WYOMING

Yellowstone visits hit record high in 2021

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS – A record number of visitors flocked to Yellowstone National Park last year despite fewer hotel rooms and campsites being available because of the coronavirus pandemic and construction projects.

About 4.86 million visits were tallied in 2021, breaking the prior record set in 2016. It’s a million more people than visited in 2020.

Known worldwide for its wolves, bears and other wildlife and thermal features such as the Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone will mark its 150th anniversary in 2022. It straddles the borders of northwestern Wyoming, southern Montana and eastern Idaho.

Visits to national parks across the U.S. have been trending up in recent years. Others such as Utah’s Zion National Park also set new visitor records in 2021 as tourism bounced back from the shutdowns imposed during the early days of the pandemic.

At Yellowstone, a rush of people from May through September last year strained employees and park services. It came as the park was understaffed through the summer because of worker housing caps and difficulty recruiting new employees, park officials have said.

There were also 20% fewer campsites and hotel rooms in 2021 compared to previous years. That meant hundreds of thousands of visitors left the park at night and would re-enter after staying elsewhere. Each time they entered the park counted as a separate visit.

Yellowstone’s road corridors and parking lots can get crowded, but they make up less than one-tenth of 1% of its 3,400 square miles – an area about 150 times the size of New York’s Manhattan Island.

NEW MEXICO

State residents may get tuition-free college

SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Jan. 21 outlined provisions of a legislative proposal to expand tuition-free public college to more students from New Mexico.

The governor is backing a bill that would combine and increase state scholarship funding to cover all tuition and fees for in-state college students who maintain a C-plus grade point average. It would apply to part- or full-time attendance at any New Mexico public college, university or tribal college.

Sen. Liz Stefanics of Santa Fe and Rep. Joy Garratt of Albuquerque, both Democrats, are sponsoring the bill during a 30-day legislative session that ends on Feb. 17.

Budget recommendations from the governor’s office would devote $85.5 million to the scholarship project – enough to pay for tuition and fees for 35,000 students.

Scholarships that are currently available to recent high school graduates would become available to applicants of all ages.

New Mexico’s scholarship from lottery ticket sales once covered 100% of tuition costs for many local students, but that subsidy has been reduced over the years.

The scholarship figures prominently in a proposed $1 billion increase in state general fund spending for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2022, bringing annual spending to $8.5 billion.

State economists foresee a $1.6 billion general fund surplus for the coming fiscal year in excess of current spending obligations. The windfall is linked to surging oil and natural gas production along with the lingering effects of federal pandemic relief and approved infrastructure spending.

GOP challenges state’s political maps

SANTA FE – The Republican Party on Jan. 21 filed a legal challenge in district court to New Mexico’s recently approved political map that reshapes the state’s three congressional districts.

The state Republican Party and affiliated individuals argue the newly drawn congressional districts dilute Republican voting strength in violation of the equal protection clause of the New Mexico state Constitution.

The political maps were approved in December by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Democrat-led Legislature.

The traditionally conservative-leaning 2nd District has shifted to incorporate heavily Hispanic neighborhoods of Albuquerque and cede portions of an oil producing region in southeastern New Mexico.

GOP U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, won the district in 2020 by ousting a one-term Democrat.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in December that the new political boundaries provide a “reasonable baseline for competitive federal elections, in which no one party or candidate may claim any undue advantage.”

Consultants to the Legislature say the new congressional map gives Democrats an advantage in all three districts to varying degrees, based on past voting behavior.

OKLAHOMA

Appeals court paves the way for 2 more executions

OKLAHOMA CITY – A federal appeals court rejected a request from two Oklahoma death row inmates to temporarily halt their upcoming lethal injections.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denied the inmates’ motion in a ruling on Jan. 24. The decision paves the way for the state to carry out the executions of Donald Grant, 46, on Jan. 27 and Gilbert Postelle, 35, on Feb. 17.

The two have argued that the state’s current three-drug lethal injection protocol that uses midazolam as the first drug will expose them to a constitutionally unacceptable risk of severe pain. But after a daylong hearing on that issue earlier this month, a federal judge in Oklahoma City determined the inmates were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their case and denied their request for a temporary stay of execution.

The judge also determined that Grant and Postelle selected an alternative method of execution, firing squad, too late to be included in a separate lawsuit challenging Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol as unconstitutional.

Attorneys for the two inmates filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the high court to grant them a temporary stay of execution.

Grant was convicted and sentenced to die for killing two Del City hotel workers during a 2001 robbery. Postelle received the death penalty for his role in the Memorial Day 2005 shooting deaths of four people at a home in southeast Oklahoma City.

ARIZONA

Utility, Navajos partner on another solar plant

CAMERON – An Arizona utility has signed an agreement with the Navajo Nation to get solar power from a new facility on the reservation.

The Salt River Project and the Navajo Nation already had partnered on two other solar facilities in Kayenta that serve 28,500 homes and businesses on the reservation.

SRP and the tribe extended the agreement on Jan. 20 on the initial Kayenta project that was was set to expire. The entities also signed a power purchase agreement for a new facility in Cameron, a tribal community on the route to the east entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.

Tribal lawmakers approved the lease for the Cameron Solar project last March. The solar plant is expected to produce 200 megawatts of energy for the Salt River Project. About 400 people will be employed during construction, and Navajos will be given preference for the jobs.

Another solar plant is in the works near the Arizona-Utah border in Red Mesa. That one will be owned by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority and provide energy largely to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems.

The two solar plants in Kayenta together produce 55 megawatts of energy and employ six people, the tribal utility said.

The solar plant in Cameron is expected to generate $11 million in land lease payments and $15 million in tax revenue for the tribe over 25 years.

Some revenue from the project will go toward connecting more Navajo homes to the power grid and keeping rates down for tribal customers, the tribal utility has said.