Rio Grande Foundation
Paul had a chance recently to sit down with Mark and Krysty Ronchetti on the latest edition of the “No Doubt About It” podcast. We mostly discussed the Gov.’s recently-adoptetd EV mandate but also looked ahead to the upcoming legislative session and some other critical issues facing New Mexicans.
Check out the conversation below:
Paul had a chance recently to sit down with Mark and Krysty Ronchetti on the latest edition of the “No Doubt About It” podcast. We mostly discussed the Gov.’s recently-adoptetd EV mandate but also looked ahead to the upcoming legislative session and some other critical issues facing New Mexicans.
Check out the conversation below:
The following article appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican on November 19, 2023.
The Legislative Finance Committee has produced a new report looking at the issue of New Mexico’s low workforce participation rate. Here is one of many choice quotes analyzing the problem: “While unemployment rates have recovered to pre-pandemic levels, the share of the state’s working age population participating in the labor force is persistently low. Social services, economic development, tax rates, pension systems, the service industry and virtually every other area of the economy is impacted when there are fewer people working to support those who do not work.”
The report further notes “misalignment between the state’s workforce skills and industry is a challenge for New Mexico’s economic future,” the report focuses most of its attention on job training programs and other economic development incentives, but I believe this is a mistake. What the LFC gently calls “misalignment” really means “ill-prepared.”
Sadly, no matter how much New Mexico seems to spend on education, our results remain mired in the very bottom among U.S. states. We all know the numbers. New Mexico is last on the Nation’s Report Card, last on Kids Count and last in nearly any ranking of public education systems or outcomes. New Mexico is still working to comply with the Yazzie v. Martinez ruling, which deemed our education system “inadequate.”
Solving our state’s educational issues is fundamental to the future of New Mexico. People have moved their families out-of-state during the governor’s coronavirus pandemic lockdowns or have found other educational options. Sadly, tens of thousands of New Mexico children continue to suffer in a failing system.
The key is to reform the system, not pour more money into a system that is so clearly broken. Recently, through the education reform project called Opportunity for All Kids New Mexico, my foundation held a daylong conference in which numerous reform ideas were discussed.
High-level reformers from across the nation and state discussed private school choice options that have been implemented, how New Mexico can learn lessons from other states and maximize its charter school laws and what we can learn from Mississippi in reforming our existing education system. Advocates for charter schools were also able to tout ways in which New Mexico’s current form of school choice is working to improve education and outline how it could be harnessed to do even more.
After all, when your education system is so troubled, you need to consider all the options. Sadly, advocates of the status quo failed system, many of whom are supported financially and elected thanks to support from the unions, continue to stand in the way of necessary reforms.
What is holding New Mexico’s economy back? Many policies are responsible. Rio Grande Foundation continues to advocate for needed tax reform (to name just one needed reform). That said, no area of public policy in New Mexico could have a more profound impact on both our children and our long-term economic success simultaneously than would making needed changes to our education system.
In next year’s 30-day legislative session and beyond, New Mexicans and their elected officials must embrace a combination of accountability and reform that could (at last) begin to move New Mexico out of last place, improve the lives of our children and give us a better workforce.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, a nonpartisan research and educational organization.
The following appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on Tuesday, November 21st, 2023.
After four long days of testimony and public comment the Environmental Improvement Board decided recently to move forward with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s plan to follow California’s “clean vehicle” standard. In practice that means New Mexico’s car dealers will have to increase sales of EVs in New Mexico from the current 3% of all new vehicles to 43% by summer of 2026 and 82% by summer of 2031.
That may seem like a long time away, but the summer of 2026 is less than three years from now. New Mexico’s car dealers are the ones with the most to lose under this policy, but the new rules will negatively impact all New Mexicans. Car dealers rightly fear that New Mexicans will travel to neighboring states to purchase their cars. There is nothing to stop them. In fact, online super-seller Amazon just announced that it would begin selling vehicles online.
