funding for New Mexico InFocus provided by viewers like you this week on New Mexico InFocus a record weekend of domestic violence in Albuquerque two experts explain how we need to change our understanding of the problem to stay silent about it even though you can understand why some people historically have chosen to very often it gets worse plus why thousands of New Mexicans could soon lose their preferred coverage at a major Hospital chain New Mexico InFocus Starts Now thanks for joining us this week I'm your host Gene Grant Loveless network of hospitals and United Healthcare are stuck in contract negotiations and if they aren't done soon thousands of New Mexicans could lose coverage in January in about 25 minutes I'll ask our line opinion panel if there should be any accountability for these companies if that coverage lapses in the second half of the show the panel and I will talk through a recent state supreme court decision that solidifies the new appointment process for the New Mexico public regulations Commission I'll ask our panelists if the switch from an elected body will boost professionalism on the panel as intended we're also headed out to Northwest New Mexico where a group of concerned citizens is pushing back against expanded oil and gas drilling our land senior producer Laura passcus explores why the choco landscape holds so much significance for the people and communities nearby but we start with a discussion on domestic violence after a record-breaking number of calls in Albuquerque this past holiday weekend let's get to the line Welcome to our line opinion panel for the week joining us at our virtual Roundtable is attorney Sophie Martin former state representative Daniel Foley is with us and UNM law professor Serge Martinez joins us thank you all for joining now we're starting with a difficult subject tonight domestic violence Thanksgiving weekend police in Albuquerque responded to a record number of domestic violence calls 207 of them between Wednesday and Saturday morning that includes the killing of 65-year-old Los Ranchos municipal judge Diane Albert we aren't going to get into the specifics of that case or any other but the fact remains Albuquerque police chief Harold Medina says this was a 46 percent increase in calls from the same three-day period the week before and more calls on Thanksgiving day than they'd seen in a decade now starting broadly Sophie this is a very difficult difficult one to pin down can we all of us come up with any particular reason why it Rose at this level this year particularly anything out there to give us a clue well I mean I think it's worth noting that over the past three years the rates have been rising in the Albuquerque area um from from a lower number we see it ticks up in 2021 and now in in 22. um and and I think you know this is a particularly intimate intimate partner violence is a particularly difficult matter domestic violence a very difficult matter to address on a on a community level on a policy level um and I think there can be a tendency to sort of throw our hands up but what we do know is that in periods of economic insecurity there tends to be an increase in incidents of domestic violence periods of economic insecurity becomes very difficult for people to leave their abusers because of lack of resources lack of opportunity During the covid period people were Leery and still are I think leery of going to shelters seeking help in communal settings you know this is not just a problem in New Mexico the National Domestic Violence Hotline estimates that one in four women and one in seven men in the U.S experience severe physical violence from a domestic partner an intimate partner throughout their lifetimes and how half of all women and basically half of all men experience severe psychological violence so this is a a very widespread problem we heard about it over Thanksgiving and I hope that if nothing else this serves as a big wake-up call for our community about what is happening in people's homes it's shocking it just is shocking Daniel uh clinical coordinator for Albuquerque sane that's a resource center for victim of victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence points to covid-19 is potentially part of the problem is it part of the problem or do we are we tending to lean on covid-19 a little too much for some of these issues or is it a legitimate part of the mix here I think it's a great question Gina first of all I'm not an expert to answer those questions I would tell you I do believe that it seems like to catch-all for every ill we have right now is covid-19 Right everything that happens it's it's an effect of coven 19.

I I think one of the the things that could potentially be a little bit of a Beacon of Hope in this is that at the end of the day in New Mexico maybe more people are deciding it's time to start reporting this stuff maybe it's time to come forward maybe it's time to not leave this in the closet and say Hey listen it's just things that we do but I would also say it's not just covered 19. listen we've gone through the last few years um this is I'm not pointing any single issue but violence and and valuing life and talking about things the politicizing of everything it just seems that there's no accountability and I mean just yesterday you know you're watching you know these people are driving through and running over protesters that are trying to get into the car and take them out of their cars we've really turned into a situation where um you know really having respect for your fellow man and and just having the ability to sit down and have a conversation is really gone and I think it's it's not just affecting politics I think it's really affecting everything that we see in our life whether it's kids at school spouses domestic Partners everybody is just really turning to uh I just think we're seeing that you know the answer seems today to be when there's a problem it seems to be lash out strike out not sit down and try to find a an amicable way to solve a problem you know Serge there's been studies that uh domestic violence just in fact does increase after traumas meaning big problems in it for for countries and areas and situations in there's been studies in Australia that have done this after Katrina there was an uptick in domestic violence and it tends to be a lag about an 18-month lag before these things start showing up I find that fascinating I'm curious what your your thought is on that uh I mean you know like uh Dan I'm not an expert in this area sure I you know the everything I've looked at suggests uh as Sophie was saying that uh domestic violence is exacerbated by by economic stress by social stress by trauma by these things right and it makes perfect sense that that would be the case um the I mean we can't avoid those things you know things like covet or and Hurricane Katrina might be you know harder to avoid but it does suggest that there's room for Hope right to say Hey what if we try to reduce the economic just you know stress on people what if we did you know as Sophie was saying it's hard to leave an abusive relationship if you don't have Financial Resources that's a huge