On the 12th of October, Indivisible Santa Fe had the pleasure of welcoming Stephanie Garcia Richard as a speaker. Richard is running for Lieutenant Governor, on the ticket with Deb Haaland, and spoke to us about some of Deb’s priorities and their joint plans for the coming years.
Richard spoke about her experience as a teacher and representing teachers. She talked about her work as New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands, where she has worked to ensure that oil and gas companies are forced to close orphan wells and clean up their mess.
Some of the key issues that she and Haaland plan to address include protecting health coverage, raising the minimum wage, ensuring that working class people have access to tax credits, and building more housing and protecting renters.
In terms of the chronic shortage of medical practitioners in New Mexico, Richard spoke of ways to attract doctors including a loan replacement program that would help keep medical students in the state. She also described a site readiness fund for clinics that would make it easier to open medical clinics in currently underserved areas.
As a long-term educator, she has a passion for improving our educational system.
In response to questions, she explained that she and Haaland have plans for assisting the failing film industry. She also further explained about the program to force companies to cap abandoned wells, rather than allowing them to transfer them to small companies that have no assets and thus no ability to address the issue. Orphaned wells are an important source of methane.
As for Project Jupiter, she said that the project is not yet fully permitted and she would seek to ensure that all important conditions in terms of potential carbon emissions, water usage, and increase in utility bills for New Mexicans are addressed before allowing the final permitting.
One issue that she did not discuss was whether there is anything that New Mexico can do to both ban ICE activities in the state and shut down our existing three immigration detention facilities.
Richard’s passion and enthusiasm helped spread optimism as we are entrenched in election season. Let’s hope that we will soon be in the position of working closely with her to ensure that the governor’s promises are kept and other important issues are addressed.
