We highlighted some of it Monday and pick it up today with outcries from the environmental community, usually friendly toward her. We'll also cover the political impact of the vetoes but we start with reader D. Reed Eckhardt:
The Guv stabbed climate advocates in the back. Her vetoes of tax credits followed her lack of gumption in pushing a measure that would have put her important climate executive orders into law. This is just barely over a year after her promise at a Roundhouse climate conference to do just that and accelerate a push to make the state climate neutral by 2050.
She since has followed that with efforts to boost blue hydrogen, which would aid oil and gas while increasing methane emissions. The only conclusion I can reach is that she now is a lapdog for the energy industry. I venture a guess that every climate advocacy group is heartbroken that they have lost a supporter in the governor’s office. I see no serious action now on climate until she is replaced by a true believer.
The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter also criticized the Governor's climate vetoes.
Progressive Democrat Lora Lucero writes not of the veteos but what she sees as another state enviro legislative failure:
Jerry Redfern, reporting in Capital & Main wrote:
“Stricter regulation on who can drill wells? Dead. A provision allowing citizen groups to sue when the state drags its feet over prosecuting oil and gas companies? Dead. A nominal increase in oil and gas taxes that applies only to future wells only on state lands? Dead. Updates to the state’s 80-year-old foundational oil and gas law to include protections for human and environmental health? Dead. A fund to help fossil-fuel energy workers transfer to new careers? Dead. The latest in a years-long push to add environmental protections to the state constitution, similar to one in red state Montana? Dead.”
The stranglehold of the oil & gas industry on New Mexico politics and politicians is no secret. But it’s time to call out the Democrats who can’t or won’t act in the best interest of our children and their future.
US Senator Martin Heinrich was another Democrat not shy about criticizing the Governor's vetoes. He tweeted:
Our state legislature passed HB 547 to lower taxes for families, veterans, & educators. And it would have made NM a national leader with climate tax incentives - similar to the ones I fought to pass. But these reforms were vetoed.
MORE ECON ANGLE
We covered MLGs vetoes of lower tax rates for middle and lower income New Mexicans and her rejection of a small increase in the alcohol tax. Reader Karl Kiser says don't forget another major casualty from her veto pen--a moderate increase in the state capital gains tax:
Currently there is a large 40% deduction from personal income tax for net capital gains because legislators in 2003 believed the trickle down theory of economics. This 20 year mistake now continues because of the Governor’s veto of the tax package. It continues to elevate a preference for unearned income over wages. The flat $2,500 deduction from HB 120 was a compromise position folded into the omnibus tax bill. The state would receive at least $40 million and upwards of $ 70 million annually from the proposed change. Frankly it is fiscally irresponsible to veto this equitable modification of the tax code.
GAME COMMISISON VETO
If the solution wasn’t acceptable to the governor, I hope she comes forward with her own solution. What’s currently happening isn’t working well for the agency or the state.
The reform bill sought. . .
to create an equitable mix of members from various backgrounds — such as a hunter, rancher, conservationist and scientist — as well as a more even representation of political parties. The governor would have chosen three and the Legislature would have appointed four; no more than two of the governor’s picks could be from the same political party. And no commissioner could have been removed without cause.
MLG AND LEGISLATURE
We asked Santa Fe attorney, former state legislator and ABQ city councilor Greg Payne for his thoughts on the fallout over MLG's vetoes:
She is in danger of losing her largest base of support--progressive Democrats in Bernalillo County. The vetoes signal an end of the honeymoon with them and I expect the next session of the legislature and those to follow to be more contentious and divisive. She got much too close to the capitol lobbyists who steered her away from progressive legislation on the environment and taxes. There will now be a fight for the future. That's why you see Sen. Heinrich go public against her vetoes as he eyes a possible run for Governor in '26. MLG only won her second term by about 6 points. She does not have an overwhelming mandate and the vetoes seemed destined to diminish her legislative power in this second term as happened to her predecessors.
That sounds like a full blown case of second termitis. Unlike Spring Fever, it is not a temporary condition.
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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2023
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2023