point if you can't afford housing uh on your own um you know we we have we spend a lot of time focusing on the criminalization aspect of domestic violence and uh for the last five decades we've shown that that maybe hasn't had the effect that we've hoped it would but it you know it's and it's never going to work if we rely on just not one thing but I do think looking at all the information everything we have is easy to say it's not easy yeah it's easy to say right but to identify there are ways to to try to address this that don't involve um police and the criminal justice system that involve increasing access to resources making it easier for folks to you know to be independent that's right and to leave abusive relationships or reduce the stresses that cause these causes to you know it's a it's a public health problem that that uh in some ways that can be affected by public health remedies stressors as they call them are very difficult to predict or see sometimes Sophie I'm very I'm super curious your response on this um some advocacy groups are pointing to the possibility of New Mexico pre-trial detention policies may be a contributing factor does this push even further the priority list for 2023 or is that legit in your review I'm curious where your thought is on that you know it's I think it's difficult at this moment to say whether that is a significant factor um you know even in a context of pre-trial release restraining orders are available um Services Services may become you know may be available to Serge's Point um I I think that we are foolish to tie this phenomenon to any one any one circumstance right um you know certainly the recidivism of abusers is something that we need to be very concerned about and that needs to be addressed directly but I would not say that rescinding that um the the policy that's currently in place under our state constitution that that is a silver bullet for this you know two things I wanted to sort highlight that I think are are not necessarily talked about so frequently in this conversation but that are important one is that we know that domestic violence intermittent partner violence is often coupled with child abuse and we have really um challenging issues uh with child abuse and child welfare in this state and so I think it's worth noting that an individual who is violent in the home often doesn't limit themselves to just one family member one member of the of the home I think it's also worth noting that the American Public Health Association has highlighted that violence against members of the transgender Community individuals who identify themselves either as as transgender men or transgender women is dramatically higher than the prevalence in cisgender male and female communities and that is also a great crisis interesting I'm glad you got that here Daniel a little bit of time crunch here but I got to get this in APD does not have a dedicated domestic violence unit Chief Medina told KRQE that that the past weekends like Thanksgiving puts a strain on his officers because domestic situations as we know can be exceedingly dangerous for police officers and up you know APD did receive funding in May for a specialized response team for domestic incidents but it hasn't been formed yet because of staffing issues how do we accelerate all this Pro this this process that we desperately needed yeah I mean I mean I think there's you know listen we were in a short amount of time we can't solve that whole problem I I don't agree with Sophie I do think this you know this revolving door of justice of criminals getting out we see the the young man in Roswell that threatened his wife got the girlfriend got out within days of getting out killed her I mean hang on here in Albuquerque we need that domestic unit don't we for that cheap but but you're not going to get it when you can't hire police officers because the police department isn't able to hire people people don't want to become police officers you people don't want to become police officers because they can't go out and arrest people and even if you hire this unit right now if you put this unit together I mean we know that when you talk to the police chief ask him the next time what his average response time is I mean we're hearing that that there's times you get put on a hold when you call 9-1-1 so what's the point of having a unit if they can't even dispatch them and get them out to do the job that's needed to be done we have a huge problem with domestic violence in the state and if we don't start taking all violence serious in the state and realizing that that yes criminals have rights but victims have rights as well we're going to continue to continue to repeat this trend that we're moving in I believe sir let me give you one last cut on this we can do it until about 20 to 30 seconds the domestic violence unit got the funding how do we get this thing going um great question I you know the the uh the yeah I'm not going to do this in 20 seconds Gene but the allocation of resources right uh at every Police Department is certainly something that should be could be reviewed and thought about how we do this and respond you know things like having the police do traffic stops is something that I think we should they should not be doing right and allocate resources where they really are needed not responding to mental health people in Mental Health crisis uh and you know as the first First Responders of the first Resort not uh tossing uh the belongings of people who are sleeping in parks and whatnot but rather focusing on real important issues you know allocating resources where they can do the most good is a good start that's a good point there thanks for that Serge I appreciate your comment on that uh like Sophie said we've got a trend here the last three years are going up in an arc and that's it's not just an anomaly it seems like we didn't get to get after this thanks to our line opinion panel there we'll be back here at the virtual Roundtable in about 10 minutes to talk about stall negotiations between two major health care providers that could cost thousands of New Mexicans their coverage but first more insight on preventing domestic violence senior producer Lou devizio spoke with a former family court judge and mental health Advocate to understand how we can better address some of the contributing factors in these incidents we're joined today by two New Mexico residents who've spent decades working in the domestic violence field trying to prevent domestic violence Larry Jones retired Superior Court Judge who spent years working in family courts in New Jersey he's also worked at Monmouth University as a professor and developed research on public policy dealing with domestic violence and Joni Jones we're lucky to have you too a registered nurse who served on the New Jersey Board of Nursing worked for years in the mental health field and was also recently invited to join Senator lujan's mental health Consortium thank you both for joining me today thank you for having us here today appreciate it of course so starting with you Larry many of us have an idea of what we think domestic violence is but you can get