The debate over a horse meat processing plant keeps getting more intense.
One day after New Mexico Watchdog first reported that the Navajo Nation supports a controversial horse meat processing plant in Roswell, two state representatives who are members of the tribe agreed, saying the Valley Meat Co. should be able to open its doors as [...]

The Navajo Nation is about to wade into the heated debate over a horse-meat processing plant in Roswell and will support Valley Meat Co. becoming the first horse slaughterhouse in the U.S. in seven years.
“They’re eating up the land and drinking all the water,” Erny Zah, spokesman for Navajo Nation President Ben Shelley told New [...]

City folks may chuckle when talk turns to the growth of the feral hog population in New Mexico, but for people in rural areas, the big, burly and boisterous pigs are no laughing matter.
And the federal government, which estimates that some 5 million feral hogs cause about $1.5 billion in damage in 38 states across [...]

A controversy over the fate of the Dixon’s Apple Orchard has re-ignited the political feud between the current and former commissioners of the State Land Office (SLO).
Ray Powell and Pat Lyons simply don’t like each other and they’ve exchanged more barbs in recent weeks as the orchard — famous throughout the state and badly damaged [...]

For environmentalists, the “pit rule” that passed in 2008 is a common sense measure ensuring that oil and gas producers don’t damage groundwater and/or the land in New Mexico when they drill.
But for the oil and gas industry, the rules are full of unnecessary regulations that drive up their costs and hobbles the state’s economy [...]

It may be a long shot, and he’ll have to gather signatures on ballot petitions, but Harry Montoya told Capitol Report New Mexico he’s going ahead with his primary challenge of fellow Democrat Ben Ray Luján.
“A lot of people talk about it, they whisper about it, but they say it out loud that we [...]

From Heath Haussamen:
Democratic Congressman Ben Ray Luján will get a challenge in the upcoming primary from former Santa Fe County commissioner Harry Montoya.
Montoya released this statement on Friday (Jan. 20):
“Today I’m officially announcing my candidacy for New Mexico’s Third Congressional District. I was born and raised in this Congressional District with a deep respect and [...]

Pat Lyons and Hector Balderas are going at it.
The newly-elected chairman of the Public Regulations Commission (PRC) fired off an open letter to the media last week, saying that Balderas is using his State Auditor’s Office to score political points at the expense of the PRC in order to enhance his bid for the US [...]

Back in May, Capitol Report New Mexico broke the story about how land in southern New Mexico leased by the State Land Office had been used as a dumping ground for more than 20 acres of chicken manure.
On Tuesday (Sept. 27) Land Commissioner Ray Powell told Capitol Report New Mexico the site has been cleaned [...]

A follow-up on the story Capitol Report New Mexico broke back in May concerning a gigantic dump of chicken manure on state trust land in Doña Ana County:
According to reports from KOAT-TV and the Albuquerque Journal, the same man who leased the land the manure was dumped on made a killing in a land swap [...]