Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration is looking to roll back energy efficiency standards for construction. The Martinez administration says this is to “send a message that we are open for business.”

Martinez appointee Regulation and Licensing Department Superintendent J. Dee Dennis Jr. told the Albuquerque Journal, “This is not driven by any ideological belief, but a commonsense approach to help grow our economy in these tough times while adopting a national energy standard.”

The rules in question require new homes and other buildings be built with higher energy standards than before. Martinez’s administration is looking at moving the standards back down to what they were before Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration raised them. The standards went into effect in January, though there is a six-month grace period. This means the codes will not really go into effect until July.

The Journal reported on the codes themselves:

The current national codes increased energy savings about 10 percent over previous codes. Under the New Mexico version, it’s estimated that new homes would be 20 percent more energy efficient than previously required; new commercial buildings would be about 17 percent more energy efficient, increasing to 20 percent when the 2013 changes took effect.

KSFR spoke to Kim Shanahan, the executive director of the Santa Fe Area Homebuilders Association, who supports the current codes and sees no reason to roll them back.

“Homebuilders believe that this is a good code,” Shanahan told KSFR. “This is one that we can live with and we are for it.”

Shanahan said that he could not say if all builders in the state are for the current code, but indicated that the Santa Fe Homebuilders Association is “by and large” in favor of the regulations.

The Journal reported that another group was not of the same opinion.

“By rolling back the codes, New Mexico remains cost competitive in building new or remodeling residential and commercial properties while still implementing substantial energy savings,” Lynne Andersen, president of NAIOP NM, the commercial real estate development association, said in an April 21 letter to the CID.

The proposal was introducted by Kevin Yearout of Albuquerque. Yearout was a member of Martinez’s Small Business Friendly Task Force, which recommended rolling back a number of regulations.

The liberal blog Clearly New Mexico, a project of the Center for Civic Policy, said that the task force was “dominated by long-time lobbyists for large corporations, including big dairy, which contributed thousands of dollars to Martinez’s campaign; and the oil, gas and natural gas industry from in and outside the state, which gave her hundreds of thousands.”

Yearout is not listed as a lobbyist. He did, however, donate $5,000 to Martinez’s campaign, and his wife, Lian, donated an additional $5,000. A Cheryl Yearout, who listed the same address as Kevin Yearout, donated another $2,000. Yearout Mechanical donated $10,000 to Martinez’s successful gubernatorial campaign as well.

According to a midpoint report obtained by Clearly New Mexico, “The task force doesn’t want New Mexico to do any more than what’s required by the federal government.”

When asked about the Martinez administration statement that this will show that “New Mexico is open for business,” Shanahan said it did not mean anything to him as a builder.

“It’s political posturing from my perspective,” he said.

In one of her first acts as governor, Martinez attempted to halt all pending and proposed regulations for 90-days. Her act, via an executive order, was struck down by the state Supreme Court and Martinez was ordered to publish some regulations her administration had previously halted.

Court documents obtained by the KUNM Government Project found that the dairy industry had helped draft the executive order.

Secretary of State Mary Herrera

Five influential New Mexico newspapers have all endorsed Democratic State Auditor Hector Balderas, Treasurer James B. Lewis, and land commissioner candidate Ray Powell in next Tuesday’s elections.

The Albuquerque Journal, Santa Fe New Mexican, Taos News, Las Cruces Sun-News and Espanola-based Rio Grande SUN all agreed the three Democrats were the better candidates in their respective races.

But in a sharp rebuke of Democratic Secretary of State Mary Herrera (whose office will announce next Tuesday’s election results) four of the five papers also backed former Otero County clerk and state Sen. Diana Duran, Herrera’s Republican challenger.

Herrera’s office has been beset by allegations of mismanagement and controversial firings in recent months.

The Rio Grande SUN’s endorsements for governor and secretary of state will appear in Thursday’s paper, editor Lou Mattei said Wednesday morning. The Sun, which recently broke several stories about allegations of mismanagement and corruption in Herrera’s office, will likely endorse Duran as well.

