Like Nevada, New Mexico has rejected a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Responding to the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission s plan to issue a license for a Holtec International facility in southeast New Mexico, the legislature passed Senate Bill 53 mostly along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. The bill said no nuclear storage permits will be issued without support from state officials and not before the federal government has identified a permanent disposal site. .
A package of bills in Helena is aimed at improving elk management in Montana. The six bills are bipartisan efforts from lawmakers, hunters and outfitters, and all have survived the Legislature s transmittal deadline outside their house of origin. One is House Bill 635, which would set aside up to 15% of non-resident big game licenses for non-resident landowners so they can hunt on their own property. .
April 12, 2021
Group pitches deal on Gila Wild and Scenic segments Written by Geoffrey Plant on April 12, 2021
Although the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the newly minted $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and discussions about President Joe Biden’s massive $2 trillion infrastructure plan are dominating congressional business at the moment, behind the scenes there have been some developments regarding S.3670, the proposed M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic River Act. The bill seeks protected status for 23 segments of waterways comprising about 450 miles of the Gila River system.
Named after late Silver City-based author, environmentalist and outdoorsman M.H. Dutch Salmon, S.3670 has widespread support from local governments and many stakeholders within Grant County but among agricultural interests, and in other counties in southwest New Mexico, fierce opposition to Wild and Scenic designation has been
The Gila River is proposed for federal wild and scenic designation.
Howard Hutchinson bought his first parcel of land in southwestern New Mexico near the Gila Wilderness in the 1970s.
“I hitchhiked into here in 1973. And I said, ‘Wow, paradise. This is awesome. This is where I want to live to raise my family,’” Hutchinson told
NM Political Report.
At the time, Hutchinson said he was a “radical environmentalist,” and an early member of the controversial environmental group Earth First.
But Hutchinson said his views on environmentalism have evolved since then.
“As I aged, and became closer with a lot of the longtime residents here, I began to realize that there was a land use ethic that they had developed quite naturally,” he said. “You don’t develop that land use ethic, and you don’t survive in the arid Southwest. That’s just the facts of the matter.”