That was the message from the New Mexico Transportation Commission on Thursday, when the panel approved submitting the projects for inclusion in the federal stimulus package that Congress is currently contemplating.

The projects picked for the list all involve roadway or bridge construction. There are no mass transit projects, which environmental advocates say would cut down on global warming gases.

The panel’s action doesn’t signal a guarantee that all the projects will be funded by federal money, or guarantee a set amount of money for New Mexico’s highway projects, state transportation officials said. State officials acknowledged they don’t know yet how much New Mexico will receive in federal stimulus dollars. And an analysis given to state lawmakers this week says there could be only $281 million available for highway construction.

“We just want to be prepared. We want to be ahead of the curve,” said state transportation agency spokesman S.U. Mahesh.

“This list of projects will not only provide jobs to many New Mexicans in need, boosting revenues and our state’s economy, but they will also make our roads safer and easier to travel,” state Transportation Secretary-designate Gary Giron said in a news release.

Many of the projects the state Transportation Commission approved have been on hold since December 2007 when the same panel indefinitely postponed the roadway projects because the state had run out of money to pay for them.

At the time New Mexico, like many states, was struggling with a shortage of transportation money because of the skyrocketing inflation affecting the price of construction materials.

But now, with an undetermined amount of federal money expected to flow sometime during the next few months, the state wants to get in line for the infusion of cash.

Most of the projects are part of Gov. Richardson’s Investment Partnership, or GRIP, program. Created in 2003, GRIP was meant to pay for high-profile highway projects around the state; it eventually helped finance the Santa Fe phase of the New Mexico Rail Runner Express commuter train.

GRIP has recently made headlines. Federal prosecutors are looking into an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving complex financial transactions that were used to help pay for the transportation program.

Mahesh said the transportation commission chose the projects and cost amount based on estimates of how much federal money would go toward roads and bridges across the nation.

At present, the estimate is approximately $30 billion, the state transportation agency’s news release said. The estimate comes from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which lobbies in Washington, D.C., on behalf of states, Mahesh said.

Under the federal stimulus program, New Mexico would have 120 days to get each project under contract and 180 days to obligate the money and start each project.

Of the 29 projects approved Friday, 21 would be ready to bid on in the first half of this year, and three at the end of 2009, according to the news release. Three projects could be bid on by January 2010. And two projects have no bid date.

The largest single project approved Friday, if funded, would help pay to widen portions of U.S. 491 from Tohatchi to Shiprock through the Navajo Reservation.

Other projects approved include the widening of I-25 from Tramway Boulevard in Albuquerque to Bernalillo; and improvements on I-10 from its intersection with I-25 in Las Cruces to the Texas state line.

Here is a complete list of projects by state transportation districts the commission approved on Thursday.

District 1

I-10, from the I-25 Interchange to Texas State Line; $50 million; Target bid date: May 2009

I-10, NM 404 Interchange Improvements; $7.04 million; Target bid date: May 2009

NM 11, Columbus to Deming; $3.5 million; Target bid date: May 2009

District 2

NM 128, MP 22-38.5; $22 million; Target bid date: March 2009

US 62/180, MP 6-26; $28 million; Target bid date: March 2009

US 380, Priest Gulch Bridge; $2.3 million; Target bid date: Sept. 2009

US 54, Tularosa to Vaughn MP 163-175; $27.5 million; Target bid date: May 2009

US 54, Tularosa to Vaughn, MP 85-96; $22 million; Target bid date: June 2009

US 62/180 MP 16-26 Southbound; $20 million; Target bid date: March 2009

District 3

I-40 Paseo del Volcan/West Central Interchange MP 150-151; $34 million; Target bid date: March 2009

I-25 Tramway to Bernalillo; $70 million; Target bid date: April 2009

District 4

US 64 Raton to Clayton MP 378-390; $30 million; Target bid date: April 2009

US 64 Raton to Clayton, Wetland Mitigation; $250,000; Target bid date: March 2009