caught in that mindset of you know it's not going to happen to me so I don't need to think about it so much but that's obviously not always the case in your work in Family Court what have you found are some of the common misconceptions about domestic violence well probably the greatest misconception is that it has to be physical a lot of times people here determine domestic violence and they assume it means a husband hitting a wife or a dating partner assaulting you know the other partner but domestic violence can get a lot more involved in that it can invite of non-physical forms of abuse harassment cyber harassment stalking sometimes people are in an abusive relationship and they don't even recognize that it that they were in an abusive relationship for some period of time so that's one misconception and another huge misconception that many in the public have is is the question they ask sometimes why doesn't the person who is being abused just leave as if it's a free voluntary choice to just pick up and go and there are so many complicating factors in a domestic situation which can make it very difficult for someone to leave even if they're being abused or maybe children involved there may be Financial dependency there may be all types of emotional and psychological issues going on in the relationship perhaps a codependent relationship there may be generalized fear there may be Public public shame you know for some people may feel that way even though they've done nothing wrong so it can get very complicated in the study of domestic violence has really taken on you know much more esteem much more strength in the last I'd say 10 to 20 years now Joni through your work you found PTSD and other mental health factors can have a major impact on domestic violence the cycle of domestic violence how does our understanding of mental health as a society including access to Mental Health Service play into this equation yeah well the post-traumatic stress becomes a very important issue because it in my experience working with people it stifles people so it really generates an underlying fear and they think that when they have mental health challenges that they're going to go on maybe some medication to address you know the PTSD or the anxiety or the depression but one of the biggest misconceptions is medications do not skill build so what they do is they may assist in their attention their ability to focus and and learn because sitting attending and focusing are the prerequisites of learning so many people think oh gee you know let me take the medication and then that's going to make everything go away they don't understand that it doesn't have that skill building component but we're all born with a survival mechanism and this is our adrenal glands and this is where people might know the the fight or flight or freeze response and when we're doing the skill building what happens is we teach people to be mindful because many people want the trauma to go away and Trauma doesn't go away we can't erase events in our lives and they have to learn how to manage it and triggers can happen at any time you don't you don't know when those triggers are going to happen so when they understand and that response and they're getting that oh you know there's a alert that there's some type of threat or the danger they can learn to push that pause button when they learn to push that pause button it becomes very important because when you go to high levels of those hormone surges you're actually put into the part of the brain where you become very impulsive very reactionary and you go on to the what ifs what you believe is happening and since there's no logical thinking there is no decision-making capabilities so we really have to teach people to manage it so that they can get to the part of the brain that is non-reactionary that it looks logically at things and they're able to make informed decisions earlier this year President Biden signed into law the reauthorization of the violence against women act can you describe for our viewers how that action will help increase awareness and enforcement this the bill has been it was in log Jam basically in Congress for about four or five years from 2017 until now for various reasons but it finally got passed and reauthorized in March and just became effective this past week October 1st starting the month of the National Domestic Violence awareness month and domestic violence awareness and prevention month so there's been a lot of press about the bill and a lot of interest in the bill the question which comes up sometimes is well you know how does that impact on on everyday lives so the first thing to know is that that that's a federal bill it's a federal bill so it while it states a lot in there each state has its own set of domestic violence laws for example New Mexico the state of New Mexico has a domestic violence statute a series of the prevention of Family Violence act each state has their own set and from state to state these bills differ some of them look alike and some are very different from each other in terms of their definitions what the federal Bill does it does several things that are helpful first of all it's a funding bill so it provides a lot of funding for state agencies and non-profit organizations to basically provide services and resources to survivors of domestic violence as well as training for law enforcement for educators things like that so it's very important in terms of funding a lot of these State programs so that's number one number two it provides a a great road map in my opinion of public policy straight from Washington about the importance of preventing or fighting domestic violence because if you read through the act and it's a lengthy act but if you read through even the summaries you'll see that they focus on inclusive type language to try to protect and recognize that there's been domestic violence and a lot of underserved communities the disabled the elderly like Joni was talking about um uh in in rural areas young children the lgbtq community the um the Native American community and which is important and obviously in New Mexico and other parts of the of the country and also from a legal standpoint the bill is very important in New Mexico because it provides um tribal jurisdiction on certain criminal acts that previously did not exist or existed on almost a limited basis it was expanded so that if domestic violence abuse occurs on tribal lands that it can be there can be consequences against a defendant greater than there were previously through tribal enforcement so there's a lot in the bill and for those who work in the domestic violence field for the most part um it's a it was a very positive step there's some room for growth even within the bill um but for now at least it was a positive step overall sure now Joni at the top of this discussion I mentioned this that you are invited to join Senator lujan's mental health Consortium can you describe some of the work that that group will be doing and how it will try to address some of the underlying issues that contribute to domestic violence what he did was he opened up to New Mexicans you know