McDonald: State's future not in fossil fuels

Susana Martinez must hate having to call the Legislature into session.

The Republican governor doesn’t have much of a record of success there, largely because of an obstinate Senate and its Democratic majority. But thanks to an inability or

Tom McDonald

unwillingness to resolve matters in the last regular session, Martinez must now call her second special session this year. That must sting.

This latest call is over the state’s budget and a severe slump in tax revenues due to a prolonged drop in oil and gas prices. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone — some lawmakers warned at the end of the last regular session that things would get much worse — but the Martinez administration decided to put off legislative action until after it hit crisis proportions.

According to the most recent revenue tracking numbers (as of this writing; updated numbers were expected soon), the state of New Mexico has $160 million less than its needs to close out its last fiscal year, while the current fiscal year is facing a deficit or $500 million or more. Generally, that leaves the state with three options:

• Cut spending, which Martinez is doing already. Last month she ordered a 5-percent reduction in spending for most state agencies, though it will only save the state a few million dollars at best.

• Raise revenue though tax increases, which some lawmakers say will be necessary, but which the governor is adamantly opposed. (There are also state fees and rates that can be raised, but such tweaks wouldn’t come close to erasing the deficit.)

• Dip into savings and investments, a Band-Aid fix that Martinez appears to be most interested in doing. There’s enough in tobacco settlement funds and investments (reportedly about $224 million) to offset the FY 2015-16 deficit, but that still leaves the projected $500 million shortfall in the 2016-17 budget.

Martinez has said she wants the special session to be short and to the point, maybe even a half-day, citing the session’s $50,000-per-day price tag as her reason. That means a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiations beforehand, and the press won’t like it. Neither should the general public, since we’ll all be left out of the process. Where’s the transparency in backroom deal-making?

Such a short special session might stop the bleeding but it won’t close the wound. The cold, hard fact for the New Mexico economy is that the fossil fuels industry is, or soon will be, trending downward, and since oil and gas generates about a third of the state’s tax revenues, failing to address this long-term decline will bode poorly for our children and grandchildren.

Fossil fuels are a finite natural resource, and America’s long-term future will not be built on them. Nor will New Mexico’s.

Of course, it’s ridiculous to expect any group of politicians to be looking that far down the road; elected officials seldom look beyond their next election. But New Mexico needs to be looking ahead if we’re going to leave anything for our progeny. Building up other economic drivers is a good way to do it.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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