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Thank you.

Welcome to a brand new season of your legislators.

I'm KC Counts.

The 30-day legislative session got underway Tuesday in Santa Fe.

Throughout the session, we'll speak with lawmakers about legislation they support, issues they hope to address, and how the state's budget is expected to take shape in an ever changing landscape with regard to federal funding, the oil and gas industry, and other factors.

Our first guest is district 36 State Senator Jeff Steinborn, who I caught up with before the session began.

Thank you for joining us.

It's my honor.

Its my honor.

Thank You.

We want to start out by saying that things happen and change so quickly during the 30-day session that the conversation we're having today.

we expect things to really change.

True.

Even by the time this program airs.

So we can focus, though, on some of your top priorities.

And I'd like to begin by just having you give us a little bit of a budget overview so that since that's what you'll be focused on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You bet.

You know, the main job of actually the legislature, but certainly this 30-day session coming up, which we call the short session, we alternate between 30 and 60-day sessions.

We have a 30 day session is to pass the state budget.

The state funds everything from the state police to state parks, roads, prisons, schools.

And so we have to pass a budget which starts the fiscal year.

The new our budget for the state and makes it starts July 1st.

So we got to pass that budget.

And, you know, we see a New Mexico's been on a boom cycle in terms of revenues flush with revenues from oil and gas, largely.

We see tightening of oil prices are down because of what's happening with tariffs and international.

So the budget situation is kind of changing in New Mexico.

But we're still in very solid fiscal position.

In fact, it was just reported that our bond rating as a state just went up.

So we're doing some really smart things.

We have very high reserves.

so we're in a good position and that'll be mission one.

But of course, I've got a lot of really important policy bills that I'm working on as well.

Well, we'll get to those momentarily, but we do expect to have somewhere in the neighborhood of $320 million, maybe less than we thought we would have moving into this.

And we are talking about some some cuts here and there.

So I'd like you to address where you think those will be coming from.

Yeah.

And I don't actually I mean we have maybe less revenue because again things oil prices, we get so much money, revenue from oil and gas.

When the price of oil goes down per barrel, we will see that, you know, I think per barrel is like $10 million to New Mexico's budget.

So, so we have a reduction in revenue, but we still have a surplus.

So we actually are not looking at any cuts.

We're looking at maybe some flatter budgets in some areas of state government, but we're also looking at some increases.

So but thankfully no cuts.

New Mexico's in a really strong fiscal position right now, unlike some other states that really are in a recession or a period where they're not.

I did we read one report that the legislative finance committee recommended a 5% cut to the HCA.

Is that something that you are aware of?

No.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll ask one of those members then.

There you go.

Yeah Breaking news.

What about the area of new spending?

And where do you see New Mexico making some room in its budget for some new spending?

Well, I mean, I think certainly in the area of health care right now, we've had to step up to make up for the federal government, cutting their federal subsidies for health care premiums.

So what we have done is we did this in the special session, but this is going to continue into the first part of this year.

And if we don't see legislation federally, then I would expect we're going to have to, provide for this in the second half of this coming year, which will be our fiscal year, which is, making, you know, funding the subsidies in New Mexico did something really amazing.

We actually funded out of this fun, we called the Health Care Affordability fund that actually comes from, fees to insurance companies.

We we help people afford health care and help them with their premiums.

So we have gone into that fund to say, okay, we are going to make up for the shortfall in these federal ACA subsidies.

So thankfully, New Mexicans will not see at least their premiums go up because of that.

But if but we just did that through six months when we did the special session.

So if the federal government doesn't pass a bill for throughout this year, then I'm sure we will take that up.

But other areas of, you know, we're looking certainly at early childhood, we're looking at more things to help recruit physicians.

One thing I'm really pushing for is funding for more residency positions.

so we can get into some of that.

But those will be some areas will be looking to increase funding.

All right.

Well, let's move on to to some of those, legislative items, that you're behind and, and let's begin with the Microgrid Oversight Act.

So I have the bill right here.

Right.

and we can talk a little bit about what it is designed to do.

Obviously, since Project Jupiter has become such a big story in Doña Ana County and the way we learned about how this all unfolded, now we're looking at kind of going back and maybe, trying to get that genie back in the bottle a little bit.