people who are in the field people who just have a passion in mental health that may be affected by mental health that are Advocates to join this Consortium where everybody would collectively come together and discuss the federal policy and how it impacts all individuals in New Mexico and how they can come up with some of the solutions some of the challenges some of the lack of access to care that we have here and and then work with other officials and Advocates to come up you know with ways that we can address this so all needs are met for all people in New Mexico any we mentioned misconceptions at the top but anything that people should know about domestic violence about their understanding about our society's understanding first of all if anyone feels that they are the subject of domestic violence they should seek help and there are lots of different ways to seek help you can consult their many good organizations in New Mexico and throughout the country non-profit organizations governmental organizations that their whole function or a large part of why they are there is to help people who are in a a situation where it's abusive where it's violent domestic violence doesn't just go away on its own and you see often there are reconciliations that don't last more than three days and then there's another Act of domestic violence it's very well well researched that there's a cycle of domestic violence they call it so very often even when somebody commits domestic violence and apologizes and is all remorseful it can happen again very quickly unless there's some interventions and even the interventions don't always work matters intervention things like that so it's very important for people who have who are in that type of situation to at least discuss it with somebody in confidence before it grows larger whether it's one of the non-profit organizations whether it's the police whether it's an advocacy organization to stay silent about it even though you can understand why some people historically have chosen to very often it gets worse and there's lots of people who have waited perhaps too long to take action and the consequences have been drastic in certain instances so it's very important to be to be alert to that and also to be supportive of other friends and family members who may find themselves in that type of situation as well as Larry alluded to many people don't talk about the abuse that's going on and and there's various reasons for that you know we should look at a any type of change that we see occurring in in an individual and to be very comfortable to even talk about it because one of the things that I I do want the public to know and this is a very big misconception because when we're talking about mental health and we're talking about depression and people feel that there's no way out they start to contemplate suicide and people think that if they ask somebody if they are suicidal that they're going to put that thought into their head and that is not the case it's not the case at all there's a lot of research on it it's just again another conversational starter and I think that's what the public needs to be aware of you know the vigilance the awareness and to take action on that a major medical provider is close to ending its contract with United Healthcare which could leave thousands of New Mexicans without their Preferred Insurance let's welcome back our line opinion panelists back in Loveless hospitals and United Healthcare are at an impasse in contract negotiations and if they don't reach a deal by January which is not that far away the hospital will no longer be in the network for United patients that could mean significant increases in costs for patients who are in long-term care especially or who've used the hospital system for years now this contract between United and Loveless goes back 20 years Dan Foley 20 years what fact actors are in play here for an established Health Care partnership like this to Simply fall apart what's what's the issue here yeah so so first of all let me give you the disclaimer I'm in the insurance business and we've worked with all the insurance carriers and all the providers appreciate it uh you know what's interesting about these deals is you got to remember back United Healthcare was not a big player in New Mexico more than 20 years ago until they got the Los Alamos Sandia Labs contract and then all of a sudden it became worth and that's one of the reasons why we attract some of these carriers here um you know listen part of this stuff in the negotiations I know you guys will find this hard to believe but you know everybody's trying to get a little more for themselves and they're going to use the media to try to wedge them and you know you see it right now when you turn on the TV right I turn the TV on with DirecTV and I get the KRQE and they're like you will never see KRQE News again if you don't call DirecTV you know you're like okay and miraculously it comes back now part of the problem uh tends to be you know through United Healthcare I believe that there was some uh some Partnerships when they first started out with the health system you have to remember a lot of these organizations have a delivery system and they have an insurance system and so they're out selling a health plan on one hand and then they're trying to push all the people on their Health Plan into their delivery system gotcha and so I believe Loveless and United Healthcare had a had a partnership when they first got to New Mexico but as is in a lot of places right the health care plans are saying listen we want to try to manage the control we want to try to manage costs we want to try to figure things out to control costs and the delivery systems are saying wait a minute we want to do it in a different way and uh it's all in the name of they think trying to provide better care for people at the end of the day you know the one who loses is the consumer right the consumer gets less choice in New Mexico the last thing we need is less Choice um you know it's clear in New Mexico that we have a multi multi-level system whether it's Presbyterian University Health Care Loveless that you know and I can tell you as a father a husband you know as a man you know I got a daughter each of these systems have different benefits that are better for people to go to my wife and daughter go to one system there's a better place for the kids with sports to go to there's a better place for me to go to as an older male and so you know we don't have 800 options in Albuquerque like they do in Los Angeles and Denver and Phoenix and so any time we run the risk of losing a relationship between one of the few health care Delivery Systems and one of the healthcare insurance systems it's going to be a big fact a big effect for New Mexico and it'll be effective it's going to have a big effect on New Mexicans interesting point there uh surge 13 400 United Healthcare members in this brinksmanship that Daniel's describing here I I gotta ask you what what accountability should these providers face if this dispute results in a widespread loss of coverage for New Mexicans well I mean first of all I'm not sure