Endorsements for governor were evenly split between the four other papers, with the Taos News and New Mexican backing Democrat Diane Denish and the Albuquerque Journal and Las Cruces Sun-News endorsing Republican Susana Martinez.

Only the Santa Fe New Mexican and Taos News endorsed Gary King‘s reelection as N.M.’s attorney general.

“(King) isn’t willing to say a culture of corruption has developed here even as he investigates millions in missing voter education funds,” the Journal endorsement states. “Let’s face it: Pay-to-play has become a way of doing business, and New Mexico simply can not move forward with those blinders.”

Overall, the Albuquerque Journal — the state’s largest newspaper — appears out of step with the state’s other newspapers, with only 36 percent of its endorsements going to Democratic candidates, compared to an average 75 percent for the other four papers reviewed.

The Santa Fe New Mexican generally favored Democrats and the Albuquerque Journal favored Republicans — but the two papers reversed roles when it came to endorsements for Public Regulation Commission (PRC) District 4. The Journal endorsed Democrat and Gov. Bill Richardson-appointed Commissioner Theresa Becenti-Aguilar, while the New Mexican backed Gary Montoya, her Tea Party-affiliated Republican challenger.

The New Mexican dismissed Becenti-Aguilar as a “political appointee” and noted Montoya’s recent endorsement by the Northern Navajo Agency Council.

“Montoya brings a vast blue-collar experience in the very industries regulated by the PRC,” the New Mexican’s endorsement states.

The Journal, in contrast, urged voters to “keep (Becenti-Aguilar’s) commitment to honest, integrity and ethics” on the Commission.

Becenti-Aguilar has emphasized a commitment to consumer protection, even at a recent PNM-sponsored shareholders’ meeting. At the same meeting, Montoya questioned PRC regulation of the state’s energy monopolies and insurance companies as “micromanaging.”

PRC district 5 Democratic candidate Bill McCamley was endorsed by the Journal and Las Cruces Sun-News. Republican Patrick Lyons won the Journal’s endorsement for his PRC district 2 race against Stephanie DuBois.

The Las Cruces Sun-News inadvertently left DuBois’s name out of its voter guide, Editor Jim Lawitz confirmed Tuesday.

Balderas received one of the year’s most enthusiastic endorsements from the Rio Grande SUN.

“We have an almost $3.4 million theft in the Jemez Mountains School District,” editor R. Braiden Trapp’s endorsement of Balderas notes. “The city of Española has such poor or nonexistent financial record-keeping, auditors can’t form an official opinion and the city is behind in audits. Had Balderas not stepped in a year ago, we wouldn’t have an inkling of the financial condition of the city. Balderas has made huge strides in clamping down on schools, cities and counties performing their audits on time. It’s a gargantuan task.”

Opposition to proposed constitutional amendments

All five newspapers opposed proposed constitutional amendment 2, which would relax term limits on elected county officials, extending the current two four-year term limit to three terms, and proposed constitutional amendment 5, which would allow state lawmakers to be appointed to civil office.

Currently, legislators may not resign to seek appointment to civil office to prevent undue influence over the legislator by the appointing official, according to a Legislative Council Service’s analysis.

“That prohibition was put in place to prevent public corruption,” notes the Sun-News editorial urging voters to reject the amendment. “We are simply amazed that lawmakers would suggest voters should no longer have concerns in that regard.”

All five papers supported proposed constitutional amendment 1, which would establish college scholarships for N.M. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The Rio Rancho Observer, Socorro-based El Defensor-Chiefton and several other newspapers across the state do not endorse candidates.

Republican Secretary of State candidate Dianna Duran and GOP Attorney General candidate Matthew Chandler won endorsements from The Albuquerque Journal, as did Democratic State Auditor Hector Balderas.

Duran is running against embattled Democratic incumbent Mary Herrera while Chandler is taking on first-term Democratic Attorney General Gary King.

The poll found that 48 percent support Democrat Heinrich in his first re-election bid while only 41 percent support Jon Barela, the Republican challenger. Former Republican Congressman Steve Pearce leads Democrat Harry Teague by the smallest of margins—46 percent to 45 percent—well within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error.

