Rio Grande Foundation
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 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.
MLG’s plan to push an electric vehicle mandate through the Environmental Improvement Board is kicking into gear. The Board is expected to begin deliberation on ramping up New Mexico’s EV mandate to 43% by 2027 and 82% by 2032 on November 15.
This is a DEEPLY flawed policy that Rio Grande Foundation will be working hard to stop. Here is a fairly comprehensive list of the many reasons why EV mandates are harmful:
Ultimately, EV’s may or may not be a good replacement technology for the internal combustion engine. But, government through mandates and extensive subsidies should not be the final arbiter of this choice. That should fall to consumers. Sadly, Gov. Lujan Grisham has joined the EV bandwagon at the expense of personal freedom.
The Rio Grande Foundation, alongside the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute have led a coalition letter (available here) of state-based and national free market organizations and leaders in expressing serious concerns about provisions contained in the “Railway Safety Act,” (S. 576) which is now moving through Congress.
Among the numerous issues with the bill is its arbitrary 2 person crew mandate;
A massive new regulatory burden (imposed absent any cost-benefit analysis) on movement of hazardous materials;
Enshrinement of mandates for trackside detectors and other technologies that locks a single technology into law. When government does this the public suffers as industry lacks the flexibility or incentive to pursue next-generation technologies.
Among the more than three dozen signatories of the letter are:
Hon. Kenneth “Ken” Cuccinelli II
Former VA Attorney General, Former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security
Steve Forbes
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media
David R. Henderson
Research Fellow
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
This article first appeared in the Las Cruces Sun News on Sunday, July 31, 2022.
New Mexico is always ranked among the “poor” states in the United States. But, as anyone who lives here or has taken stock of New Mexico’s abundant natural and cultural resources can tell you, we have no business being “poor.”
Sadly, much of our poverty is self-inflicted. It is the obvious result of bad public policy. While there are all manner of bad tax and regulatory policies that often wind up being “in the weeds,” one of New Mexico’s fundamental problems is the result of politicians’ misguided belief that the path to success involves more government spending or another big government project.
The Rio Grande Foundation has long had its concerns about two Bill Richardson-era projects of this kind: the Rail Runner and Spaceport America. Starting with the Rail Runner, the latest ridership data just came out and, over the past year the train saw 319,635 riders board the train. The train was fully operational throughout the last 12 months which included a few months of fares having been discounted to $2.50 a day.
One might think that with gas prices these days the Rail Runner would be a cost-effective alternative. Sadly, the train’s current ridership is about 25% of peak years of 2010 and 2011 when more than 1.2 million people boarded the train. Sadder still is the fact that taxpayers continue to pay tens of millions of dollars in debt service on construction of the train and nearly $20 million annually to operate it.
Shockingly, Las Cruces Sen. Bill Soules recently pledged to reintroduce legislation in the 2023 session that would theoretically create “high speed rail” from Denver to Chihuahua. The fact is that population density numbers don’t justify commuter rail between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Now Soules wants to spend tens of billions on “high speed” passenger service spanning more than 850 miles, three states, and two countries?
Sadly, Spaceport America has proven itself to be another Richardson-era boondoggle that hasn’t lived up to its promise. Spaceport America has been open for business for more than a decade and it has yet to fulfill its mission of hosting commercial space flights.
Last July Richard Branson and a team of Virgin Galactic employees did make it to weightlessness, but the company’s stock has tanked in the meantime and their latest prediction is for flights to begin the first quarter of 2023.
Plans for those manned commercial space flights have been delayed time and again. We’re not holding our breath for flights to begin in earnest early next year.
Worse, Virgin Galactic recently announced plans to build its future fleet of spacecraft in Mesa, Arizona. Sadly, spending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to provide a spaceport for Virgin Galactic was not enough for them to build ships here.
With massive oil and gas surpluses flowing into the state’s coffers, politicians like Soules will again be looking for new “opportunities” to waste money. But big government spending schemes have repeatedly failed to truly diversify our economy or bring sustainable growth to our state.
Instead, the governor and Legislature would better serve our state by considering why companies with a New Mexico presence (like Virgin Galactic and Intel to name two) continue to choose neighboring Arizona over us.
It might be Arizona’s school choice which has improved educational results and workforce preparedness, not to mention a willingness for families to locate there.