who you know who's who's the most sympathetic in this uh this thing but I will say um United Healthcare um reported five billion dollars for the B of profit last quarter so I feel like they might have some some wiggle room here in being able to negotiate and and give a little bit for the people of New Mexico but that's five billion dollars that's going not to to to give people health care but that wasn't a five billion dollar profit for New Mexico Serge you're not saying right it was a five million dollar company-wide yes yeah exactly right a company's a lot of money either way you know you know you know what even just take off one of those zeros um and I don't know and and I think included in the negotiations here but I mean I mean I think it is tragic that we have the system that holds individuals um captive here that causes the people to be the people who are going to need health care we've decided that as a as a society that Healthcare is an important thing we want everybody to have health care but not so much that we're actually going to make sure that that works and instead leave people susceptible and vulnerable to this sort of you know fighting between the the big companies you know um I don't know where I heard this but you know someone said to me when the elephants fight it's the grass that suffers and you know the the people of New Mexico are the graph here it is a system that and that's always the way it's going to be the way we have the system I would like to see this and you know hundreds of other stories first to looking at it in a different way and thinking about how can we provide Health Care in a way that does not you know leave people to you know trying to change and Chase something new every year and in in this you know at the whims of these big companies rather than something's going to benefit the individuals yeah good point there just a butcher Serge's Point here coverage ending from Medicare Advantage and group retiree plans on Jan 1 for Loveless Medical Center Heart Hospital of New Mexico NM Heart Institute Loveless Women's Hospital Loveless West Side so Sophie I mean we're talking about a lot of constituencies and a lot of different people affected here I just again should people be concerned or is this as Dan said just typical brinksmanship that'll settle itself you know why not both like can it be both yeah and and you know just listening to both Dan and search talk I'm thinking about it's it's not just these 13 approximately 13 000 people you know at the beginning of the year we see people regardless or struggling to figure out am I going to have to go to a different Health Care System am I going to have to find different doctors we've seen phenomenal turnover and Doctors Medical providers in general during the pandemic folks just leaving that's right and so you know we have this kind of ongoing revolving door situation in which the consumer the the patient is frequently looking for new doctors getting notices that their doctor is not available before trying to get in scrambling calling different places trying to figure out how they're going to get their medical care taken care of and it's a it's a huge strain on our community I would say layered on top of that though and this touches a little bit on what Serge was talking about we know that medical costs even with the improvements that we've seen under the Affordable Care Act medical costs are still a huge factor in poverty in this state and throughout the country and can lead to you know increases in in bankruptcy filings increases in homeless business I mean it just it it this issue that we've been struggling to get our arms around as a country as a community for so long it's it's not done we're not done that's right I got a solution I want to ask Serge about but before that I want to ask Dan this we have another wrinkle Dan an estimated 85 000 additional New Mexicans will lose their Medicaid coverage come January that's because the state's extra Federal funding for the program runs dry for covert the extra funding runs dry at the beginning of the calendar year now when you consider this in the potential follow-up between Loveless and United I mean New Mexico health care providers are they prepared for a surge of new potential clients in January okay they are there so so another disclaimer I have to give you I'm on the board of directors for the health exchange and the New Mexico health exchange and we've been working for the last eight for the last year preparing for the phe uh for the public health emergency runoff and we are set up to take on another 50 60 000 New Mexicans that are going to get turned off of one and get role hold on to the next one to create a seamless transition so yes there's a problem but I think this also comes back to one of the things Gene you and I always argue about and joke about is you know there's the unintended consequences right so we're gonna throw all this money at covet get all these people on a health plan we want everybody to be because we got this covet emergency and then 18 months later we're gonna say okay the emergency is over now go be free right go figure it out right go do your own thing right now I will say this New Mexico I think with the health exchange and I I have to say even with the governor's office and the superintendent of insurance Russ tolls they have been very focused on making the transition the individuals coming off for the phe the public health emergency onto the exchange is seamless as possible and I can tell you we've been spending lots of late nights lots of board meetings bringing on lots of technology to try to make this as seamless for everybody from rural New Mexico urban New Mexico native American so it's it's going to be it is going to be a bump in the road but I will tell you I think New Mexico is doing a phenomenal job preparing to kind of ease that transition for folks to come off the phe onto the exchange interesting all right we'll have to see how that happens that shocked you surge didn't it shocked you surge I mean much of that did yes that's right Hey sir just a reminder I know you know this but nearly half of the state receiving some form of Medicaid coverage according to the journal should the state have considered extending that funding longer considering everything just Dan just mentioned a second ago I mean I I clearly don't know the ins and outs as well as Dan but yeah uh I mean you know it's always a question of do we have enough resources but that's also a question of how much do we want to dedicate resources to this how much do we care about this we know that this is a huge issue and that it is an important thing for everyone in New Mexico that everyone in New Mexico have access to Good Health Care let me ask let me ask you this search I just got told we got 30 seconds I got to ask you this is the answer to all this Romney care like what they did in Massachusetts everybody has coverage there is New Mexico not the perfect place to have a second version of this I that is what I think right that we should say look everybody in New Mexico is going to have access to health care because we think it's important and we can do it and