Both results are in line with other recent polls.

Heinrich has led by at least 6 percentage points in every poll released except for a SurveyUSA poll back in July that showed Barela in the lead. Even with SurveyUSA’s Republican lean, this poll appears to be an outlier.

This is the second consecutive poll that indicated that the 2nd congressional district race is virtually tied. A Public Policy Polling survey in late September conducted for the liberal blog Daily Kos showed Pearce leading 48 percent to 47 percent.

Pollster Brian Sanderoff told the Journal that the anti-incumbent mood isn’t helping either candidate. Pearce was in Congress from 2003-2009 and Teague has served since January 2009 in the same House seat that Pearce vacated to run for Senate.

Both candidates are well-known in the district and have backgrounds in the oil and natural gas industry.

“I don’t think the anti-incumbent mood helps either of them,” Sanderoff said. “They’re running by criticizing the records of their opponents rather than touting their own records or vast experience.”

As for the 1st congressional district race, Heinrich is helped by support from independents and Hispanics in his district. The poll found that Heinrich has support of 51 percent of independents to 38 percent for Barela. Barela leads among Anglos 51 percent to 41 percent, but Heinrich leads among Hispanics by a 60 percent to 22 percent margin.

In the 1st Congressional District, the poll of 403 likely voters was conducted by telephone interview from September 27-30 and has a margin of error of +/- 5 percent. The poll of 402 likely voters in the 2nd congressional district was conducted at the same time and also has a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.

Malott acknowledged to the Journal receiving a $350,000 loan from Anthony Correra, father of Marc Correra who shared in the fees paid out from dozens of investment deals involving the ERB and the State Investment Council.

Malott told the Journal he had no idea at the time that Marc Correra was receiving the fees from the ERB, an agency he was charged with helping to oversee.

Malott is no newcomer to controversy. Last year, as The Independent reported, federal investigators subpoenaed “e-mails, including attachments, to or from Bruce Malott from Jan. 1, 2003 to the present” as part of a wide-ranging criminal inquiry related to New Mexico investment deals. Malott also is a defendant in an ongoing lawsuit brought by ERB’s former investment officer, Frank Foy, who has alleged a pay-to-play culture at New Mexico’s investment agencies.

Last year The Independent noted how Malott’s auditing firm, Meyners + Company, had grown from a bit player to a powerhouse in New Mexico government while Bill Richardson was governor.

Since Richardson took office in 2003, the Albuquerque-based auditing firm where Malott is a principal, won nearly $7.8 million in public auditing contracts, according to state records, compared to $274,000 in such work the firm did in the five years prior to 2003.

Malott is a Richardson friend who was treasurer of Richardson’s 2002 gubernatorial primary campaign and has been appointed to a number of state boards during Richardson’s tenure as the state’s chief executive. Another principal in Malott’s firm acted as treasurer for Richardson’s gubernatorial bids in 2002 and 2006, as well as his presidential campaign, election records showed.

Richardson appointed Malott to the ERB board.

The ERB sent out a late-morning new release announcing that Mary Lou Cameron, the board’s vice chairman, would replace Malott temporarily as board chairman until members elect officers at an upcoming meeting.

Mexican consul Gustavo de Unanue has accused city Aviation Police Chief Marshall Katz of racial profiling, the Journal reports. Katz pulled over a Mexican national for speeding in July and subsequently turned the man and the man’s father over to U.S. Border Patrol agents. According to the consulate’s letter to Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, the family’s statements about the traffic stop “have given sufficient grounds to suspect racial profiling, discrimination against Mexican nationals and abuse of authority.”

State agencies and programs face another 3.2 percent budget cut starting next month under a plan approved Thursday to close a shortfall in the state’s $5.3 billion budget, the Santa Fe New Mexico reports. The cuts will shave $151 million from this year’s budget. Public schools will escape further cuts for now, thanks to federal economic stimulus money.

Despite lying to Bernalillo County officials and allegedly falsifying an incident report, detox supervisor Dwight Dias will not lose his job over favorable treatment for Jamie Dantis, the son of former Deputy County Manager John Dantis, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Instead, Dias faces a 60-day suspension and will be reassigned to a counselor’s position at the county jail — with a cut in salary from $60,000 a year to $35,000.

