NM Earth haters now supporting private land buyouts

Over a half million wildfires are started by arsonists every year in the US and if you live in the wildland-urban interface government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. 

Southern and southeastern New Mexico is home to many descendants of the Confederacy who back a convicted Republican felon as unitary executive and are quick to point fingers at the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management for wildfires. So, Earth haters funded by the Koch and DeVos cabals through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund and scattered in the American West derailed President Joe Biden's America the Beautiful Initiative. Herr Trump's Interior secretaries blame wildfires in the West on “radical environmentalists” despite most acres burn on private ranch land in Republican counties. 

Today, the Seven Cabins Fire in the Capitan Mountain Wilderness has burned some 32,000 acres and is still growing but the fire itself isn't the only hazard because flooding can compound the threats to recovery.

With help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Lincoln County is offering to purchase at-risk properties at pre-damage rates and demolish or relocate the houses, permanently converting the land into open space to act as a buffer against future floods. With $235 million in funding secured, officials hope to buy some 400 properties from willing sellers — a proposal that could dramatically reshape the 8,000-person town. Ruidoso is a conservative place, not one where you’d expect leaders to welcome what some Facebook commenters have deemed a government “land grab.” Now, Ruidoso’s mayor estimates that recovery could cost a billion dollars. Even with tens of millions promised in federal aid, it didn’t seem responsible, fiscally or otherwise, to keep rebuilding in areas that would flood again and again. [Lincoln County, New Mexico, wants to turn flood-prone properties into public land]

Joe in Sioux Falls

Amen

Exactly. Either convince Julian Beaudion to suspend his campaign to be the nominee for PUC, Commissioner of Schools and Public Lands or some other statewide post or urge Brian Bengs to suspend his campaign and seek the Democratic nomination for the South Dakota Attorney General race. Since Julian will come in third in the Senate race if all three stay in how is that even a choice?

Trump Organization gifts Neiman with Black Hills logging bonanza

Until recently there haven’t been enough litigators to sue the Forest Service allowing Republicans to infiltrate management of the Black Hills National Forest and there is no evidence to support the claim that logging is effective insect control. Some imaginary war with the bark beetle on the BHNF is really more a fight for clean water because after all dead trees don't suck aquifers dry. Until forest managers and South Dakota's Earth hating congressional delegation get that they are being preyed upon by the Neimans to take legacy trees and leave the doghair for someone else to deal with because they aren't focused on hardwood release, prescribed fire and restoring the Hills bioregion to what it was 150 years ago.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and the State of South Dakota’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR) have signed a 5-year shared stewardship agreement that expands cross-boundary forest management and strengthens South Dakota’s forest products industry. Following the initial 5-year term of the agreement, parties may then consider extension in increments of three years. [press release]

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight.

Cannabis sales elevate ABQ families

Want to reduce prison overcrowding? Legalize cannabis. 

2020 presidential candidate, Andrew Yang wanted to implement a universal basic income of $12,000 a year and guaranteed income demonstration projects are underway in several states including in Colorado and New Mexico where cannabis is legal. 

New Mexico is second in worker equity, fourth in language diversity, the sixth most diverse state overall and second best in progress toward racial equality but my home state of South Dakota is nearly dead last. 

Cannabis taxes have raised the standard of living in bluer states and after a 2023 study, a yearlong pilot project providing an income of $750 per month from the City of Albuquerque has elevated 59 families to become more food secure and improve their credit scores.

The households participating saw a 26% increase in savings, according to a survey of recipients, while 45% of families reported feeling secure enough in their financial future to be able to enjoy life more. While many other cities have similar programs supported by grant money, Albuquerque’s is fully funded through tax revenue on cannabis sales. “Rather than working multiple jobs at a time, they’re there to be with their families, to learn from one another, and to have that time at the dinner table,” said Dillon Shije, the deputy director for the Office of Equity and Inclusion. [ KOB teevee]

In a related story Yang's New Mexico Forward Party earned enough status for potential candidates to appear on November's ballot.