we'll be better off at this date for it and can be you know a beacon for everyone else is that end of it any we're in the discussion about you know no I hear dancing anywhere in the discussion a big problem is is the biggest Factor we have in New Mexico to retaining doctors is that our Medicare and Medicaid rates are so low right that individuals cannot make it staying New Mexico are cut I mean you look at what just happened with the malpractice cost of insurance that's gone through the roof in New Mexico and now if you keep rolling people onto these plans like this like these State plans and the state then has the ability to come back and say to you Gene as a doctor you're going to get paid 27 take it or leave it you got no choice they take they leave it they move out of New Mexico they go somewhere else and so that's that's a huge problem with us not sitting around in other states like you know we like to point to places like Massachusetts hey this works in Massachusetts it kind of worked as they got four hospitals and it's that cover the entire State and you know everybody's within an hour and a half Drive of a major hospital that's a fair point we don't have that here becomes a huge problem it's there are issues out there thanks again to our line panelists we'll be back for one final discussion sorry so in less than 10 minutes when we look ahead to a new public regulation commission appointed by the governor but before we get there our line our land brings us to Northwestern New Mexico here is senior producer Laura paskis for the third and final interview in her series about oil and gas development in the greater Chaco landscape part of our series about the greater Taco landscape we've shared interviews with the Pueblo of acoma's Teresa Pasquale and Mario atencio with the daycare now we bring you out into the field with Mike eisenfeld of the San Juan citizens Alliance to show you some of the energy development in Northwestern New Mexico of course a portion of Taco Canyon and some archaeological and sacred sites are protected within a national park but eisenfeld showed us around a vast area outside the park boundary as he explained to us technological changes especially what's called horizontal drilling peaked interest in the southern San Juan Basin beginning around 2010 since then hundreds of new wells have been drilled and there are plans for thousands yet for more than a decade now the federal government has continued to consider that development exploratory San Juan citizens Alliance and other groups too have continued to ask the US government to study drilling's impacts more deeply and update management plans for Northwestern New Mexico under the Biden Administration the U.S department of the Interior has talked about an honoring Chaco initiative which focuses on how to protect Taco culture National Historic Park and a 10-mile buffer around the park but as eisenfeld showed us there is so much more to the greater Chaco landscape than just the national park and there is also a lot more development out there than many New Mexicans might realize [Music] [Music] where I live in the northern part of the San Juan base and kind of in the Farmington area It's Not Unusual for there to be a historic or Legacy Wells as many as like 25 per square mile but the southern San Juan Basin that encompasses Chaco there's never really thought that there was going to be higher probability and so around 2010 was really sort of when all of a sudden there's this idea that there was going to be a boom with Shale that they could horizontally drill and so in the Minkus Shale the Mancus Gallup formations kind of became at that point the focus and an exploration phase and so one of our primary concerns is that that exploration all the way to 2022 it's never been assessed cumulatively it's never been assessed for development and there's all these other issues that are now prevalent in 2022 that need to be part of the mix that are being ignored by the government agencies that have a vested interest in approving oil on gas foreign oil well that was drilled probably about six or seven years ago and what you're seeing are sort of like oil tanks for um collection of the oil and then there's a compressor on it which has like 24 hours of noise to push product into the pipelines and there's pipelines out here so really what you get kind of is an interconnected system of a bunch of Wells feeding into large pipelines and these pipelines all go to like the 550 Corridor and then are going down I believe to Albuquerque in that area stuff like this shouldn't be allowed like surface lines that are hanging across our Royals [Music] just shouldn't be allowed to happen just unacceptable from a health and safety perspective there's a lot of impacts like for a while here they're after oil so they were flaring the natural gas into the atmosphere there's lots of volatile organic compounds there's Benzene tooling ethyl Benzene xylene on off of these well pads there's noise impacts there's water they first told us that they were going to use nitrogen as a fracking agent this is this is fracking so you know people go hey you know when fracking comes to your community and it's like well that training left the station here in the San Juan Basin in the 1960s I think that a lot of these glands they're supposed to be managed under multiple use and kind of as you can see behind us I mean this is incredible Badlands area that at one point was considered a specially designated area by the Bure of Land Management for paleontology fossils probably everywhere lots of petrified wood everywhere but also just you know the cultural values of the greater Chaco landscape which is never really been given the vetting that it deserves industrialization of the landscape is incompatible with the honor and Chaco initiative and then we always get into a big argument where people are like what's so compelling about this area and that's not for me to say I mean I think that there's you know better people to start to talk about their connectivity to the land but it's the whole landscape you know it's not like you know I found an archaeological site over here this is all part of kind of the extended choco phenomenon and I really feel like that should be the focus of these agencies is to really consider kind of the Legacy like and because so much of the rest of the San Juan Basin has already been drilled for our own gas I feel like these areas that are relatively pristine should have been kept pristine and at sites like this you know have impacts that have not been evaluated so until they're evaluated I think I'm going to be a bit concerned about the entire process thank you I don't guess permitting need to do a way better job with like maintaining the roads and maintaining infrastructure and then there's not a lot of money going back into these communities that has to change [Music] it should have been a national park man [Music] hi I'm Laura paskis senior producer of our land we work hard to bring you environmental news as part of New Mexico InFocus we take you out to the mountains and down to the river we invite top-notch sources into the studio but there is so