While New Mexico families are focused on making sure their loved ones are safe and healthy during this fast-moving crisis, other problems are brewing at the state level that may cause pain for years to come. Plummeting oil and gas prices are draining the state budget of funds needed for public safety, health care, education, and more. Actions by the Trump Administration will make this long-term revenue crisis worse.

“It is especially important that New Mexico is relatively well-prepared to weather a recession because we will be harder hit than other states by lower oil and gas prices due to our over-reliance on that industry as a revenue source,” said James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children.

We applaud Senator Tom Udall’s sponsorship of this bipartisan bill. The royalty and rental rates, as well as minimum bids, charged by the Bureau of Land Management on oil and gas extraction are woefully outdated – some haven’t been increased in a century.