Witnesses to New Mexico Energy Policy

Kim Sorvig

Capitol Report New Mexico -  Where does a person’s professional expertise end and his political advocacy begin? That’s an interesting question after glancing at the opinion section of Sunday’s Santa Fe New Mexican, which featured a piece by Dr. Kim Sorvig headlined as “Schmitt’s abrupt exit about deceit, not privacy.” Some background: The most dramatic moment of the first 30 days of this current 60-day legislative session came on Jan. 31 when all the Republicans of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee walked out after a presentation on the effects of rules and incentives on the New Mexico oil and gas industry.

Don Bratton

The committee’s new chairman, Rep. Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe), invited two speakers – including Sorvig, a research associate professor at the UNM School of Architecture and Planning — to appear as what Egolf described as non-partisan experts. After the walkout, Rep. Don Bratton (R-Hobbs) said Sorvig’s lecture amounted to “propoganda.” After the hearing, a quick Google search by Capitol Report New Mexico produced a number of opinion pieces and letters to the editor that Sorvig had written in the New Mexican in which he said inaugural crowds in 2009 singing songs in reference to outgoing President George W. Bush “could justifiably have picked “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” and, in another piece, urged New Mexico voters to reject Susana Martinez, calling her “Tejana Susana,” a reference to the most controversial commercial of the Martinez-Diane Denish gubernatorial race last November. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Witnesses to New Mexico Energy Policy