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 is losing $6 million in federal highway money this year, the state confirmed Thursday. The loss is part of a cost-savings move by Congress, effective Sept. 30, to claw back federal transportation dollars the states have not used.
Mark Slimp, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Transportation, said the loss represents a fraction of what New Mexico gets each year in the form of federal transportation dollars. Slimp estimated that New Mexico receives around $280 million annually in federal transportation dollars. New Mexico has spent most of the money the federal government allocated this year, so there is very little left to claw back.
The money New Mexico is losing won’t be taken from highway or other transportation projects, but will come out of a reserve fund the state created for unforeseen circumstances – a sort of system-wide contingency fund, Slimp said.
Looking around at other states shows that New Mexico could have fared much worse.
According to a chart in Transportation Weekly, which analyzes federal transportation spending, Texas will lose $102 million in unused federal dollars while Arizona is scheduled to lose more than $19 million. Utah and Oklahoma each will lose around $4.5 million while Colorado is losing no federal dollars.