Or, perhaps it is Arizona’s lower taxes which has dropped to 2.5% for nearly all Arizonans under a new tax cut law.
Finally, it could be that Arizona has a “right to work” law which gives private sector workers the right to opt out of membership or the payment of dues and fees in labor unions.
No matter, it is high time for New Mexico to abandon our government-driven model and consider what states like Arizona and others do that has worked so much better.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation.
Gov. Lujan Grisham recently continued her attempt to simultaneously keep the oil and gas revenue spigot flowing while enacting enough policies from the radical environmental agenda to placate her political and fundraising base.
Her latest plan, known as the Clean Car Rule, was adopted by her handpicked Environmental Improvement Board (EIB). Governor-appointed boards are far more willing to do what they are told than are unruly and sometimes uncooperative (albeit overwhelmingly Democrat) legislative bodies with their own political calculations and aspirations.
Incredibly, New Mexico’s newly Clean Car Rule undermines democracy and self-government (along with our economy) by placing New Mexico automobile regulations under the control of another state, California. The current rules are California’s and if California changes them, New Mexico will have to go along with them or reverse course and opt out.
New Mexico’s new automobile standards will require roughly 7% of new cars sold in the State to be zero emission in 2025. In the latest report available (3rd quarter of 2021) zero emission vehicles amounted to just 2.29% of new vehicle sales in New Mexico. So, to comply with the new rule, sales of zero emission vehicles will need to just more than triple from Q3 of 2021 to 2025.
But the real kicker is by subjecting itself to California’s political whims New Mexico could be forced to adopt even more aggressive “Clean Car” standards soon. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order that, if adopted, would end the sale of gas-powered cars in California by 2035. Final adoption of that rule could come in California as early as this August.
If California enacts this rule, 35% of new cars, SUVs and small pickups sold in California (and thus New Mexico) must be zero-emission starting with 2026 models. That number will increase yearly, reaching 51% of all new car sales in 2028, 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035.
“Just” tripling sales of electric vehicles (EV’s) in two years in New Mexico means dealerships will cross-subsidize EV’s by raising prices on gasoline vehicles or they will look to the State to further subsidize sales of “chosen” vehicles. This could make gasoline vehicles purchased in New Mexico more expensive leading to purchases made at out-of-state car dealers. That would result in lost jobs and tax revenues in New Mexico. That situation will get much worse if California (and New Mexico) adopt the even more aggressive rules being considered.
Current tax credits and subsidies include a $7,500 federal tax credit and various credits for upgrading connectivity to the electrical grid further help with deployment of electric vehicles. Of course, those credits and subsidies are paid for by increasing costs on taxpayers and utility rate payers.
Deployment of EV charging stations will be another expense associated with this plan. A recent report found New Mexico to have just 401 public charging stations statewide. And those need to be maintained. A recent report from EV-friendly San Francisco found that 27 percent of the Bay-areas charging stations were not functional.
All of this comes at a time when New Mexico’s largest utility (PNM) is keeping its coal fired power plant open just to keep the lights on and says it won’t have half the solar/battery replacement power needed to keep the lights on during the summer of 2023.
There are so many problems and costs with a drastic shift toward electric vehicles that at the very least New Mexico’s elected Legislature should have had a say, but instead we have a Governor in a tight reelection battle who wants to make big promises to environmental groups and their funders no matter how disruptive or damaging to New Mexicans and their livelihoods.
The fact is that the real costs of these unrealistic and damaging policies will be borne after this election. Sadly, that is all by design.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is 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
The Rio Grande Foundation uses its “Freedom Index” vote tracking site to hold New Mexico legislators accountable for their stances on individual freedom and personal liberty. We have rated all bills that impact individual freedom that received floor votes for the 2022 session and thus the current Index results are “final.”
Every bill receiving a score is rated on a scale from -8 through +8 depending on its overall impact on YOUR personal freedom. In the 2022 session the most impactful vote (-8) was on SB 14, the Clean Fuel Standard. A full analysis of that bill can be found here.
The BEST bill voted on this session was HB 163, that is the bill which includes several tax cuts (RGF analysis of that bill here). It received a +4 rating in the Index.
Rep. Stefani Lord (R) who represents parts of the East Mountains of Albuquerque scored a 45 which was the highest rating of the session.
Rep. Randall Pettigrew (R) who represents Lea County scored a 43 which was good for the 2nd-highest rating of the session.
