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.
Stephanie DuBois has worked as a dog trainer, bookkeeper and waitress, and managed the Deming Chamber of Commerce for three years. Outgoing Land Commissioner Pat Lyons is a former legislator who has overseen the state Land Office for the past eight years. The two are competing for a seat on New Mexico’s most powerful regulatory agency, the Public Regulation Commission. And each has a different vision on how the agency should be run.
Public Regulation Commission (PRC) Commissioner Sandy Jones’s quest to identify and fire the employee he believed leaked an audit report that was published Friday by The Independent is legally dubious, according to New Mexico…
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC)’s Tuesday meeting erupted into a heated debate overa national auditors’ report that was sharply critical of the agency’s Division of Insurance. Although the report was released after a public records request, the agency announced that a new, more restrictive PRC-wide policy about employee contact with news reporters is being drafted.
The Public Regulation Commission doesn’t want to have a public discussion of a critical audit of the state Division of Insurance, PRC Commissioner Jason Marks charged Tuesday.
“They’re trying to cover it all up and keep it from…
I sat down with Sarah Gustavus of KUNM today to talk about Bryant Furlow’s story on the District 5 Public Regulation Commission race to be decided Nov. 2. Republican Ben Hall and Democrat Bill McCamley are competing to…
Former Republican state legislator Ben Hall and former Democratic Doña Ana County commissioner Bill McCamley both want to clean up the powerful and scandal-plagued state Public Regulation Commission. The men, who are fighting over outgoing Commissioner Sandy Jones’s District 5 seat, both told The Independent they want to see increased PRC scrutiny of utility and insurance companies’ rate hikes, and increased accountability at the PRC’s semi-autonomous Division of Insurance. But the candidates differed on how they would achieve those goals.
The state Public Regulation Commission (PRC) has scaled down the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM)’s proposed renewable energy procurement portfolio, which depended heavily on traditional photovoltaic solar electric facilities to meet state-mandated renewable energy requirements.
The…
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC) has fined Picacho Hills Utility Company owner Stephen Blanco $950,000 and the utility itself $50,000, for dozens of violations of state public utility law and PRC rules and orders.
The $1 million…
Controversy has surrounded the state’s approval of a 21.3 percent rate hike on 40,000 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico health insurance policyholders, but the state Division of Insurance approved Presbyterian Insurance Company’s even larger, 24 percent health…
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC)’s Division of Insurance will hold a public hearing Wednesday in Santa Fe on Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico‘s controversial health insurance rate hike.
Blue Cross will be asked…
The state’s new Superintendent of Insurance, John Franchini, began work Monday — just two days ahead of a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the controversial Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico health…
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC) will likely apportion much of a record $1 million to $1.5 million fine against the Picacho Hills Utility Company directly to owner Stephen Blanco, according to PRC chairman David King.…
A gas pipeline fire near the intersection of Golf Course Road and Paseo del Norte in Albuquerque Wednesday may have resulted from a short in an adjacent PNM electrical line, state Pipeline Safety Bureau (PSB) investigators suspect —…
The PRC voted Thursday to fine the small, 800-customer Picacho Hills Utility Company an unprecedented $1 million to $1.5 million in a case that involved allegations of embezzlement, witness intimidation, perjury, and a long-standing and unresolved threat to residents’ health: untreated sewer contaminating the affluent neighborhood’s golf course. The owner of the company claims the charges and fines are intended to force him to sell his utility — and its water rights, which he said were recently appraised for $18 million.
In light of public outrage over a controversial 21 percent increase in Blue Cross Blue Shield’s health insurance premiums — and revelations the increase may have been based partly on exaggerated losses — the New Mexico Division of Insurance is moving to require insurers to submit more information, including rate histories, when filing new rates.
The Public Regulatory Commission (PRC) rebuffed proposals from legislators that would dismember the controversy-plagued agency, moving its Division of Insurance, Transportation Bureau and other regulatory programs to other agencies.
“We’re a young agency and we’re sorting out some…
In the wake of the nation’s new health care law, millions of Americans are coming to grips with a fact few understood before now: state regulators often have little power to stop cost hikes to health care premiums, the…
The Division of Insurance isn’t the only Public Regulation Commission (PRC) agency being targeted for potential changes.
The Government Restructuring Task Force, a panel researching how to make state government more efficient, has several scenarios before it…
A group tasked with brainstorming how to restructure New Mexico state government could recommend removing the Division of Insurance out from under the Public Regulation Commission (PRC), a move touted as a way to increase efficiency. But the potential change has left some wondering if the idea is political fallout from the agency’s recent decision to approve a health insurer’s request for a rate increase, an outcome that led to a tempest of protests, the resignation of the then-Insurance Superintendent and the insurance division reconsidering the request, a move that has been challenged in court by the insurer.
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC) will refer allegations of perjury and witness intimidation against Picacho Hills Utility Company owner and real estate developer Stephen Blanco to the Attorney General’s office, according to PRC records and commissioners. The findings, which the PRC will vote to refer to the attorney general’s office by Aug. 12, resulted from an agency review of Blanco’s company.