So tell us what this bill does.

Yeah.

So we have really a new industry here.

I mean, Facebook came to to Los, to Los Lunas, you know, a number of years ago.

but, it was done.

You know, they plugged into the to their utility company and they used 100% renewable energy, and it really wasn't much of a story outside of the incentives that they gave to go to, to get them there.

Now we've got a new construct where we've got these massive data centers, one gigawatt plus data centers being talked about, of course, Project Jupiter down in our part of the county, which was kind of, you know, a last minute thing for most of us to hear about and, where they are going to build their own power plants called microgrids, which will be their own power, you know, power, supplies, you know, right there on site and will power their operation.

And what new Mexico's law is incredibly porous in that area.

We don't require any, renewable energy standards for those microgrids.

Unlike our power companies, we require we have a renewable portfolio standard.

Under this law, we pass is really transformative, called the Energy Transition Act, where we are trying to move our power companies to 100% renewable energy by 2045 on a kind of graduating scale.

And right now, today, power companies are El Paso Electric included, has to use 40% of their energy from renewable energy.

Well, these microgrids don't have to do any of that.

And that goes back to the last full legislative session, right when maybe you can describe kind of how.

Yeah, well, in fact, they could do it.

These standards didn't exist.

They could build a microgrid before this last session, and those standards weren't in place.

Then we did pass an amendment, though, that kind of codified that unless they were selling the power back on to the grid and, and the utility was purchasing it only then and even then, they didn't have to comply.

That energy did not have to be Energy Transition Act compliant until 2045.

So completely blew past all the current energy renewable transition.

But this amendment, if did not include if they were not selling the power.

And so if they were not selling the power, they don't have to comply at all.

And so consequently, it's like open season on New Mexico and our climate and these data companies, these these, data centers, like Project Jupiter announced that they were going to be using 100% natural gas, which of course adds quite a bit of carbon emissions.

Now, just a month or two after Project Jupiter, a an even bigger data center was announced in Lee County that was going to use nine gigawatts of power, starting with two gigawatts of natural gas in the first phase.

And then there was a third one announced.

So, what it's what it's laid bare is that we, we have really made ourselves open season on attacking New Mexico's climate with these guys.

And we've got to close this up so that we require the same renewable energy standards for microgrids as for utilities.

And so I have a bill to do that and some other things.

So the first thing is that it does put these microgrids under the authority of the Public Regulation Commission.

What else does it do?

It clearly puts them under it.

I think the most important thing is it does is it says, microgrids have to follow the same renewable energy standards as publicly owned utilities El Paso Electric, PNM, etc., electric co-ops.

And that would be if a microgrid were if were to go into effect after, I think the bill says May 1st or May 28th of this coming year of this year, they would have to use 40% of their energy, would be renewable energy, and that would include Project Jupiter.

and then that would graduate by 2030.

It goes up 50% all the way up to 100% by 2045.

So it brings them in compliant.

It would bring them at the same standards as utilities, would also give clear oversight by the PRC.

It would require annual reporting, including how much water is used by the power generation, the microgrid, as well as its tenants.

So I think that's a huge concern to a lot of us, is the transparency around water usage seems to be a moving target.

So with this law we do, if passed and if, given a message by the governor, which of course has to happen in a 30 day session is, we would finally we would actually require of them a reporting of how much water and finally, the last thing it does is super important is it would say that public utilities, if they purchase microgrid power, could not raise rates of customers.

And that's really important because of that power.

And that's really important because the way energy infrastructure is financed normally in New Mexico with power companies is through rate increases.

And what we want to make sure is that is that these data centers and the microgrids are not being financed on the back of existing customers through through a back door of the utility, then purchasing that power and raising rates.

Obviously, you can only, you know, deal with the New Mexico side of the state line, but it's an interesting situation because El Paso Electric, obviously, will serve some different circumstances for these data centers that we've talked about in El Paso.

Are you concerned that even if this passes, that rates will increase to customers of El Paso Electric in New Mexico because of what might be happening across the state line?

No, because, because this bill.

Well, we can't say what they'll do in Texas.

Certainly.

but what we're trying to encourage is the development.