US 64 Raton to Clayton MP 360-378; $45 million; Target bid date: August 2009

District 5

US 84/285 MP 187 to MP 189; $12 million; Target bid date: February 2009

US 84/285 MP 186-188; $23 million; Target bid date: February 2009

US 84/285 MP 183 to MP 185; $20 million; Target bid date: April 2009

US 84/285 Pojoaque Pueblo Interchange; $10 million; Target bid date: April 2009

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 67-75; $30 million; Target bid date: May 2009

US 64, MP 141-148.7 $24.2 million; Target bid date: February 2009

District 6

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 15-75 Southbound; $13 million; Target bid date: February 2009

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 59-67; $19 million; Target bid date: June 2009

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 53-59; $19.5 million; Target bid date: June 2009

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 45-53; $15 million; Target bid date: July 2009

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 37-45; $22.6 million; Target bid date: January 2010

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 31-37; $17.7 million; Target bid date: January 2010

US 491 Tohatchi to Shiprock MP 20-31 Northbound; $31.7 million; Target bid date: January 2010

US 491 Navajo 9 to Tohatchi MP 15-20; $7.4 million; No target bid date set

US 491 Navajo 9 to Tohatchi New Bridge MP 17; $1.4 million; No target bid date set

CDR Financial Products Inc. is the Beverly Hills-based financial service firm that is the subject of the federal investigation that derailed Richardson’s nomination as secretary of commerce. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that 20 municipalities are now suing CDR on the grounds that it advised them to make deals with banks that paid kickbacks to the firm.

A New Mexico Independent survey of news reports from around the country shows that CDR gained business with governmental entities via entertaining and close connections with major investment banks such as JP Morgan and Bear Stearns.

While Richardson and David Harris, the former executive director of the New Mexico Finance Authority have denied any wrongdoing, federal law enforcement officials are probing CDR’s dealings with Democratic officials in several states. It is alleged that some of the officials took contributions from CDR and gave work and/or seats on boards and commissions to the firm’s founder, David Rubin.

In 2004, when CDR was looking to do business with the city of Philadelphia, it gave Superbowl tickets and limo rides to a Democratic fund raiser — whose date for the game was Philadelphia City Teasurer Corey Kemp. The pair flew to Los Angeles in a private plane, stayed in a fancy hotel and took a limo to the game, mostly on CDR’s tab, according to an October 2006 story in Philadelphia Magazine.

Only 16 days after the game, Bloomberg reported that “Kemp [said] that city Finance Director Janice Davis agreed to ‘move fast forward’ on a $150,000 swap advisory contract for CDR.” Although the indictments didn’t specifically mention CDR, they did mention the company’s gifts to Kemp, apparently in return for work. In the end, Kemp was convicted on 27 counts of fraud and extortion and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The indictments against Kemp came in June 2004, the same month that CDR donated $75,000 to Richardson’s Si Se Puede! Boston 2004 political action committee, but a few months after CDR had been selected to do work for the finance authority. But the work came without a formal contract.

“I think it might have been JP Morgan who recommended them,” Bill Sisneros, executive director of the NMFA, told The Santa Fe New Mexican.

JP Morgan and CDR also worked together to advise Jefferson County, Ala., on municipal bond debts. But that didn’t work out so well, either. The county ended up paying firms, including Bear Stearns and JP Morgan, $120 million in fees on bond swap deals, which the county’s current adviser says was $100 million too much. Interest rates soared, the deals went sour, everyone’s being investigated and the county is now on the verge of a bankruptcy. Earlier this month, a federal grand jury handed down three indictments and the mayor, who was president of the county commission at the time of the deals, was arrested on charges of taking kickbacks on the deals.

Kyle Whitmore, a staff writer at Birmingham Weekly who has been covering the story, said in a phone interview that when it comes to the county’s financial woes, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

We’re on the precipice of bankruptcy and a lot of that is because our public officials were looking the other way, out of laziness or worse. While their swap advisors, including CDR, were telling them that these were good deals, I don’t think anyone ever explained what was in the fine print and it came back to hurt them in the end. … CDR should have been the ones sounding the alarm bells for us. Everyone thought [the deals] could do no harm but yeah, well, we learned the hard way.

