Plans Legislators Announced at Town Hall
Peter Wirth
- Expects to expedite Behavioral Health and Criminal Competency in the first 30 days.
Establish $1 billion behavioral health care trust fund with an annual 5 percent distribution. - Target money for behavioral health statewide: up to $140 million.
- Behavioral health will also include increased diversions for nonviolent individuals to get them into treatment.
- Fire Insurance: Augment the set-asides for premium support of Insurance of Last Resort (called the FAIR Plan) as well as raising the caps on claims from $350,000 residential to $2 million and from $1 million commercial to $5 million.
- Clean Water Act: exert primacy of state protections to regulate streams year-round in response to SCOTUS’ restricting the act to 12-month flow waterways.
- A separate bill will clarify what kinds of waters are covered under the Clean Water Act. Currently, areas, where rivers are not always running (95 percent of NM streams), are not protected.
Rep. Matthew McQueen:
- Reform Gave and Fish Department.
- Increase royalty rate on oil and gas to flow to state trust funds.
- Eliminate Governor’s pocket veto (would require governor to state reason for veto).
- Constitutional amendment to change legislature to two 45-day sessions.
Enhance State Engineer’s enforcement ability. - Water Planning Security Act.
- Dark Skies.
- Librarian Protection Act.
Sen. Linda Trujillo:
- Exempt film makeup techs from cosmetology licensing requirements.
- Permitting medical professionals who are appropriately licensed elsewhere
- Require building codes be updated within two years of federal revisions.
- Limit early childhood expulsions.
- Update Nutrition Act.
- Give Regulation and Licensing Department certain law enforcement powers
Add law enforcement ability, such as investigation and referral to AG/DAs, to the cannabis act. - Add COLA back to the state employee’s retirement.
- Reduce state employees’ probationary periods from one year to six months.
Rep. Reena Szczepanski:
- Review of sales of hospitals (Healthcare Acquisiton Oversight)
- Medicaid Forward to eliminate the income cap on Medicaid
- Local Access Solar Fund to help rural communities solarize public buildings
- Set age to purchase and possess semi-automatic rifles at 21
- Require schools to adequately budget cleaning supplies (she didn’t say this at Town Hall; it was in her list for DPSCF)
- Additional funding for Division of Creative industries
- Preventing Adverse Employment Action for Medical Cannabis
- State Employee Retention, Reducing the Probationary Period for newly hired from one year to 180 days. (she didn’t say this at Town Hall; it was in her list to DPSFC, same as Trujjillo bill)