Morning Word, 08-23-12

The New Mexico news recap

Mitt Romney is coming to town today. Well, at least to the state. The far reaches of the state. --- Romney will be appearing at a Hobbs business to outline his energy plan later this morning. ProgressNow New Mexico has

what it says is the white paper on energy policy

from the Romney-Ryan campaign.

As the location suggests (Hobbs is a huge oil town), much of Romney's energy policy will be dedicated to extractive energy -- that is oil and natural gas. Solar and wind are barely mentioned, except to say that some projects were delayed because of what the plan calls burdensome regulations.

Romney will earn plenty of earned media in New Mexico from this -- KRQE dispatched

Katie Kim for the 6 hour drive

and the other big news stations likely did as well. But, so far, Romney hasn't backed that up with paid advertising.

On to the Word:

  • A day after the Martinez administration said it would ask employees to pay more into health insurance premiums, the AP comes with news that
  • New Mexico is looking at 4 percent revenue growth in the next budget year
  • .
  • Top officials in the Martinez administration outlined the revenue projections to the Legislative Finance Committee during a meeting in Angel Fire. Lawmakers were cautioned that global economic weakness, volatility in oil and natural gas prices and the possibility of federal spending cutbacks pose “downside risks” to New Mexico’s revenue outlook in the fiscal year starting next July. The state relies heavily on taxes and royalties from energy production.
  • SFR did an experiment and requested
  • , using the Inspection of Public Records Act, a document that was done for public business but on private email accounts. The Reporter, and all of hte state, knows that these exist because they were leaked earlier this year. However, they came up empty, as the Susana Martinez administration did not provide the documents.
  • Milan Simonich says
  • Martinez's time at the podium at the Republican National Convention won't matter
  • . At least when it comes to the Presidential ticket.
  • A top New Mexico economist says the state should consider taking advantage of the Medicaid expansion that would help low-income adults, saying that
  • it could create 10,000 jobs in the state
  • .
  • The same economist says that
  • New MExico will likely see slow economic growth through 2017
  • .
  • New Mexico’s job creation rate over the past year has placed it 46th among the states, Reynis said. The state’s unemployment rate has dropped by 2 percentage points over the past year, but much of that was due to a shrinking labor force, Reynis added.
  • The Center for Public Integrity
  • writes about environmental groups targeting the U.S. Senate race in New Mexico
  • . It includes this headshaking paragraph:
  • But it’s not big-business-backed super PACs that are targeting her — it’s a who’s who of the nation’s largest environmental groups. Meanwhile, only $250,000 has been spent urging voters to reject her opponent, Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich, all of it by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
  • That is if you don't include the massive amount of money spent by groups like American Crossroads, American Future Fund and Americans for Prosperity all going after Heinrich. The FEC classifies these as issues ads, but if you asked anyone on the street, they would tell you they are directly attempting to affect the election. The CPI piece does note this much lower in the story.
  • The fate of the Independent American Party of New Mexico's Jon Barrie, who wishes to be a candidate for U.S. Senate,
  • is still up in the air
  • .
  • The high court ruled after a hearing that the party membership deadline didn’t apply in Barrie’s case. Then the justices ordered the case back to state District Court to resolve the signatures question. But they said that before that happens, the Barrie campaign and the Secretary of State’s Office should try to reach an agreement on the signatures that would eliminate the need for another court hearing.
  • A former state employee is suing because she says she was fired for testing positive for medical marijuana --
  • despite having a medical marijuana card
  • .
  • Pat Rogers
  • responds to SFR
  • on the controversial racino deal. At least this time he didn't accuse the reporter of journalistic malpractice.
  • Bill Richardson needled New York governor, and potential 2016 presidential candidate, Andrew Cuomo on the speculation that Cuomo would run for president at a New York City policy summit.
  • “Iowa has an excellent community college system of renewable energy, and I would urge you to look at that. And Governor, you'll learn a little bit about Iowa in the future. Anyway... sorry.”
  • A Las Cruces girl who won a contest to make health recipes
  • got to meet the First Lady and President
  • .
  • The New Mexico Business Weekly has the
  • 707 New Mexico companies that got defense contracts
  • . Some contracts were worth a few thousand dollars while others were in the millions.
  • Despite recent rains, it has still been very dry lately in New Mexico. So dry that
  • stretches of the state's two largest rivers are completely dried-up
  • .
  • Activists
  • protested a proposal to ship more nuclear waste to New Mexico
  • .
  • Angel Fire is
  • seeing an economic stimulus thanks to the Lone Ranger filming in the area
  • .
  • Johnny Tapia's widow says that
  • the famous Albuquerque boxer's death was not an overdose
  • , although past illegal drug use likely contributed to his death.