{"id":19636,"date":"2010-07-19T13:36:07","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=19636"},"modified":"2010-07-19T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:36:09","slug":"funder-of-pro-wilderness-media-blitz-remains-anonymous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/07\/funder-of-pro-wilderness-media-blitz-remains-anonymous\/","title":{"rendered":"Funder of pro-wilderness media blitz remains anonymous"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Organ Mountains (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Hispano Chamber of Commerce de Las Cruces<\/a> is currently spending a great deal of money on TV ads and printed material promoting a bill that would designate hundreds of thousands of acres as wilderness in Dona Ana County \u2013 but it isn\u2019t saying who provided the cash for the media blitz.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike other nonprofits, our grantors oftentimes wish to remain anonymous. Working in a competitive funding environment and with a growing membership, we respect donors\u2019 wishes…\u201d a news release from the group states.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to an article published today in the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a>, which, citing the chamber\u2019s news release, reported that the group \u201capplied for money in the form of a competitive grant to \u2018help educate and inform the general public about local conservation efforts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing requires the group to disclose the identity of the donor. Even the attorney general\u2019s fight<\/a> with two nonprofits in Albuquerque is an attempt to force nonprofits to disclose funding information if the AG thinks they are involved in campaigning for the election or defeat of candidates. The chamber\u2019s work is issue advocacy, plain and simple.<\/p>\n

Still, the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce<\/a> \u2013 which, unlike the Hispano chamber, does not support the pending legislation in Washington in its current form \u2013 wants to know who paid for the media blitz. In a news release, the Greater Las Cruces chamber stated that it was \u201cdeeply troubled by one local organization\u2019s apparent acceptance of significant funds from special interests groups to promote their position, without full disclosure of doing so to its members.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Greater Las Cruces chamber\u2019s chairman, Kiel Hoffman, confirmed for the Sun-News that the statement is about the Hispano chamber.<\/p>\n

The legislation, called the Organ Mountains \u2013 Desert Peaks Wilderness Act<\/a>, was introduced in October<\/a>. The bill would designate almost 250,000 acres as\u00a0wilderness<\/a> and 100,000 acres as\u00a0national conservation areas<\/a>. In addition to the Organ Mountains, land on and around the Potrillo, Robledo and Do\u00f1a Ana mountains would be protected.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s expected to be a push to get the legislation passed by Congress before the end of the year, because there\u2019s a chance the area\u2019s congressman, U.S. Rep. Harry Teague<\/a>, D-N.M., could be replaced in November by former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, a Republican who opposes the wilderness designation altogether.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hispano Chamber of Commerce de Las Cruces is currently spending a great deal of money on TV ads and printed material promoting a bill that would designate hundreds of thousands of acres as wilderness in Dona Ana County \u2013 but it isn\u2019t saying who provided the cash for the media blitz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[115,147,116],"class_list":["post-19636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-environment","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}