Sen. Craig Brandt (R) who represents Rio Rancho scored 33 which was the highest rating for any senator (the Senate and House vote on different bills and the House typically takes more votes and thus has higher and lower scores).
Sen. Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez (D) who represents parts of Albuquerque scored -66 which was the lowest rating for any member of the Legislature.
Since March of 2020 (the start of COVID 19) the Rio Grande Foundation has been located in downtown Albuquerque.
While Albuquerque has never had the greatest downtown, there is no doubt that the area has been hammered by COVID 19, the riots over the summer of 2020, and Mayor Tim Keller’s lax policies towards crime and homelessness. He just announced that he will be running for reelection this fall.
The Rio Grande Foundation recently took a drive around downtown and up Central Ave./Route 66 with a mounted camera to see what the City looks like. Watch the video for yourself below.
The following appeared in the Farmington Daily-Times on October 7 and several other newspapers.
Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines with his announcement that by 2035 his State will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles. That is an ambitious goal, but given the time line, it is hard to say what compliance will look like.
But for another, arguably even more ambitious car mileage proposal, one need look no further than New Mexico. Las September New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham announced that by just model year 2022 New Mexico would be increasing its fuel economy requirement for new cars to 52 MPG. The current average fuel economy rate is 25.1 MPG according to the EPA.
As we noted at the time, Gov. Lujan Grisham (at the time) had “out California-ed California” by adopting even more stringent fuel economy standards than those on the books in California.
Will California’s decision spur Lujan Grisham to action? Perhaps more importantly, is New Mexico REALLY going through with the Gov.’s 52 MPG standard? This was put forth at a time of a record (oil-driven) economic boom in New Mexico. That boom has evaporated thanks to COVID 19 and the Gov.’s lockdown of the State’s economy. She MAY not be as enthusiastic about such radical plans at a time of serious economic challenges.
If you’re expecting to find legislation on this topic from the 2020 legislative session, don’t worry, nothing was even introduced. We have never even seen a formal executive order from the Gov. formalizing this requirement. In fact, after the initial round of media discussion (led off by the New York Times) the issue has been completely forgotten about.
And just to be clear, if the Gov. completely backed away from her plan, we would be more than happy to support such a move. The number of automobiles on the market right now that achieve such a standard is limited to about a dozen or so hybrid models. Considering that “light trucks” now account for 69 percent of the new car market, getting to that 52 MPG average is going to require one or more of the following:
As much as our Governor desperately wants to virtue signal to radical environmental groups who so strongly support her, attaining 52 MPG is simply not realistic by 2022. California’s Gov. at least had the good sense to impose his regulations long after he will be out of office, but unless Biden wins the White House and picks her for a position in his Administration, she will have to make some hard decisions about whether to comply with this mandate (or not).
Perhaps it is already a forgotten promise that she never intended to honor in the first place? If so, that is certainly fine with us, but it would seem that New Mexicans should be given an honest explanation so they know what to plan for or expect the next time they walk into a car dealership.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is 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
The following appeared in the 11/27/19 edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News.
As we move toward 2020 and the start of the short, 30-day legislative session, there are some who want the big-spenders in Santa Fe to raise taxes once again on hard-working New Mexicans.
In 2019, the Legislature, despite a massive surplus, passed the largest tax hike in New Mexico history. Although this was completely unnecessary, a portion of that money supposedly went to improving our roads. If that is still inadequate, there is plenty of surplus revenue sloshing around in the Roundhouse to ensure that roads across New Mexico are improved.
The following are five specific reasons not to raise the gas tax.
New Mexico government is already bloated and the state is considered the worst run in the entire nation according to a new analysis by 24/7 Wall Street. Rather than just handing more money over to Santa Fe, it is time we expect a little better management of our tax dollars.
Building and maintaining basic infrastructure like roads is arguably the core function of government. It’s right up there with public safety. Even in the very best of economic times (thanks to national economic growth and record oil production) New Mexico state government has a poor track record of addressing those core functions (thus the 24/7 Wall Street ranking).
In particular Republicans must push back with full-throated opposition to raising taxes. Although lacking in power in Santa Fe, there’s a need to step up and provide a reasonable, limited-government alternative to the big-spending liberals in Santa Fe. They cannot yield to calls for still higher taxes whether they are sold as being for road improvements or something else.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is 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