Other cities have also learned hard lessons from CDR and municipal bond deals.

In 2004, the Internal Revenue Service informed the city of Fargo, N.D., that it was investigating problems with nearly $50 million in bonds that were supposed to pay for a water treatment plant. At risk was the bond’s tax-exempt status and millions of dollars in interest. According to Bloomberg, the IRS pointed the finger at Bear Sterns and CDR, which had worked together on ways of sharing profits on municipal finance deals. But apparently they were a little too creative; the IRS said the deal could have ended up costing Fargo $3 million.

Today, folks in Fargo who were involved in the deal and its aftermath are reluctant to talk about it.

“We were involved in a yield-burning transaction and CDR was one of the parties to that transaction, but it has since been settled with the IRS,” Kent Costin, finance director for the city of Fargo, told NMI Monday. Costin refused to comment further.

“As I recall, the city’s bond counsel said, ‘We don’t think it’s OK,’ so they went to another counsel who advised them on that,” said a source familiar with the case. “There were warning signals all over. If you’ve got to switch counsels, then you should have known,” the source told NMI.

When the dust settled, the city ended up owing the IRS $1.7 million. But the city only paid part; most of the money was paid by “third parties involved in the bond sale,” reported a Fargo newspaper (subscription only). Because the details of the settlement were secret, exactly who paid how much is not known.

Harrisburg, Pa., and Johnson City, Tenn,. went through similar dramas.

“In all three cases, which together account for $105 million of bond issues, the IRS said it was concerned about the relationship between Bear Stearns and CDR,” Bloomberg reported.

Why didn’t New Mexico hear the warning signals? Well, maybe state officials should have, but the investigations and lawsuits surrounding CDR didn’t start erupting until 2004, just after the deals here were done.

Also, observers say, municipal bond finance issues are difficult for most people to understand. News outlets don’t generally cover the intimate details because they’re not interesting until they go wrong.

“The newspaper here got into it a little bit, but then got out because they thought, you know, nobody understands this,” a former Fargo city commissioner said Monday.

Why do we care? Because JPMorgan was the firm that underwrote most of the bonds sold to finance Richardson’s GRIP transportation projects. And maybe this is just too many people in bed together? This is how it all plays out:

JPMorgan paid Michael Stratton, president of Denver-based Stratton & Associates, $269,000 in 2003 and 2004 to help win public finance business relating to “state, county, and local government and corporate entities” in New Mexico, according to records filed with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. Stratton’s firm gave $2,000 to Richardson’s first gubernatorial bid in 2002, and Stratton advised the governor on his 2008 presidential campaign, according to New Mexico records and the firm’s Web site.

Stratton made another $160,000 from 2005 and 2006, working for Richardson when he was head of the Democratic Governors Association, the story says.

Oh, but there’s more!

JPMorgan’s lead banker on the deals was Chris Romer, 49, whose father was governor of Colorado from 1987 until 1999. On Aug. 21, JPMorgan told regulators about an investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico involving the municipal securities business, according to Romer’s brokerage records with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

CDR’s [owner David] Rubin and three other employees of the firm donated $6,000 to Smart Government Inc., a Denver political organization overseen by Thomas Romer, Chris Romer’s brother. Stratton & Associates and Chris Romer also donated to the group.

JPMorgan was also among the five banks that sold the authority interest-rate swaps tied to the bonds. The other institutions were Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., UBS and the Royal Bank of Canada.

CDR advised the authority on the purchase of the swaps.

Also, in December, Michael Stratton was one of the hosts of a Washington, D.C., fundraiser held to help Richardson retire debt from his presidential campaign.

(Actually, we’re open to suggestions, hopefully some that don’t involve -gate or -water. Post them in the comments.)

In the meantime, Muckety.com has posted a fascinating interactive map of the investigation that caused Richardson to withdraw as nominee for the Secretary of Commerce.

Click around in the map and see how the parties are related to each other. If the map explodes and you suddenly see way more names than you can decipher, just click “reset map” in the top right corner.