meaningful engagement with manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, labor unions, business associations, utilities, community-based organizations, charging and fueling infrastructure providers and others in developing and successfully implementing state transportation solutions.鈥�
Hiker rescued after being injured on Pino Trail 鈥�
A hiker with an injured leg was brought down from the Pino Trail in Albuquerque by the city鈥檚 Fire Rescue and Police Department personnel last night.
The Albuquerque Journal reports the hiker was with a partner, but once the person was injured, they were unable to climb the one mile remainder of the trail down.
The partner called for help around 6pm. and crews arrived shortly after.
The crew hiked in and brought the injured person out in a wheeled stokes basket.
The patient chose to seek additional treatment on their own and wasn't transported to hospital by ambulance.