There's no way to comply with this without building more energy infrastructure, building more, renewable energy infrastructure particularly.

So, what what what the bill tries to set up is a situation where they will finance this infrastructure.

They will be the ones paying for it.

The law this bill says specifically that the PRC cannot approve new infrastructure acquisition if it raises rates or has an adverse impact.

So to the extent that these things are built on site, they're financed by the the, data center, the utility infrastructure.

Hopefully those costs won't shift to another state.

And but that's you know, that's another challenge certainly, is that once you get onto the grid, you know, it's putting pressure perhaps in other places.

And so as we're having this conversation, again, it's a short session.

We don't know what the likelihood is that we're going to make some progress here.

Do you expect to bring this back in the next full session?

This is a huge, huge issue.

This to put it in perspective, this with the three data centers that have been announced, would increase, would be more than two and a half times the total electricity usage of the rest of New Mexico's electricity consumption.

It would close to double the carbon emissions.

There's probably no single biggest threat to our climate emission standards to the extent we care about it.

Then this issue right here.

So, yeah, until we deal with this, this is going to be a very big deal.

And obviously the state is courting these data centers.

I mean, I don't think that's any accident.

So I think it's incumbent on the governor, the administration and the legislature to, get serious about putting environmental standards, on this issue.

And I really think it needs to happen this session because we're in the last year of the governor's term, we don't know who's going to be the governor.

With that comes appointments to the Public Regulation Commission that regulates utilities.

And right now, I think, frankly, they're talking all these data centers.

Now they're making these deals now.

This needs to be dealt with now.

I think it also needs to send a signal that any new data centers looking at New Mexico, we need to have real environmental standards.

and just not be a runaway train.

And I feel like that train has left the station a little bit, but it's still it's still barely leaving the station.

So we can we can still get control of this if we act.

You talked in our in a previous conversation we had about the lobbying effort that pushed this through in the last session.

And so some other legislation, that your name is on is the Lobbyist Disclosure Act.

And, and we've heard of that before as well.

So this one is coming back.

So talk to us about, what it would do in terms of transparency and maybe putting some guardrails up.

This is one of the most important bills we could pass.

I mean, and it would be the most serious, meaningful, transparency legislation in New Mexico since we instituted webcasting ten over ten years ago in New Mexico, 2014.

It would require that all lobbying, all lobbyists and their employees, employers, excuse me, report on every bill they lobby on, including the position they took on that bill.

What often happens is, and they have to do it within 48 hours of starting to lobby.

And that also means that if they helped create a bill in the bill says this, they were part of helping to create a bill.

Then within 48 hours, probably at the beginning of the session, they would have to file a report.

So we would know from the beginning who was involved in the bill before we ever voted on that bill.

That's super important.

I mean, let's look at the microgrid amendment that was on, House Bill 93, the, lobbyist for the company, Border Plex was involved in that apparently, but we didn't, you know, when suddenly we were hit with an amendment.

And granted, I mean, that was a bit of a surprise.

In theory.

You could look that up.

You would be able to see it because the bill, this, bill that I'm doing would represent Sarah Silva House Bill 35, which is, the Lobbyists Disclosure Act would tell you you would go to the bill page and you would see all the players involved, and it would trigger you to know why are they involved, maybe.

What does this bill have to do with X, Y, and Z?

And it would help to unwrap the mystery and tell the story of the bill so that you can make an informed decision.

And then the public and the media could say, that's really interesting.

What's going on with this bill?

That way we're not being gamed.

And that's really the situation that we have in New Mexico right now as people get a just people get to keep their involvement in a bill special interest or companies or nonprofits opaque.

So that you don't know.

And so it's kind of like, you know, they're they're creating this perception or, and you as a legislator have to figure it out.

The governor has to figure it out.

And this is one example there are others.

So this bill would finally bring all that out into the open, I think very powerful tool for good government.

Now, I've been trying to pass this bill.

for probably over ten years.

We're working with Representative Silva.

We got this bill passed last year for the first time ever.

It was just a big deal.

And then the governor vetoed it.

She had her reasons.

I don't necessarily agree with, most of them, but she had her reasons, and she had that in a veto message.

