News New Mexico

Obama revives ozone regs he once opposed for being too sevene a burden on economy

Commentary by Marita Noon - Within the bundle of more than 3,000 regulations lies a rule on ozone that President Obama himself in 2011 “put on ice” in effort to reduce “regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.” Regarding the 2011 decision that shocked environmental groups, the New York Times recently stated: “At the time, Mr. Obama said the regulation would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress.”
  So why is the rule back? First, Obama isn’t facing an election. More importantly, following the 2011 decision that struck down the proposed ozone rule, environmental groups sued the Obama administration. The resulting court order required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release the proposed rule by December 1, with finalization by October 2015.
  Once again, environmental groups-- which, on September 21, revealed that their true intention of changing the system (“capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure”)-- have taken charge of America’s energy policy, and, therefore, economic policy. They have systematically chipped away America’s sources of economic strength: cost-effective energy.
  First they came after coal at a time when natural gas ran cheap and proponents touted it as the “bridge fuel” to the future. No one much spoke out. Some in the natural gas business even encouraged the war on coal, as it benefitted them. When I first heard that then-Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McLendon gave the Sierra Club $25 million to fight coal (it is reported that the Sierra Club turned down an additional $30 million), I remember yelling at the TV: “You fool! You will be next!”
  Within months, the Sierra Club launched its “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign that claims: “Increasing reliance on natural gas displaces the market for clean energy and harms human health and the environment in places where production occurs.” A headline on the Beyond Natural Gas webpage describes that natural gas as: “Dirty, dangerous, and run amok.” Shortly thereafter, McLendon “agreed to retire.” Read full column

Bernalillo County district attorney under investigation

Bernalillo County DA Kari Brandenburg

From KOB-TV.com - By: Blair Miller, KOB.com - Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg has called a news conference for 10 a.m. Monday to discuss allegations she is being investigated “in a matter pertaining to her son.”
  A report from The Associated Press says Brandenburg is accused of offering to reimburse burglary victims for not implicating her son as a suspect in the burglaries.
  A spokesperson for Attorney General Gary King's office, which is allegedly involved in the investigation, told KOB Sunday they "could not comment at this time."
  KOB will be at the news conference conference Monday and have a full report on the investigation. More

New approach to football I hope with new Athletic Director

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. - The New Mexico State University Aggies need to stop selling losses. I am offended every time the administration thinks selling a loss is a good idea. They have been selling losses for most of forty years and it has brought them quick cash and lasting failure.

Let me count the ways selling losses is a bad idea: first, every football team is judged primarily by their win/loss record. Bowl appearances are determined by win/loss records. Further, the win/loss record has a positive correlation with home attendance. Teams who give up losses each year do not go to Bowls. NMSU has not gone Bowling since 1960
So I have protested dozens of times about selling losses. Each time I am told I just do not understand educational administration. Psst: I have a Ph.D. in that field. They trade short-term employment for themselves for long-term institutional losses.
Every year I am told the money just does not work any other way. Yet in all those years the NMSU administration has had to shift money to the Athletic Department a number of times. Remember, "Easy money is always the hardest."
So there is a new Athletic Director, Mario Moccia. He is a former Aggie great in baseball. In his senior year at NMSU the Aggie football team was winless. That year then football head coach Mike Knoll was fired after a 4 and 40 career. How's that selling losses doing for you Mike?
The next coach finally stopped the skid with a victory so NMSU Football only lost 27 straight games, some of them sold losses. NMSU was playing with players hurt in sold games. Add to that, the home attendance over the decades has been poor at best and nearly non-existent at all other times.
The NMSU administration said it had to sell losses because the fans were not coming to the games. They got it backwards. If they play and win, the fans come. Incidentally, since 1967 I have attended Aggie football. Many seasons I have six season tickets though this year we only got four. Read full column

Kawasaki commercial shot at Spaceport

From KRQE-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It looks like the New Mexico Spaceport will be used for other things besides space travel, it’s now the backdrop for a new motorcycle commercial. Production of Kawasaki’s new Ninja motorcycle used the Spaceport’s futuristic building and 12,000 foot long runway for the commercial.
It took five days to shoot the commercial back in September. New Mexico Spaceport officials say using the facility for commercial advertising generates hundreds of thousands of dollars for Spaceport America and local communities.
The Spaceport’s future has been in question since Virgin Galactic space flights were put on hold indefinitely. The state is looking at ways to cover the operating budget at the Spaceport. More