Amazon’s presence in the auto market alone is a problem for car dealers but if Amazon — and out-of-state dealers — can sell whatever consumers want and New Mexico dealers can’t, that is a big problem. Many car dealers are small businesses. New car dealers average 56 employees per dealership and employ a total of 6,314 New Mexicans statewide. Car dealers also pay numerous taxes — like property, payroll, and income — that Amazon and Texas dealers won’t pay when they sell cars to New Mexicans.
The EIB’s process is hugely problematic. New Mexico’s Democrats talk endlessly about defending “democracy” but when push comes to shove, elected bodies like the Legislature refuse to guard their own power. Every Democrat in the Legislature needs to go on the record in support or opposition to the governor’s mandate when seeking reelection in 2024. Notably, every single Republican in the Legislature signed letters in opposition to the proposal.
Sadly, despite overwhelming numbers of New Mexicans expressing their opposition, including 3,517 individual opponents through our KeepYourCarsNM.com website, the seven-member board voted on a mere 3-2 basis to adopt the mandate. The governor couldn’t even get an outright majority of her own appointed board to support her policies.
So, who supported it? Major environmental groups led the charge, of course. But, in attending the hearings a common refrain from supporters — many of them wealthy, Anglo, EV owners from Albuquerque and Santa Fe — were that “EV’s work great for them.”
That attitude ignores the dire lack of charging infrastructure throughout rural New Mexico, an issue that is even more acute in Navajo Country. Apartment dwellers and those who do not own single-family homes, while often living a “green” lifestyle, will inevitably struggle to charge their mandated vehicles.
Factually speaking, this mandate cannot and will not work. New Mexicans will simply not have enough EVs available to comply with this mandate with vastly more populous California having already embraced similar rules. Car dealers will go out of business and either Lujan Grisham or some future governor will either delay or modify this unworkable mandate.
The question is how many jobs will be killed in New Mexico? How many people and businesses will leave our state or choose not to come here due to the adoption of another ill-conceived public policy? We don’t know, but what we do know is that despite having the benefit of a large federal infrastructure, and the jobs and tax dollars it brings, and being the second-leading oil producing state in the entire country, New Mexico remains poor and is losing its young people.
In the name of environmental “sustainability” our governor has made New Mexico’s future less sustainable.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.
KRQE Channel 13 did a very good story on the meetings currently being held at the Environmental Improvement Board that could dramatically curtail your ability to buy a gas powered vehicle in New Mexico.
Aside from RGF’s brief comment at the end there are some well-done comments throughout including from Sen. George Muñoz, a leading Democrat in the Legislature who opposes fellow Democrat Lujan Grisham’s overreach on this issue. Kudos to Sen. Muñoz.
Even if you take everything the climate alarmist lobby has to say about CO2 emissions and climate change at face value, the problem is NOT here in the United States, it is coming from China and to an extent India and nothing we can do here in the US (let alone New Mexico) will mitigate against that. See story below and map/chart below that.
In the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic the Keller Administration spent $97,000 of taxpayer dollars to publish book; sold fewer than 100 copies. The City’s inspector general trashed the project as a “waste of taxpayer money.”
We concur and shared as much with KOAT TV Channel 7. You can see the report here.
Not only was Mayor Keller’s performance as Mayor during COVID 19 poor (largely following the Gov.’s lockdown approach), but this book was clearly written as a campaign piece in support of the Mayor, not as a “after action report” to facilitate understanding of the policies that worked and didn’t work both with Pandemic, but also the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020.
Recently RGF President Paul Gessing sat down with KOAT TV Channel 7 to discuss some of the numerous problems with the City of Albuquerque’s “free” bus program. Sadly, the City Council on a 6-3 vote approved making the program “permanent.” Only three councilors (Lewis, Sanchez, and Grout) opposed the bill.
You can read the “study” which supposedly justifies the “free” bus program here.