Having said that, Sarah and I have amended the bill.

We've addressed, actually, several of her.

The things that she stated interviewed a message.

So we're hopeful she'll give us a message.

But she has to in order for this bill to have a chance to session.

Tell us how you how you changed it.

So there was a requirement in the bill that they had to report within 48 hours that they were lobbying on a on a bill.

The bill also said previously that if their position changed, so we in the bill, we say they have to disclose not only were they lobbying on it, but were they for against it or do they have another position?

What the what the bill previously said is if their position changed for whatever reason, then they had to report that updated change.

And in her veto message, she said that she thought that was untenable.

And, you know, because of how fluid things are.

So we took that out of the bill so that they have to report when they start lobbying, they have to report their position on it.

But really it will be, almost like optional in a way, if they want to update their position, which I would think a lot of them would, they were against the bill and then they became for it.

They might want that.

Wouldn't be the first time we've seen a little bit of a flip flop for.

Yeah, it happens.

So we made that change and that was one of her arguments, was just, you know, how inconvenient this would be on the port lobbyist after report.

You know, their involvement.

Now, I would note under New Mexico law, when they, spend more than $500 during a session, they have to report that within 48 hours.

So, you know, requiring their lobbying on a bill that we're going to vote on, that's going to make policy for the state is way more important than them spending $500 on a handful of legislators at a dinner.

And so this 48 hours is really important for timely reporting.

And so.

Well, I think we'll see one of the other areas.

And I know, you know, lobbying affects every aspect of our legislature.

but one of the other obviously top issues is, attracting and retaining medical providers in New Mexico.

And yeah, what has happened along the way there.

So, tell us about the legislation that you're supporting along those lines.

So, so there's a series of issues that people are very, very interested in.

And of course, medical malpractice is the top of the issues, which is really a grab bag of issues that have to do with, you know, the legal environment and how much lawyers can get and, I think all of those need to be looked at and need to be improved upon to the extent that we can, there's a continuum of different options there.

Some of which are very unfriendly to consumers.

And I'm not interested in and not protecting consumers.

So it's a balancing act.

But there's other things we can do to help medical providers, which I think maybe are lower hanging fruit, but but really impactful.

New Mexico is now the only state in the country that taxes, medical services and charges doctors gross receipts tax.

It's really tough on our medical providers.

So I took that issue on last session and work with our Doña Ana medical society.

Shout out to them all the great local doctors we have in Las Cruces.

They really said we need to be more active.

And they, took a leadership role in trying to help solve this for the state.

So work with them.

And we figured it out.

And I mean, a lot of late night calls, but a bill to eliminate all these little areas where they're taxed.

And, we were ultimately successful getting a piece of that tax reform into a tax package at the end of the session that also, unfortunately, was vetoed.

The whole bill got vetoed this was just a piece of it.

So I'll be introducing several pieces of that again, but a new area that I'm really taking on are medical residencies and, so when a physician or a medical student graduates medical school, they then have to do this thing called a residency where they're actually practicing medicine in an area where they're kind of polishing off their training before they finally go into independent practice by themselves or wherever they go to work.

And, these positions are funded.

So we get doctors who come here do residencies from all over, including the state of New Mexico, homegrown docs.

These residencies are funded by the federal government, and there's only so many slots, and there's more demand for residencies for medical students.

And there are slots.

So an idea that's kind of emerged is with our one time money, what if we self-funded residency slots so we could literally grow the amount of doctors here and recruit more into the state by funding residencies?

Because what we what the data shows is that when a resident that 50 to 60% of the time a resident will stay in the community where they do the residency after the residency is done because it becomes their home community.

And so I feel like that's a great investment for us to create a new long term initiative to grow.

And so I had a call the other day with the leaders of the state to do that, and there will be legislation to put more money into that.

Does the legislation address medical malpractice?

That particular bill deals, which is funding residency slots.

So but yeah, but but there will be other bills dealing with medical malpractice and, and I think the devil is in the details, but it's, but yeah, I'm, I would like to see us continue to improve the climate for, for for physicians to be able to competitively practice in New Mexico.

We need to understand we're competing with states all over the country.

And, because of our environment here, there's a lot of different, people on different sides of the issue with different explanations.

