Land commissioner hopefuls trade barbs at debate

State Land Commissioner Pat Lyons began airing radio commercials this week that are, to say the least, nasty, and his challenger, Democrat Jim Baca, has been attacking him for weeks for taking huge campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.

So it’s no surprise that the two took some jabs at each other during a debate Wednesday in Albuquerque. But, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the two remain subdued even as they took shots at each other.

Baca pointed repeatedly to Lyons’ contributions from oil and gas, which are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I was the first New Mexico land commissioner elected without the blessing of the oil and gas industry, and if I’m elected again, it’ll be the same,” the New Mexican quoted Baca as saying. “I haven’t received a dime from them, while my opponent has received hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Lyons talked, according to the New Mexican, about making land swaps with the federal Bureau of Land Management to preserve wilderness areas, and said if voters want that to continue they should vote for him, “because the BLM isn’t going to work with Jim Baca.”

Baca ran the BLM for nine months under President Clinton, but left after disputes with the administration.

Baca had a return jab: “I suppose the BLM won’t work with me if George Bush is still in power. … To depend on the federal government to preserve wilderness is not a good idea, especially this administration, which is owned by oil and gas.”

They disagreed over drilling for natural gas on the Otero Mesa east of Las Cruces.

“You can’t let the oil and gas industry have their way on everything,” the New Mexican quoted Baca as saying. “I wouldn’t drill on the Otero Mesa. The best thing we can do is move away from oil and gas.”

Lyons said the mesa “isn’t as pristine as everyone thinks,” and said it’s “the constitutional duty of the land commissioner to try to produce gas out of there. If not, you’re taking away from the school children of New Mexico.”

That seemed to be the heart of the debate, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Baca, who has a slight lead in the polls, said the land commissioner should consider preservation, and not just making money off state lands. Lyons, whose fundraising dwarfs that of Baca, touted the revenue he has generated for New Mexico’s schools by selling and leasing state land.