Editorial: BLM sells out NM, nation with SunZia green light

This is one green light that should have stayed red.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s announcement that her department’s Bureau of Land Management had given the “go” to a controversial electricity transmission line across New Mexico is a threat to national security at a time of global challenges that range from radical Islamic terrorists to increased Iranian militancy to a bristling and bulked-up Vladimir Putin.

The proposed 515-mile power line would be designed to take electricity from wind and solar farms in central New Mexico to Arizona to be sold in Western markets.

Jewell says the $1.2 billion power line project by private developers that will cross land used by the White Sands Missile Range “will help unlock the abundant renewable energy resources in the Southwest, creating jobs and bringing reliable, sustainable power to a growing corner of our country.”

White Sands is an invaluable asset to the U.S. military for testing technologies and weapons to keep the nation and its people safe. The military has had serious concerns about SunZia’s alignment across the Northwest Extension. The state’s Military Base Planning Commission also opposes the alignment.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican, has been adamantly opposed to the line’s encroachment on the range. “It appears that, with one stroke of a pen, Sec. Jewell will permanently damage our national security,” he said in a written statement.

And then the Albuquerque Journal editorial pulls no punches when it comes to Senator Martin Heinrich:

U.S. Sen Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, has been equally adamant in his support for SunZia – opting to side with its eco-friendly potential over tangible concerns over national security and current economic reality. Heinrich, of course, is a darling of environmental groups and collects big campaign dollars from them. Environmental concerns are among his top five contributors, according to Ballotpedia.org, and gave Heinrich $377,465 from 2007 through 2014.

If New Mexico voters don’t share Heinrich’s rather utopian view, they should take note that they can and should express their displeasure at the voting booth in 2018.

It's nice to see that New Mexico's largest newspaper is noticing what the ranching/rural community has known for a long time.  They continue to suffer under Heinrich's "utopian" wilderness and national monument designations (See here, here, here, here, here and here).