SWOPblogger

Press Release: Tuesday February 12, 2008
Contact: Robby Rodriguez, Executive Director of SWOP 505-385-1469

Group exposes Senator Sanchez as deregulation champion

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Senator Bernadette Sanchez is working hard for industry groups this session by sponsoring bills that would have the effect of weakening environmental protection, worker health and safety.

Sanchez is the sponsor of SB 57, the Regulatory Process Task Force Bill. In a press release responding to a mail piece to her district, Senator Sanchez states, "I even got mailings from one group that seemed to think the task force would somehow take away the ability of our State agencies to protect the environment. Of course neither the task force nor the legislative committee would have such authority."

The mailing, created by the SouthWest Organizing Project, states that Senator Sanchez’s bill would weaken protections for the environment, worker safety and health. The mail piece also claims that Senator Sanchez’s bill has all of the earmarks of the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an industry-funded think tank in Washington, DC.

SWOP Executive Director Robby Rodriguez stated, “Senator Sanchez’s bill walks like an ALEC deregulation bill and quacks like an ALEC
deregulation bill. It’s an ALEC bill. Her constituents need to know their health and safety is at risk if these bills are passed.”

Senator Sanchez claims her bill would have created “a broadly representative task force for the simple purpose of studying our State agencies' administrative procedures. However, this task force was industry stacked and even named the Association for Commerce and Industry as one of the members—the only member of the task force specifically designated. Not surprisingly, ACI proposed this legislation in the interim and hails Senator Sanchez as one of their champions who is “committed to changing the regulatory process” not merely studying it.

Last year, ACI’s major deregulatory push was in the guise of Rep. Dan Silva HB685, the so-called Administrative Accountability Act, which was tagged by environmentalists as the “Polluter’s Bill of Rights”. HB 685 was modeled off of legislation developed by ALEC—the American Legislative Exchange Council—a right wing think tank whose agenda includes rolling back civil rights, privatizing public services and weakening environmental regulations. ALEC is heavily funded by some of the country’s biggest polluters—Enron, the American Nuclear Energy Council, the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, Shell, Texaco and others.

Even the Legislative Finance Committee’s own analysis compares SB 57 to last year’s HB 685, which was the ALEC bill. It’s no wonder that in committee, lobbyists in support of Senator Sanchez’s bill included the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, New Mexico Mining Association, Independent Petroleum Association, New Mexico Restaurant Association, New Mexico Cattlegrowers, New Mexico Homebuilders Association, Association of Commerce and Industry, Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and Phelps Dodge Mining Company.

"Regulations exits to protect public health, safety and welfare – SB 57 weakens them by putting the health of our communities in the hands of Oil & Industry; and that is dangerous," stated Rodriguez.
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Labels: ALEC, deregulation, Envirionmental Justice, SB 57, Senator Bernadette Sanchez