Today, Conservation Voters of New Mexico launched an exhaustive scorecard listing each state lawmaker's voting record on environmental legislation.
---
Most votes made by Santa Fe's local political delegation square evenly with CVNM's stances on environmental issues, but not every lawmaker is free of scrutiny.
Rep. Jim Trujillo (D-Santa Fe), for instance, made two "anti-conservation" moves recently, Leanne Leith, CVNM's political director, tells SFR. One was in voting to weaken the management and monitoring of the state's oil and gas wells. The other was voting in favor of a symbolic measure criticizing aspects of the Endangered Species Act.
But Leith saves most of her criticism for Gov. Susana Martinez. Examples include setting up a small business task force stacked with big-polluter lobbyists, scaling back green building standards and vetoing legislation to prevent mercury contamination, she says.
Another point of concern for Leith: most environmental issues haven't actually been voted on floor recently.
"This year most of the votes that happened happened in committee," she says, which is pushing decisions on environmental issues "outside of the public view."
CVNM isn't anticipating environmental issues to come up during next month's special session, so the scorecard likely won't change in the near future.
Photo courtesy CVNM.