Census to hire field representatives in New Mexico

From KOAT-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —The U.S. Census Bureau will be embarking on a massive hiring campaign starting this week. Officials say they will begin interviewing and testing candidates for temporary field representative jobs Wednesday at the New Mexico Workforce Connection office in Albuquerque.
The interviews will continue every Wednesday and Friday through March 27. Those who are hired will help with the 2015 American Housing Survey. Their duties will include conducting telephone interviews with selected households from May through August.
The jobs are temporary and the pay rate is $13.55 an hour. The workers will also get paid for mileage, which means they must have a valid driver's license and a reliable vehicle with insurance. More

It’s time for tough love on tax credits for the mature wind industry

Commentary by Marita Noon - Is the lame duck Congress oblivious to the message voters sent to Washington last month? Or, are they intentionally ignoring it in favor of special interests? A pending vote on a tax-extenders package—that would have a slim chance of passage in the new Congress—will reveal whether or not they learned anything from the 2014 midterms.
  Throughout 2014, since the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for the wind energy industry expired on December 31, 2013, lobbyists from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) have pushed Congress to vote to retroactively revive the PTC. So far, sound fiscal thinking has prevailed. The lame duck session provides their last opportunity to hand over hard-earned American tax dollars to big business, and pile national debt on future generations.
  The PTC provides one of the best examples of the worst kind of taxpayer waste being considered in a tax-extenders deal. The largest benefactors of the credit (underwritten by U.S. taxpayers) are wind energy turbine manufacturers like General Electric (which purchased Enron’s wind turbine business in 2002), and investors like Warren Buffet, who, without apology, recently admitted: “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
  The U.S. wind energy business started as a gleam in Enron’s eye, enjoyed an entitled childhood at taxpayer expense, and, by now, should have blossomed into an adult. Instead, now, at the tail end of this Congressional session, the industry—by way of AWEA lobbyists—has its hand out for a ninth round of “free” taxpayer money. These dollars, which get transferred from hard-working taxpayers to big corporations and billionaires, are borrowed from our children, with the paper being sold overseas in what is known as “national debt.”
  For this lame duck Congress, AWEA’s panhandling should be as welcome as grown children returning home for financial support—“just one more time.” Like parents, possessing the kind of wisdom that often only crystalizes in our fifties, Congress must now realize the inevitable: sometimes seeing our dependents grow up to be independent requires tough love and a line in the sand. Though it is hard, most parents know saying “no” is part of the process of having children that grow into mature, responsible adults. Read full column

The Pit renamed WisePies Arena

From KOB-TV.com - by: Elizabeth Reed - The Pit will now be known as WisePies Arena (aka The Pit), the UNM Athletics Department announced Monday. WisePies Pizza & Salad, a locally owned business, has agreed to give $5 million over 10 years to support the Athletics Department through the newly established WisePies Fund.
It's the largest cash gift ever to the department and the sixth largest cash gift overall to the university, according to a press release. The funds will be used to support The Pit debt service incurred from the 2009-2010 renovations.
"From the time we first discussed the potential renovation of The Pit, we talked about the need for state and private support to make the renovation a reality," said Paul Krebs, Vice President for Athletics for the University of New Mexico, in a statement. "Specifically, we've talked about the need to find a naming rights partner for the building.

The fact that WisePies is a local company and Steve Chavez, the company's co-CEO, is a native New Mexican and successful, local businessman makes this gift even more significant and special."

The naming deal is half of what UNM initially sought. In 2013, the asking price was $10 million over 20 years. More

