"Miscalculation...a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention".
I have to admit I am surprised about Mayor Marty Chavez miscalculating the reaction to his smoking ban on all city property. (Remember his cigar smoking parties?) While I might agree with him on keeping second hand smoke away from innocent bystanders this sudden edict left little room for logistical matters. I heard that the day after the 'fatwa' went into effect that the rent a cops at the airport were hassling arriving passengers outside the airport about their smoking. Even though there were still ashtrays all around and no signs saying smoking wasn't allowed. One cop even went up to a woman in her car and told her to put out her cigarette. Unbelievable! Same thing on the golf courses and balloon Park? I also got an email today from one person with a petition to sign to recall Marty. That will probably go nowhere fast and I wont sign it, but it shows some crumbling of Marty's image.
Another miscalculation by an elected official occurred this week when State Land Commissioner Pat Lyons told the Albuquerque Journal to never call him again. He was upset that they would dare to question him getting even more campaign money from a land developer in Las Cruces that he did a sweetheart deal with. Pat Lyons is now toast with them and I have a feeling the stories on his 'pay for play deals' will keep coming. Even in all my past fights with the Journal Editorial Board when I was Mayor I never told them to never call again.
Another stupendous miscalculation is that of Ben Luce, a renewable energy leader, for attacking Governor Richardson's legislative renewable energy package. Luce was a proponent of it but now, months after its passage, he says it is flawed. All at the same time he is opening a new non profit organization aimed at lessening corporate influence on government. That is a worthy cause but I can't think of a worse way of starting it up than his rant against Bill Richardson's leadership. I won't be sending any checks to this new organization for quite some time.
3 comments:
From: CCAE Clean Energy Network [mailto:info@NMCCAE.org]
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 3:52 PM
Subject: FANTASTIC Conclusion to Legislative Session!
Clean Energy Network Members:
The 2007 Legislative Session has ended with FANTASTIC results!
The Clean Energy Age has been launched!
At least THIRTEEN major clean energy bills passed, plus one and possibly two memorials,
offering a wide range of new incentives and programs for solar, wind, biomass power, biofuels, energy efficiency,
and low-income energy policies. Many of these policies represent years of work by various advocates. Some
were new policies worked out in the heat of the session. Many proposals also failed (see the web site for
a complete list of everything proposed).
- Major new initiatives that will now be launched include green building, large-scale solar, and biofuels.
- Utility efficiency programs will be enhanced
- Distributed solar will be greatly enhanced.
- Major development of wind and solar for export will be initiated.
- Clean Energy Manufacturing will be strongly encouraged.
- Mercury emission control is enhanced.
Although some things for efficiency and low-income issues also passed, it would have been nice to see an efficient appliance incentive and other efficiency policies, and also some new policies for low-income. These and other policies that did not pass will continue to be targets for future sessions.
And, the Desert Rock and uranium mining bills are dead!
Congratulations and thanks to the many, many dedicated people and groups who made all of these things happen, including:
- Our dedicated sponsors and allies in the Legislature;
- Governor Richardson and his staff: LITTLE OF THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT THE STRONG LEADERSHIP OF GOVERNOR RICHARDSON FOR CLEAN ENERGY IN NEW MEXICO.
- All the people in the Network who contacted their representatives; YOU!
- All the advocates in the CCAE and CCAE member groups:
- The folks from all our allies:
- Dooda Desert Rock,
- Dine Cares,
- Sage Council,
- Conservation Voters New Mexico,
- San Juan Citizens Alliance,
- Sierra Club,
- New Energy Economy,
- Interfaith Alliance for Environmental Stewardship,
- Climate Change Action Project,
- League of Young Voters,
- Mesa Del Sol
- Other folks at the Roundhouse who kicked in support along way,
and others left off this quick listing.
The new policies are described below (keep in mind that not everything has been signed by the Governor yet).
See the web site for bill text: http://www.nmccae.org/Legislature_07/index.htm.
Sincerely,
Ben Luce
Jim has repeated the Administration's characterization of my recent press conference as a "rant": In fact, it systematically covered a fully documentable account of how the Richardson Administration completely excluded the concerns of the citizens of New Mexico in favor of PNM, and proceeded to introduce and execute an all-out push for versions of the renewable energy standard riddled with corporate loopholes and giveaways (using a coal industry connected LANL person on load to the Administration). It also described how Richardson tried to strip out the renewable energy provisions in the "Renewable Energy Transmission Authority", already one of the scariest pieces of legislation to be introduced in New Mexico in many years. I note that there was a PNM lobbyist working on PNM's dime in the Governor's office on this bill, one of the most blatant examples of undue corporate influence we have ever seen.
I also described many other similar abuses in the 2007 session and in prior sessions. New Mexico is simply a mess.
As time passes and these things start to fully sink in, people will realize that a profound change occurred in the Richardson Administration in 2007: The Administration fell down completely on an ethical level. Following this, PNM immediately put a major nuclear power permit seeker in charge of new generation development, and at the same time the Governor caved into nuclear in coordinated fashion. These events further aggravated the shortcomings in the results of the 2007 Session enormously. All this, combined with pro-utility and pro-Richardson bias in my own alliance, forced my hand.
So this was not a miscalculation on my part - I was obligated to take a different path in order to preserve any of my own integrity. As the posting by Gregory Green shows, I was previously obligated to put on a happy face about the results of the 2007 Session before going public with what really happened. Much of the NM environmental community is still in a similar state of denial. But as PNM moves forward with nuclear, unnecessary rate hikes, and a corporate rip-off efficiency policy (created by the same people who brought you Enron and deregulation disaster in CA), the people of New Mexico will realize for real that their Green Governor simply isn't, wasn't.
Ben, You have my pity. Just admit you blew it.
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