Roundhouse Roundup
The Santa Fe New Mexican
Clean fuel standards advance after lengthy debate: A bill aiming to reduce vehicle pollution narrowly passed the state House of Representatives on Saturday afternoon.
After three hours of debate, House Bill 41 passed 36-33. Eight rural Democrats joined the Republicans in opposition.
The bill seeks to establish clean transportation fuel standards and reduce “carbon intensity” levels of transportation fuels in New Mexico by requiring producers of high-carbon transportation fuels like oil to either reduce how much they pollute or buy clean-fuel credits from low-polluting utilities or other clean fuel producers. Similar legislation has been proposed in recent sessions but has yet to become law.
Sponsor Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, said HB 41 would both attract clean energy business to New Mexico and benefit the state’s residents by reducing the rate of respiratory illness. She said many areas of rural New Mexico, including Taos County, suffer from poor air quality.
“Rural areas feel the pain from pollution that comes from transportation fuels and this is a really important way of addressing that,” she said.
Ortez said it is a myth that such programs drive up gas prices.
“No other state with this program has seen prices at the pump increase as a result of this program,” she said.
Newly appointed Rep. Jim Hembree, R-Roswell, took part in his first floor debate Saturday, offering an amendment requiring a sticker on gas pumps stating the additional cost if any caused by the bill. After lengthy debate, the amendment was rejected on a 39-30 vote.
Minority Whip Jim Townsend, R-Artesia, pointed to a recent article in the Seattle Times — “not normally a conservative rag” — that said Washington state’s highest-in-the-nation gas prices could be connected to similar climate legislation as proof of the importance of Hembree’s amendment.
“We have listened here this morning about this magic wand that’s going to create a commodity that’s not going to cost anything … but I hear such reluctance from the other side to put a little bitty sticker on the gas pump that says ‘this type of legislation costs this much.’”
Before the vote on his amendment, Hembree asked for a “call of the House” requiring all members to be present in the chamber, the second such effort in as many days — another Republican lawmaker did the same thing on Friday before a vote on a gun control bill.
Senate panel supports state meat control: No one on the Senate Finance Committee had any beef with Senate Bill 37.
The Meat Inspection Act, whose 22 sponsors include a mix of Republicans and Democrats, would give the state Livestock Board authority over the safety and quality of meat and poultry processed in the state and created an Office of Meat and Poultry Inspection Director with the authority to inspect the state’s facility. Currently the federal government, not the state, conducts meat inspections in New Mexico.
Representatives of several agricultural groups who spoke in favor of SB 37 said it would help keep meat processing in-state and increase the availability of New Mexico-raised beef. The committee voted unanimously Saturday to pass it.
The state Livestock Board has been working on creating a state-run program for a couple of years, according to the bill’s fiscal impact report, and the federal government would pay up to half of the costs of the program if it is approved. The state initially would hire six inspectors, plus add a couple of new administrative positions to oversee the program.
Murder bill survives committee: The Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee voted 6-3 on Friday to back a proposal to increase the penalties for attempted and second-degree murder.
Senate Bill 96, sponsored by Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, would increase the penalty for second-degree attempted murder from three years to nine years. It also would increase the basic sentence for second-degree murder from 15 to 18 years. That was one of the public safety proposals Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham supported before this year’s session.
Maestas told the committee the changes would make New Mexico’s criminal code more consistent. Currently, he said, a second-offense drug dealer or thief faces more prison time than someone convicted of second-degree murder. And since premeditation is so hard to prove, many killings end up getting pleaded down to second degree, resulting in shock to the families of victims when they learn the killer is facing only 15 years.
“It is a shock to the conscience, it is an injustice and this bill remedies that injustice,” Maestas said.
Committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, was one of the bill’s opponents.
“People in other countries are astounded at the length of our sentences,” he said, adding they should be based not on the feelings of the victim’s family but on “how do we move from what happened?”
Ortiz y Pino said studies have shown sentences longer than three years don’t serve any rehabilitative value.
“I hope the Judiciary Committee takes a more skeptical look at it, because I just don’t think it’ll do any good,” Ortiz y Pino said.
Quote of the day: “Everybody’s a carnivore today.” —Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, remarking on the unanimous support for state oversight over meat inspection.
