By Senator Larry Scott

We are now just past the halfway point of this 60 day legislative session and the activity level, as is usually the case, has been very hectic. I’ve settled into my new role in the Senate with the procedures not much different than those in the House. Voting is much ‘lower tech’ as instead of pushing a button to vote electronically, we vote in the Senate with a show of hands. It feels just a bit like third grade which is appropriate given some of the legislation being considered.

I’ve been assigned to two committees, ‘Conservation’ and ‘Health & Public Affairs’. Perhaps the worst bill we will see this session came through Conservation early in the session. This bill codifies the Governor’s executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to ‘net-zero’ by the year 2050. Unlike the Governor’s order, this legislation contains no off ramps. Seventy-five percent of the reductions cannot occur with carbon credit offsets but must be actual lowering of the emissions. I made the argument in committee that, in our mechanized society, emissions equal energy availability equal prosperity. What SB4 will do is take the State back to emission levels comparable to the poorest central African nations whose citizens live short lives in grinding poverty.

The oil and gas industry continues to be under attack. There have been no less than 24 bills introduced that would harm, in one way or another, the industry on which our southeast prosperity depends. Your southeast legislators in both the House and Senate are doing everything we can to stall or kill all of these.

Other legislation of note is the ‘Paid Family Medical Leave’ act which, when introduced, would allow 12 weeks of paid time off for virtually any reason. This, along with the proposed minimum wage increases to $17.00/hour, would decimate small businesses across the State. In a conversation with a restaurant owner here in Santa Fe, she represented that there was very simply insufficient profit margin to keep her restaurant open under those conditions. The building would have to become another art gallery.

The number and velocity of bad bills moving through the legislature is greater this session than anything I have previously experienced in my 10 years of service. I can almost believe that my progressive colleagues are feeling the winds of change that are blowing across the country and are making a last ditch effort to place into statute all of the rules and executive orders advanced by this administration in the last 6 years. The term floating around the capital is “Trump proofing” State public policy.

New Mexico is dead last in so many quality of life areas that it is hard to imagine that a change of course would not be appropriate. We have moved from a 6 billion dollar to an almost 11 billion dollar budget during my term in office and yet are no better off. It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. It is long past time for us to do something different.

Larry Scott is a New Mexico State Senator

representing District 42.