I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
New Mexico’s share of the federal stimulus is $3 billion so far. But that doesn’t account for an injection of federal cash that could flow into the state from competitive federal grants.
And now there’s a potential third pot of money from which the Land of Enchantment could win federal dollars.
New Mexico could find itself in line for some portion of the money left over as other U.S. states say “No thanks” to some portion of federal stimulus money, said former Gov. Toney Anaya, who heads up Gov. Bill Richardson’s state Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.
“Some states are rejecting money. Other states are not ready” with shovel-ready projects, Anaya said last week. “We expect that this will be re-allocated.”
It is unclear how large this new pot of money may grow to be, if it materializes at all, Anaya said.
A second, even more pertinent question is, Will this new money come in the form of non-competitive grants or will New Mexico have to compete with others to get a share?
“We don’t know yet,” Anaya said. “We don’t know what rules will apply yet.”
The state already is getting $3 billion in non-competitive federal grants, instead of the $1.8 billion initially predicted earlier this year. Potentially beefing up that total is the hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive grants that the state is urging New Mexico residents, businesses and organizations to apply for.
These competitive grants would help address the state’s energy and technological needs; for example, some grant money would go toward narrowing New Mexico’s digital divide by introducing high-speed Internet in more places.
The $3 billion from non-competitive grants is the largest pot of federal stimulus spending that New Mexico can dip into. That money has already begun flowing into New Mexico, and is meant to jump-start the economy by producing jobs, or, in some cases, saving jobs. It will pay for road repairs, to shore up local education budgets and to help provide low-income government health insurance, known as Medicaid, to more people.
Eventually the money from the $3 billion will spread into the nooks and crannies of state, city and local governments. One of the biggest ticket items is the $280 million or so earmarked to repair certain designated New Mexico roads.
But the stimulus money also will pay for everything from the $5 million allocated to the State Energy Program to retrofit traffic lights to the $8.6 million meant to help prevent homelessness and $101 million to be spent here by the U.S. Department of Interior.
That funding from the federal Interior Department includes $54.6 million to Bureau of Indian Affairs for housing, roads and bridges improvements and $8 million to repair National Park Service historical structures and facilities.
The state’s Office of Recovery and Reinvestment has a list of press releases announcing various projects, and programs, that already have received or expect to receive non-competitive funding.
In addition to this round of non-competitive funding, there are billions of dollars more in competitive grants. New Mexico officials just wrapped up a traveling tour across the state in which they exhorted individuals, nonprofit organizations and businesses to apply for the money. And Anaya hopes that New Mexicans can qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to the $3 billion the state already has gotten in non-competitive grants.
Anaya has a pet name for the competitive grant programs New Mexicans would have to qualify for — ‘mega grants.’ That’s because this money is meant to help the country achieve big-picture goals, not just produce jobs. It would attempt to narrow the country’s digital divide — the gap between people who have access to high-speed Internet and those who do not; to constructing a network of energy transmission lines; and to upgrade the information technology system serving hospitals and other medial providers.
“We want to wire the whole state with high-speed Internet,” Anaya said. The former governor specifically saw special value in upgrading the health system’s information technology system.
“It’s one thing … to have the electronic software and hardware inside the hospital,” Anaya said. It’s another, he added, to have a system that will allow physicians, say in Albuquerque, to look on and even help physicians in another part of the state during a medical procedure. Such video teleconferencing would be made easier by increasing of the system’s bandwidth, Anaya said.
“We’re encouraging anyone — educational facilities, hospitals charter schools, utilities, local governments, any and everybody” to apply, Anaya said.
It may be months before money from the competitive grants begins to flow into New Mexico. But money from the non-competitive grants — the $3 billion pot of money — is already beginning to flow into New Mexico, and there are ways for New Mexico residents to track those funds and the projects they’re going to.
Here’s an interactive map from the Associated Press that tracks federal transportation money going to projects across the nation. And here’s a state site — www.recovery.state.nm.us — with the goal of tracking federal dollars.
Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican, meanwhile, listed several Web sites in a recent story that are tracking federal stimulus money and the projects the dollars are going to.