The City of Española shut two municipal water wells because of high uranium levels, the Rio Grande SUN reports. The move leaves only four of the city’s nine wells in operation. Water quality has been a continuing problem in the Española Valley.

In a piece that said the program was “shrouded in secrecy,” Journal writer Thom Cole argued that the secrecy prevents the public from finding out if there are problems with the program. Cole referred to Colorado, in which a just a few doctors provide most of the certifications in the state. One doctor was found to have signed 200 certifications in one day. Another, who charges $125 per consultation, was recently arrested on suspicion that he gave false information to the state.

But if just a handful of doctors are providing certifications in New Mexico, it’s impossible to find out due to the rules, said Cole:

So, does New Mexico, like Colorado, have a few doctors who account for a large percentage of the patient certifications for the marijuana program?

Who knows?

The state Health Department refused a request to provide documents that would show the names of certifying doctors and the number of times each doctor had provided a patient certification.

In a strongly worded response today, Vigil said  that the newspaper shouldn’t set itself up to police physicians, especially given that the drug is still illegal under federal law:

The reporter and editors apparently doesn’t trust the New Mexico Medical Board to perform its responsibility of monitoring the work of the state’s physicians and have decided to take the job on themselves. After all, who better to police physicians than opinionated newspaper columnists and editors?

…The Journal neglected to mention the biggest challenge we face in operating a medical cannabis program under state law. Marijuana use is illegal under federal law. … We already have many physicians who are too worried about a potential negative impact on their practice to certify patients. …

The Journal wants to see if there are a few physicians who are certifying many patients. What’s too many? Who decides — the Journal?

Opponents of a state emissions cap rallied Tuesday in Albuquerque, The Albuquerque Journal reports. The event was sponsored by the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.

The EIB is considering a state carbon emissions cap proposed by the environmental group New Energy Economy, which aims to cut the state’s carbon emissions to pre-1990 levels by 2020.

“It represents a cost driver that is unique to New Mexico and, therefore, places our state at a disadvantage with other states that surround us,” Berry said at Tuesday’s rally, adding that a cap would ultimately hurt consumers. “I’m afraid (it) creates an incentive for affected industries to leave our state.”

The state Supreme Court ruled June 7 that the EIB could continue to consider an emissions cap, reversing an earlier Lovington District Court decision that had halted the Board’s consideration of New Energy Economy’s 2008 petition.

The state Environment Department has proposed a separate, regional cap-and-trade program. EIB hearings on that proposal will begin in September.

The destruction of public records may have violated the state public records law, New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) director Sarah Welsh said.

“(They) are certainly something the public would have an interest in seeing,” Welsh said. “It seems strange to just destroy that one part of it. The whole point of open government is so the public can review decisions that officials are making.”

Correctional Healthcare Management won the $12 million a year contract to provide medical care to inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Correctional Medical Services (CMS) has held the health services contract for seven years.

The County is investigating millions of dollars in suspected overpayments to CMS during that time.

But neither Jerge nor the Journal disclosed to readers that after Jerge’s resignation from the Town last April in the midst of a financial scandal, Narasimhan’s wife and business partner Dale-Ann Narasimhan hired Jerge to work at her Phoenix-based firm, Electrical Development Group (EDG).

Jerge had hired Narasimhan as project engineer for the malfunctioning system’s construction only after Town engineers had refused Jerge’s requests to consider equipment manufactured by a local firm.

Jerge and Narasimhan subsequently arranged the Town’s no-bid purchase of that equipment — the very equipment Jerge now blames for the water system’s malfunction.

While Narasimhan was contracted to the Town in 2009, he had supplied Arizona Cardinals play-off tickets to Jerge and another Town official, a decision described by State Auditor Hector Balderas as “troubling.”

Narasimhan in February blamed increasing arsenic levels in the Town’s groundwater for the treatment system’s failure. But that claim is not supported by state water quality data, The Independent reported.

Jerge has not responded to numerous emails from The Independent since January.