Why?

But their insurance rates here for doctors are, are, are getting higher.

And it's a real problem.

And they feel like it has to do with the legal environment.

Okay.

You chair the radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee.

I do the interim committee.

Yes.

Let's talk about abandoned mine cleanup.

Okay.

Yes.

it's an expansive, extensive problem across New Mexico.

Probably a lot more than people realize.

So what needs to be addressed and why?

And in what way do you hope to see it get done?

Yeah.

So since I first got elected, I would perpetually hear about, all of these abandoned uranium mine sites specifically, which are radioactive uranium is radioactive substance.

It's used to make plutonium, and it's really fascinating.

New Mexico provided half of the uranium for the entire country for our nuclear weapons arsenal.

And so when we created our nuclear weapons program and, you know, we saw the movie Manhattan and, you know, mining all that uranium well, within America, half that uranium supply came from New Mexico.

You were putting miners in bad situations, you know, being exposed to this radioactive or not always protecting their health very well, but also then these companies ended up leaving when the market went away.

And we were left with over a thousand, uranium mines, abandoned uranium mine sites because these companies and went away, they were like fly by night operations and there was no remediation bonds.

So we were left with this incredibly sad legacy, environmental legacy of all of these abandoned uranium mine sites.

So because there's no owner of that mine to go after legally, there's been no what we call responsible party to legally go after to clean up those sites.

And and people have just been pointing the finger since for decades.

And so I finally got sick of the finger pointing and no action.

And several years ago we passed a bill creating abandoned uranium mine remediation programs.

And both our environment department and our energy minerals department.

But the real aside from getting our arms around it and planning it's the money, is that we have a thousand sites.

It's very expensive work.

And so number one, I want to thank my good friend, State Representative Nathan Small, who's the chairman of the House Budget Committee, that for the first time ever, we work together last session and other legislators, and we funded $20 million to start to clean up some of these sites.

And they are so the state and not just that.

So at any rate.

So now we're looking to appropriate more money.

But I'm really I'm trying to work with our attorney general and trying to encourage him to get involved.

And I think we really need to go after the federal government.

They they have a moral obligation to clean up these sites.

And something I've taken on.

Speaking of Mr.

Small, you, shared a stage recently, to hear from the public.

So from your constituents.

What are you hearing?

Are the top issues.

They want to see you tackle?

You know, it's interesting.

We heard from people across, you know, with lots of different issues, but but clearly, you know, the very concern about crime and juvenile juvenile crime particularly continues to really increase and that our laws may not be in step with, with what we need to do to appropriately deal with that.

So that's one issue we're hearing consistently from people wanting us to deal with this medical, provider issue that people can't get doctor's appointments, they're waiting.

It is a real issue.

it's an urgent issue, you know, situation.

And so I would tell you, those are two of the most pressing things we consistently heard from a lot of people.

There are other issues, but those were two probably the highest ranking ones.

I know that it was a disappointment for you not to be able to see Slot Canyon become a state park.

I just the last few, seconds that we have, is that something that you plan to bring back to the legislature?

Yeah.

Nathan and I have continued to talk about that.

And unfortunately, we did pass a bill to create Slot canyon State Park.

New Mexico's 36th state park would be a real feather in our cap for growing our outdoor economy here.

The governor veto the bill.

So yes, we still would like to create a state park and we are still talking about it.

It is still important.

And I will say there are some issues that have to be dealt with with infrastructure, with people getting access to the slot canyon that are just also really pressing safety issues, not just.

By the time I finally got out there, I was surprised to see I either had to scale a fence or, shimmy under it.

Yeah.

So that's true.

That's true.

And, it's incredibly popular and we have to recognize that it is visited as the Organ Mountains is.

And people talking to Sparky's and other restaurants in the North Valley and the Radium Springs, the Blue Moon bar, people are coming daily to visit those.

So it is adding to our economy, and we need to make it safe for people to visit.

And, and I think if we create a state park, there is just an absolute home run, not just for us, but for the whole state.

And so, we're not going to give up, right?

District 36, State Senator Jeff Steinborn, thank you so much for spending this time with us.

You're welcome.

Good luck during the session.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for your legislators.

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