much happening when it comes to climate change water fire environmental justice and more that we just can't fit it into the show every week that's why we have a newsletter our land weekly that comes out every Tuesday if you want to keep up with environmental news just published peer-reviewed studies and more sign up it's free it's easy and I promise you'll learn a lot the New Mexico Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to a measure that changed the state public regulations commission from an elected body to a group appointed by the governor Welcome to our line opinion panelists back for one final discussion now as we tape this the PRC nominating committee is getting set to confirm their final recommendations for the three-person panel by the time this makes air those recommendations will have been made now we've posted a link on all of our social media Pages where you can watch the committee's meeting it's going to be interesting let's start with that legal challenge though Sophie the idea behind Shifting the PRC to an appointed body was to create a more informed selection process but the groups who challenge the measure say it increases the risk of abuse of power is that a valid concern or did voters make the right decision when they voted to change the selection process in the first place you know to a certain extent my sense is that what the Supreme Court has said is um is the time for this discussion is not now yes you had an opportunity back when this was put before the electorate before the voters and you failed to make your case so um you know whether we think one is better than the other at this moment in time the voters did make a decision we're gonna have to see how it plays out now will it be that you know five years from now we said oh that was a terrible decision it's possible both the former PRC set up and the current one though were really susceptible to political pressure and political issues for lack of a better way to put it so whether we vote for our own PRC members or the governor appoints them um you know to pretend that politics isn't involved in either I think is is naive thank you for saying that we're going to get to the political part in a second but hope you may ask you one more thing I'm fascinated the petitioners argue that ballot language was unclear that voters may not have understood that they're giving up their right to vote for Commissioners I'm not a lawyer certainly that seems a bit of a stretch to me I'm interested it felt like a stretch to me too okay um and it feels to me a little bit like there wasn't a lot to hang their hats on thank you um in terms of this particular argument and you know we haven't yet seen the Supreme Court's written opinion on this um so we don't know exactly how they're going to structure that it will be interesting to see but but we do sort of see the timeliness issue coming out um in what they've said so far yep as we uh Serge I got a question for you but as as a reminder the measure was approved by 56 percent of the voters folks in 2020 with supporters arguing that establishing an independent nominating committee would boost the professionalism of the regulatory body remove membership from the political process we'll talk about that in a second but sir search as we tape this 25 candidates are under consideration for those three positions on the commission what qualifications would you like to see from someone serving on the PRC is there a minimum that you want to see from folks who are nominated here yeah I want to see somebody who knows a whole lot about regulating energy I mean you know the biggest thing for the BRC is this transition um the just transition that we're doing here and it is not for the faint of heart but it is extra not for the lacking inexperience and knowledge about energy regulation it is I mean this has to be people who all day long think about reg you know how to do this and who have experience doing that and who like doing that and are good at doing that um everything else yeah there's lots of other factors I'm sure they'll be considered but yeah to me that is the Baseline and why I think this setup is you know why voters chose the setup why it was so so popular this idea that especially at this moment as we're doing what we're trying to do here in New Mexico um to transition to clean energy that we need to have people who are who know what they're doing and that is you know for me a bare minimum it's a big it's a high bar as it should be um and I'm I don't know who the candidates are um and what those you know whether they meet that bar but that for me is the the barest minimum sure you know Daniel um I'm curious what you think about this what can the PRC do to build trust from the groups and individuals who initially oppose disappointed idea meaning aren't we just set up to have a permanently disgruntled you know group of folks out there who are never going to be happy with this process and looking for problems endlessly how do we build trust with those folks you can't you just describe the legislative process in general right I mean it's not it's not you're not going to appease everybody um you know I I if you'll go back on this show years ago when I was in the legislature I made the comment after we passed the PRC I said God help us when they realize how powerful they are because they truly are that they truly could be the most powerful organization surge makes a great point where I disagree with Serge obviously is you know I'm not all about the green clean energy thing the problem that's going to happen is is now which I I feel like this is a move in the better Direction having the governor appoint them for this perspective you know these are major policy decisions that are going to be made that campaigns are run on and the last thing you can do is go run against Governor Grisham or the next governor and say you didn't do this and then they say well it's not me it's the PRC you know I think that there has to be accountability somewhere and the more accountability we can give to someone that we can articulate that the better the election process is going to be I think right now one of our problems in New Mexico is everything is so convoluted it's not the school board it's the County Commission it's the legislature it's the PRC it's the governor and pretty soon people like I'm not going to get involved and so um I think that there's going to be you know this is the other thing too right we've had this conversation here before about qualifications to be a legislator right I mean listen there's a lot of people that that will tell you I never had the qualifications to be a legislator but I think you know kicked out of college former athletes deserve to be represented as well too right so um you know at the end of the day I think it's do you have faith in the electoral process and I do but I think when you're asking people to you know vote for Appellate Court judges when they don't even know who the Supreme Court Justices when you're asking people to vote for PRC members when they can't name their City councilor um I think being able to bring all of that stuff under one umbrella that you can