The case (brought by RGF President Paul Gessing) (with legal representation from the Liberty Justice Center) over Albuquerque City Council’s “donation” of your tax dollars to Planned Parenthood will move forward. A Bernalillo County Court denied the City of Albuquerque and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ motions to dismiss Gessing v. Yara, a case challenging the City’s illegal donation of taxpayer funds to the private organization.
City Councilwoman Tammy Fiebelkorn explained that she sponsored the $250,000 donation “to provide vital support for Planned Parenthood.”
In a ruling issued November 1, the Court found that the plaintiffs have made a creditable case that the “agreement” between the city and the organization is essentially a sham, purporting to purchase services from Planned Parenthood while in fact paying out taxpayer money to a politically favored group.
The primary issue at stake is New Mexico’s “anti-donation clause” and whether a government body can simply “donate” taxpayer dollars to a private, political organization.
The following article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday, October 22nd, 2023. You can find out more about the EIB in-person hearing on November 15 here.
An unelected board called the Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) is currently accepting public comments to determine whether New Mexicans have the freedom to move around this big, beautiful state — or not. We have created a website to help average New Mexicans defend that right. Go to: KeepYourCarsNM.com.
The governor is pushing regulations that would force New Mexicans to buy vastly more electric vehicles than they currently do. If adopted, 82% of the vehicles sold in our state will have to be electric within a few short years.
There is nothing inherently wrong with electric vehicles, but their purchase should be a personal choice. Currently, 99.2% of New Mexicans choose gas-powered cars. Public polls find that strong majorities of Americans have no plans to buy an electric car.
There are many reasons electric vehicles should not be forced on consumers. Both EVs and gas cars have their environmental pluses and minuses. Yes, gas cars produce CO2 at the tailpipe, but gas vehicles continue to get more efficient. Between 2002 and 2022 model years, emissions decreased 27.6% while fuel efficiency rose by 35.4%. They continue to get better over time.
Like gasoline cars, EVs rely on fossil fuels. A 2019 study found that if EVs were to replace all gas-powered vehicles it would increase electricity demand 20% to 50%. That additional electricity is not going to be easy to produce without adding fossil fuels to the grid. Tellingly, the largest EV charging station in California currently gets its power from diesel generators.
EVs also rely on mined materials. Those are often produced in foreign countries under deplorable conditions and with few environmental safeguards. Mining, shipping, and processing these materials all use tremendous amounts of energy. There is no “free lunch” with EVs. As with every technology, there are environmental tradeoffs.
The performance challenges with EVs are even more significant. Charging stations are not readily available in many parts of New Mexico. Portions of the Navajo Nation don’t even have reliable electricity.
Charging can also be painfully slow. The most common publicly available charging station is “Level 2.” It will provide between 12 and 80 miles per hour — far slower than a typical gas pump. Battery performance further suffers in extreme heat and cold, both of which are common in our desert environment, which is hard on batteries.
The current electric vehicle marketplace is heavily reliant on government mandates and cross-subsidies and EVs offer serious challenges. Ford Motor Co. lost $66,446 on each EV sold. This means that in order to maintain profitability they had to make up the difference from gas vehicles.
EVs don’t pay New Mexico gas tax, which is used to fund the roads we all drive on. This is especially concerning because EVs weigh more than do gas-powered cars. A British study found that because of that weight, EVs do 2.24 times more damage to roads than do (internal combustion) cars. Road repairs of course require massive amounts of energy and petroleum.
Even parking garages may require retrofitting to handle the added weight of EVs.
You may like or even own an EV, but there are complicated issues with tradeoffs that can impact New Mexico’s most vulnerable populations. At the very least this is an issue for our elected Legislature, not an unelected board installed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
There are many ways to improve the environment. The case for EVs is certainly not clear enough to warrant such an aggressive push.
Please contact the EIB today at KeepYourCarsNM.com and tell them you want to keep your car.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation.