NEW MEXICO

Governor signs education bills, $10k teacher raise

SANTA FE – New Mexico’s governor signed law four bills into law that will increase funding for education, including major hikes to teacher salaries.

Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham held the ceremony on March 1 outdoors at an elementary school in Santa Fe, following the passage of the bills by the legislature last month.

Flanked by schoolchildren and the national leader of a teacher’s union, she signed one bill that will increase teacher and counselor salary minimums by $10,000.

Currently, teachers make at least $40,000 when they start out, $50,000 after additional training and experience, and $60,000 when they pass an intensive master teacher certification.

Increases in teacher pay and benefits come as the state seeks to fill 1,000 teaching positions, with about 5% of classrooms short a licensed educator. Stopgap measures have ranged from having teaching assistants run classes to deploying around 80 National Guard soldiers to serve as substitutes.

Starting teachers and counselors earning a minimum salary would benefit the most, with a 22% raise.

The teacher raise bill faced no opposition in the Legislature last month, and Lujan Grisham mentioned at least one Republican lawmaker in a long list of thank-yous.

Many school workers, from nurses to janitors to those who already earn more than the minimum, won’t benefit from that measure. But Lujan Grisham is expected to sign another bill that, after deducting increases in minimum salaries, will ensure all school workers at least 7% more than income than they earn now.

New Mexico University suffers shortage of donated cadavers

ALBUQUERQUE – Fewer people in New Mexico are donating their bodies to science when they die, making training harder for medical students preparing for their careers.

The University of New Mexico Anatomy Lab said on March 4 that it needs about 75 donated cadavers each year to train future doctors, but currently only has 18.

Amy Rosenbaum, director of the university’s anatomical donations program, says medical students missed out on working with real cadavers during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic when all teaching was virtual.

“Seeing it in 3-D and in person is the best way to teach,” she said.

The pandemic also has affected donations with mortuaries overwhelmed handling deaths and staffing problems, she said. Previously the university program accepted donations from across the state but now can only pickup cadavers within a 60-mile (96-kilometer) radius because of transportation issues.

Anatomy instructors may soon have to improvise when teaching students, said Rosenbaum.

“We’ve gone so far as to say maybe Group A can dissect one side of the body and Group B can dissect the other,” she said.

ARIZONA

Republican who backs white nationalism is censured

PHOENIX – The Arizona Senate voted on March 1 to censure Republican Wendy Rogers, whose embrace of white nationalism and calls for violence drew bipartisan condemnation in what was believed to be the first formal censure of one of the state’s lawmaker in decades.

Rogers is in her first term in elected office but has built a national profile among the far right with inflammatory rhetoric and vociferous support for former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Rogers has long faced fierce opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans for offensive comments on social media.

Pressure mounted within the GOP after she said over the weekend that her political opponents should face a “newly built set of gallows.” She spoke in a video played at the America First Political Action Conference, a recent white nationalist gathering in Florida.

The censure, a formal condemnation that carries no practical consequences, was approved in a 24-3 vote, with all Democrats and most Republicans in support.

Rogers stood as Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray read the censure aloud. When it was her turn to speak, she refused to apologize and portrayed the censure as an attack on her constituents and her supporters, saying the lawmakers were “really censuring them.”

Hours earlier, Rogers said on Twitter that Tuesday “is the day where we find out if the Communists in the GOP throw the sweet grandma under the bus for being white.”

Rogers has trumpeted her ties to right wing militias, and her prolific posting on social media has included messages and imagery with antisemitic tropes. Most recently, she has also tweeted critically about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as they fight back against a Russian invasion.

NAVAJO NATION

Energy company invests in carbon capture effort

FARMINGTON, N.M. – Navajo Transitional Energy Company has invested in another energy company that is aiming to develop a large-scale platform for carbon capture services.

The deal puts NTEC on Enchant Energy Corp.’s board of directors, the Farmington Daily Times reported.

Enchant Energy is working with the city of Farmington to take over the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station when it is officially abandoned by Public Service Co. of New Mexico later this year. PNM, the state’s largest electric utility, has cited concerns over Enchant’s financing and ability to make carbon capture technology work there.

State regulators said earlier that PNM was within its rights to run one unit at the plant through September in an effort to meet peak summer demands and avoid blackouts.

That will change Enchant’s schedule to take over the plant but also gives the company three more months to work out deals with the plant’s many owners.

Enchant first announced in 2019 that it planned to convert the San Juan plant by installing equipment that would capture carbon emissions. That carbon dioxide would then be sent via pipeline to storage sites in New Mexico and Texas where it could be used to help with oil production.

The investment was not well received by the Navajo environmental group Diné C.A.R.E, which argued that such carbon capture projects have not been successful in the U.S.

UTAH

Hard seltzers to be scarcer under new law

SALT LAKE CITY – Hard seltzer drinkers in Utah will likely have their choices on grocery store shelves cut in half under legislation that passed the Legislature on March 3 in the latest update to strict alcohol laws in the state that’s home to the alcohol-eschewing Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The clampdown is aimed at drinks containing commonly used food flavorings that contain trace amounts of ethyl alcohol, making certain seltzer flavors technically illegal to sell in Utah grocery and convenience stores. The final state Senate vote was 19-8.

Up to 39 of the 80 approved types of hard seltzers – including some made by well-known brands like Truly, Coors and Bud Light – would likely have to go, as well as hard kombuchas.

The bill must still be signed by Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who said last month that he has no plans to veto it.

Under the new law, the seltzers could still be sold in state-owned liquor stores, which are the only legal outlets for wine and spirits in Utah. But limited shelf space means that some varieties could disappear from the state altogether.

While many US states have complex alcohol regulations, Utah tends to set especially strict laws, like the lowest DUI threshold in the nation.

Most lawmakers are members of the state’s predominant religious faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is widely known as Mormon and teaches abstinence from alcohol. The faith has declined to comment on the latest legislation.