{"id":942,"date":"2006-12-01T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T22:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/cervantes-criticizes-governors-water-proposals\/"},"modified":"2006-12-01T16:09:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-01T22:09:00","slug":"cervantes-criticizes-governors-water-proposals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/cervantes-criticizes-governors-water-proposals\/","title":{"rendered":"Cervantes criticizes governor’s water proposals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>State Rep. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> is one of a bipartisan group of legislators complaining that the governor\u2019s water agenda for the legislative session doesn\u2019t do enough for water conservation. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This might show that Cervantes isn\u2019t backing down on issues in order to gain support for his bid to become House majority leader, and that he would be part of a leadership team that would exercise independence from the governor \u2013 something the House has done little of in recent years.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes, according to the Associated Press<\/a>, said at Thursday\u2019s meeting of the Water and Natural Resources Committee that Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>\u2019s proposed package for the 2007 session doesn\u2019t deal with agricultural conservation, though that accounts for 75 percent of water use in the state.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re throwing money at the problem, which government always does,\u201d Cervantes said, according to the news service. \u201cThat\u2019s one solution, but it\u2019s not a very comprehensive solution and it doesn\u2019t show the leadership we need to show on this issue. I don\u2019t see the conservation component to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Cervantes comes from a farming family and said because farmers who don\u2019t use water lose it, his family opted against expanding a water-saving drip irrigation system.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, what\u2019s happening is farmers are trying to hold on to their land long enough to cash in on their water rights,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the mentality \u2013 use every acre-foot. Avoid conservation, because it\u2019s not being recognized as a benefit to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez said he will introduce a tax credit to encourage such conservation this session. But he\u2019s already done that four times without success, according to the news service.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI never could get it through my own committee, Taxation and Revenue,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez was quoted as saying. \u201cIf I put one in there for oil and gas, it would have gotten through, but I never could get one through for agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson\u2019s plan proposes $25 million for the Water Trust Fund, $10 million for statewide leak detection and repair, $10 million for water innovation projects, $15.3 million for a pipeline that will connect systems on the Navajo Nation, $12 million for Indian water-rights lawsuit settlements, $7.5 million to restore river ecosystems, $5 million to design a pipeline from the Ute Reservoir, $5 million for the Strategic Water Reserve, $2.2 million to study the Salt Basin, $1.5 million for new staff, and $1 million for agricultural easements, according to the news service. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State Rep. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces is one of a bipartisan group of legislators complaining that the governor\u2019s water agenda for the legislative session doesn\u2019t do enough for water conservation. This might show that Cervantes isn\u2019t backing down on issues in order to gain support for his bid to become House majority leader, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","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=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}