A new batch of Atari games up for auction on eBay

From the Alamogordo Daily News - he second round of Atari cartridges from the notorious dig at the Alamogordo Landfill are now up for sale on eBay. Between 300 and 400 games will be up for auction in this round that will include Yars' Revenge and Super Breakout cartridges.
There are 40 games listed on the auction website at the moment. To locate the games on eBay, go to collectibles and type in Atari Dig Cartridges, there you can find games from the dig. Each game comes with a property tag and a Certificate of Authenticity proving its from the Atari Tomb.
  Operational Consultant Joe Lewandowski said the games will be posted over the next couple of weeks in batches up to 50 because it takes time to post them. He said they will have the same titles as the first round but just the cartridges such as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Missile Command, Asteroids, Centipede, Defender and Phoenix.
  "We have a limited amount of Raiders of the Lost Arc, we're holding back on those and keeping them for museums. Anything that there's not a whole lot of we're keeping them," said Lewandowski. "We also have a limited amount of Pelé's Soccer, RealSports Baseball and Video Chess which are also not for sale, they will be going to museums at a later date."
  Lewandowski said they will be posting 10 more copies of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, some of them have the booklet included while others do not.
  He said Yars' Revenge, the new title that's included in the auction, was the premiere game of its era and was created by Howard Warshaw who also created the now popular E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Read more

If businesses don't want to come to New Mexico, nobody's gonna stop 'em

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. - "If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em." Yogi Berra
Likewise, if businesses don't want to come to New Mexico, nobody's gonna stop 'em. This Thanksgiving we pause to count our blessing. Many of us have many blessings to count. But some New Mexicans are not as fortunate because New Mexico is not a business-friendly state. Many New Mexicans are long-term unemployed.
New Mexico is government-friendly. The number of government jobs is amazing. However, the private sector is not as blessed. So while we wipe the butter from our lips from our Thanksgiving dinner and say our blessings, we must confront the part of New Mexico that needs help: private businesses.
Those of us in business are aware of anti-business attitudes but most New Mexicans refuse to see these actions as harmful. Business unfriendly means the government; state, county and local, makes it harder to conduct business in New Mexico than it needs to be.
Often government makes it harder to do business in New Mexico than in competing states. We rarely know about businesses who thought about moving their operation to New Mexico but upon investigation decided to move to a different state. But it would seems lots of businesses are not coming.
Part of the problem is governance which makes things harder on businesses than it needs to be. There are inspectors who can dispirit businesses with over doing regulations and enforcement.
Example: every restaurant owner knows the state inspectors can close them any day. No one can endure a really rigorous inspection. But for the humanity of the inspector, every New Mexico restaurant is red-tagged and closed.
And part of the problem in New Mexico is finding a professional workforce ready, willing and able to work for a new business. A man asks a friend, "How's your wife?" The friend replies, "Compared to what?"
Everything that happens in a workforce is compared to other workforces. Both Albuquerque and Santa Fe have higher minimum wages which is a barrier to a first job by young people. There are many young people who are in their twenties and still have not had a first job. Employers want workers with a work history to predict how they will work.Read full column

Lawmaker: Marijuana needs debate in New Mexico

NewsNM:Swickard I agree with Representative McCamley that the debate on legalizing marijuana needs to be done in a professional manner and the idea looked at from all angles. From KRQE-TV.com - (AP) – The conversation about whether New Mexico should join other Western states in legalizing marijuana is cranking up as state lawmakers prepare for the 2015 legislative session.
Rep. Bill McCamley, a Democrat from southern New Mexico, took his case for legalization to fellow lawmakers Tuesday during a meeting of the interim health and human services committee. McCamley dismissed the stoner humor of 1970s comics Cheech and Chong and said this should be a serious debate.
“Let’s talk about the facts,” he told the committee. “Let’s talk about what’s actually happening in terms of public policy, and let’s not get caught up in stereotypes about what this is or isn't.”
McCamley has yet to craft the legislation, but he’s looking at Oregon as a model. Voters in that state, Alaska and the District of Columbia approved ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana earlier this month, joining Colorado and Washington.
In New Mexico, the push for legalization follows the success of ballot questions in two of the state’s most populous counties that gauged voter support for decriminalizing marijuana.
“If you look at prohibition, it’s basically a failure both in terms of alcohol in the 1920s and the drug war now,” McCamley said during an interview. “We’re spending all of this money enforcing marijuana laws and prosecuting people for smoking marijuana. That can be used in other law-enforcement efforts like prosecuting rapists and murderers – and that’s important.”
McCamley also estimates that the state could save over $33 million in costs associated with police, courts and corrections if marijuana is legalized.
The New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association has yet to develop a position on the matter. Gov. Susana Martinez has been an outspoken critic of decriminalizing marijuana, and control of the state House of Representatives swinging to Republicans will likely make for a challenge in getting legislation passed.
“We don’t want to get people’s expectations up, but it’s very important to have this conversation,” McCamley said. More

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