Where Do the President’s Requests Leave New Mexico?

Before I get into what you can expect from our team on the show this week, an acknowledgement of some federal legislation that has big implications for NMPBS and all public media. Congress has given final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to pull back $9 billion in federal funding previously allocated for public media and foreign aid. The legislation cuts over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS, NPR and their local stations — including us at NMPBS. You can learn more details about the legislation in NMiF Host Nash Jones’ most recent article. We’ll be following up with what this means for us and the larger media landscape in New Mexico in the weeks ahead.  

On tonight’s show, we address another piece of legislation Congress passed at the president’s request: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which I’ll call the federal tax and spending package for the remainder of this section of the newsletter.    

That package is filled with cuts. Cuts to taxes, with disproportionate benefits to the very wealthiest Americans. Cuts to programs like SNAP, which provides meals for more than one in five New Mexicans. Cuts to Medicaid, which more than a third of people in our state rely on to help cover medical costs. Despite all those budget lacerations, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will add $3.4 trillion to the national budget deficit in 10 years.     

Republican state Sen. Jim Townsend of Artesia says that concerns him, but he tells me he sees more positives than negatives. He addresses concerns that these cuts will drive up the cost of living for the most vulnerable people in our state. He tells me he’s reassured many of his constituents who he says have been victims of fearmongering.    

The bill also gives the oil and gas industry much of the wish list it’s been cultivating for decades by incentivizing more drilling and lowering the percentage New Mexico collects from extraction projects on federal land. You’ll hear from a longtime environmental lawyer about how those changes will work and how they’ll impact New Mexico, its residents and its communities.    

We’ll also spend some time on one piece of the bill that marks an objective win for our state.   

Inside the federal tax and spending bill, Congress included a measure to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, RECA, to include New Mexico. That means anyone suffering from health problems that can be linked to radiation exposure, like the infamous Trinity test in Alamogordo, is now eligible for federal money. For many, many Downwinders, the news comes much too late. But for some, including Tina Cordova, who’s spent the last two decades fighting for recognition, it means more than even she expected.   

“So many times people said to me, ‘If they would just apologize and acknowledge what they did to us, that would be good enough,’” Cordova tells NMiF Host Nash Jones. “And I used to say to people all the time, ‘No, that’s not good enough. They need to take care of us like they have done to other people.’ But it’s amazing. Over the last week the acknowledgement has become so important to me.”

That’s not the only piece of undeniable optimism in the show this week. We’re proud to continue our collaborative series with New Mexico In Depth’s Bella Davis as she visits a local farm to learn about the meaning and importance of Indigenous food sovereignty in New Mexico and beyond. 

-Lou DiVizio, Senior Producer