say this is the person that's responsible the buck stops here now the problem becomes clearly like Serge is talking about right Serge and I have two different opinions on our energy policy in New Mexico if sir if Serge gets like the governor is the governor right now that group's going to go in this direction if I beat surge in the next election I'm going to try to take us in the next in a completely different direction potentially that's right so what you would hope is going to happen is sort of like we've started to see happen this may not be the greatest example but I think we can see it to some example we've seen it with the Board of Regents right there's been a lot of regions that have crossed over Governors right they've been able to weather the storm and be appointed by a republican a Democrat a Republican and part of that's because you've realized like especially at UNM with the health care system and all of that stuff you just can't throw people on and off these boards you just can't have billion dollar Industries and we're going to find out in New Mexico that if we're gonna whatever the decision is on our energy whatever our energy policy decision is you're not going to get people to invest in New Mexico if every four years as a potential for a 180 change in what's going to happen and at the end of the day I hope this new organization will solve my greatest pet peeve that I had with the PRC which was every time they came before a committee you had a PRC commissioner sitting here and you had a staffer sitting next to him and the staff did not work for the commission that's right the staff somehow worked for The Advocates and the PRC had to go out and the commissioner had to do his own thing and I was baffled at how the person we were paying to be the brains there didn't work with the PRC commissioner I always said I thought it was the Attorney General's job to represent the constituents and the New Mexicans and the people like that if you had a complaint go to the AG and the AG would show up at the at this hearing but the the structure that was put in place was you had a PRC commissioner and then you had the staff the staff and the PRC commissioner could not have with a quid pro quo is that what is that the right term they could not have quid pro quo conversations they could not talk to each other about cases that were before them the staff was working on one thing and the commission was working quickly that could proclose a different thing but yeah thank you I was like right they couldn't have exports they would cut they would come to the the legislature and you would say as a legislator commissioner Martinez hey what are your thoughts he'd say well I'm a and then you'd see you know you'd see staffer uh Martin shaking her head and you go well what's the measure there I completely disagree and you're going wait a minute don't you guys work together right no let me jump in here just because the time I gotta continue that thought Dan with Sophie because so regardless of the commission how the commission is selected still concerns about a lack of money to attract and retain professional staff of experts to Draft rules like Dan's talking about and advise Commissioners on complicated cases is that a necessity now more than ever as this panel shrinks from five to three I think there is the potential thank you for bringing that up I think there's the potential that staff um that one thing that may have been creating a problem in terms of recruitment is at least minimized I I'm going to raise a name that we haven't talked about on this show for quite some time but there are hopefully no Jerome block Juniors on this new PRC there's no staff that you know is having to deal with that kind of shenanigans again remember with marijuana at the airport I can't remember I don't remember but but you know so so there's there's what how we're funding it and then there's also what we're asking them to do to put up with and I think um you know this may this I it's not a it's not perfect but it may have the potential to ameliorate at least some of those problems um and then I do think that taking a look at are we are we paying enough are we you know are we funding things well enough that's always appropriate we've got lots of things to discuss with this group including pnm all kinds of things San Juan Coal Fire plant it's amazing thanks again to our line panel as always for this week be sure to let us know what you think about any of the topics the line covered brilliantly this week on our Facebook Twitter or Instagram pages and catch up with any episodes you may have missed on the PBS Video app on your Roku or smart TV in the early 1900s our country suffered from what was coined by newspapers then as the boy problem basically with young kids no longer in the workplace a low rate of School attendance new immigrants untrusting of the school system it all added up to an eye-watering youth crime wave that lasted for a good 15 to 20 years now we still use that term today Google it and your screen will explode but now the boy problem is focused on education and why we are seeing boys and young men continuing to slide down the education poll no one has an answer this is why I was really interested in the recent guest column in the Santa Fe New Mexican by Paul Golding entitled boys adrift in New Mexico and Santa Fe it's been argued for many years that the general gender-neutral approach to learning has had consequences for boys particularly in the early school years when research now shows boys are as young as five are disengaged with education there are many complicated factors that play throughout the learning Arc for boys particularly the move away from experiential learning when boys can basically blow off steam and learn at the same time to didactic learning which demands sitting up on a chair quietly for eight hours as Mr Golding notes the inability of the education system to respect and accommodate boys need for movement as well as risk-taking impulsiveness and competition has had consequences a didactic learning scheme accommodates none of that and worst yet the inability to basically sit still leads to punishment lower grades and what we see now early disengagement all for just being a boy our Publican Department reports New Mexico Boys are now 10 percent less proficient in Reading seven percent less likely to graduate high school here and 20 percent less likely to graduate from a New Mexico College yeah boys are adrift and quite literally tragically up to 15 to 24 year olds who commit suicide 80 are male and the indifference as a nation on the mental health of boys has consequences for all of us why do you think all this crime you see on TV being committed here is by young men and boys now society never really got its arms around the boy problem in the early 1900s and here we are a century plus later in the boy problem still makes headline material we need to do better not just for New Mexican boys but for all of our sake thanks again for joining us and for staying informed and engaged we'll see you again next week in focus [Music] [Music] funding for New Mexico InFocus provided by the viewers like you