Heinrich Expresses Optimism, Readiness To Rebuild, Create Opportunities For New Mexico Economies In Address To Greater Albuquerque Chamber Of Commerce

Good morning, everyone.

Thanks for inviting me to join you today.

In some ways, these last few weeks have been some of the longest years of my life.

Honestly, never in my life would I have believed that ordinary Americans could be goaded into attacking the Capitol of the United States by a campaign of lies and conspiracy theories.

Unfortunately, I got a front row seat for a historical moment that I just as soon would have preferred to miss.

I am proud, however, of the message it sent to the world when all of my colleagues and I returned that very same day to the floor of the House and Senate and finished Congress's role in honoring the will of the American people through free and fair elections.

And a month that began with a violent mob threatening our constitutional republic ended exactly as it should have -- with a peaceful transition of power.

And now, we all have real work to do. And I am excited about that.

And I'm confident our new president and our new Congress are, too.

I don't need to tell you the incredible challenges we face as a country and a state.

You can see it -- in the closed restaurants, the lines at food banks, and in the families that will now forever be without loved ones.

Even through these challenges, we can still take meaningful action to bring our country together and work to rebuild our economy.

President Biden has proposed an American Rescue Plan that will provide important resources that we'll need to end this pandemic, to safely reopen our schools and businesses, and to bring our economy back to something much more akin to "normal."

The president's plan can help us roll out more testing and mount a coordinated national vaccine distribution plan to ensure that doses are delivered efficiently, effectively, and to every single one of our communities.

It will provide the resources that our schools and educators need to safely bring our kids back into their classrooms.

I have to say that I am looking forward to my sons returning to in-person instruction even if the timeline seems a bit short.

However, it's clear that my Labrador retriever does not support the Governor's decision, as she will no longer be with her favorite teenagers all day long.

But in all seriousness, I have been focused for months now on securing resources to help our schools build healthier indoor classroom environments by replacing their air ventilation and filtration infrastructure.

This is the right thing to do in the context of the pandemic and also for the long-term health of students and educators.

President Biden has also proposed much needed additional support to small businesses who have been absolutely devastated over the course of this last year.

In New Mexico, we need to think expansively about our opportunities and invest strategically in our people.

If we do that, we can emerge from this crisis with an economy that grows stronger and is more diverse than before the pandemic.

What we have done as a state to step up during this pandemic shows us what we are capable of.

Without a coordinated federal plan from the previous administration, we were essentially on our own in the effort to manufacture, secure, and distribute critical supplies.

That's why I worked with partner organizations and volunteers to stand up the New Mexico Covid-19 Emergency Supply Collaborative.

Over the last year, the Collaborative delivered more than 265,000 items--gowns, masks, face shields, and sanitizer--to 194 organizations all across New Mexico, including senior centers and hard-hit rural and Tribal health care facilities.

I am so proud of their lifesaving work.

At a federal, state, and local level, I also fought to support New Mexico's small business owners and nonprofits.

I've had countless conversations with my colleagues on the problems with the PPP program and how to improve it.

We insisted that the forms be simplified, which they eventually were -- from more than 11 pages of complicated forms to just 2 or 3 pages.

I've fought to make sure PPP funds were distributed more fairly, focusing on the smallest businesses.

And I fought to see the forgiveness program simplified, which it now has been as well.

I also fought to pass $15 billion in new "Save Our Stages" grants, specifically targeted for independent arts and performance venues that have been forced to close their doors practically all year.

In a state where the arts are so central to our culture, we must recover our venues, or we will lose a piece of who we are.

The application for new PPP funds has just opened up.

Any small business owners who need help navigating the process, please reach out to my office.

We have staff ready to provide direct technical support--for PPP and more.

I'm actually the only U.S. Senator with an entire Economic Development Team -- so it's an offer we can back up with real, on the ground assistance.

I share the frustrations that many small business owners have had with seeing big box stores open while your doors remained closed.

And frankly I understand some of your frustrations with broad pandemic-related restrictions.

We have to carefully balance staying ahead of virus spread with protecting your ability to put food on the table and to access medicine, shelter, outdoor recreation, and other necessities safely.

In my view, the answer is in measures that are driven by medical data and that are fair, transparent, and constantly improved as we learn more about what is working here and in other places.

But after 11 months of treading water through this pandemic and its economic impacts, we also have to focus on what's ahead -- this year and well beyond it.

We need to think big about how we can set New Mexico on the best path for long-term, sustainable success.

What has the pandemic taught us?

That far too many New Mexican communities lack basic infrastructure -- from access to broadband internet to clean water -- and that holds back our entire state.

That we are not investing what we ought to in early childhood education.

And that a state budget dependent on volatile commodities like oil and gas is neither predictable nor sustainable.

The good news is that we have the ability to make consequential and courageous decisions in these next months at both the state and federal levels to address these pressing issues for our state.

That should start with finally passing the Constitutional Amendment to commit a sustainable portion of the $20-billion dollar Land Grant Permanent Fund into early childhood education.

I've been saying this for years, but I'll say it again:

This is the single greatest investment we can make in the future of our state's economic health--and one that will pay off for generations to come.

Our children are just as capable, just as talented as children anywhere else.

But they need us to commit the resources they deserve to ensure their success.

The Yazzie-Martinez ruling reminded all of us of both our constitutional and moral responsibility to provide all kids with the educational opportunity they deserve.

We use the word freedom all too flippantly sometimes.

Even in this great nation, you cannot be truly free unless you have an education that allows you the freedom to chart your own course in life.

That begins in early childhood and K-12 schools all the way through higher education and critically important apprenticeships.

There's no doubt that earning a college degree is still one of the surest ways to gain the skills needed to build a successful career.

All New Mexicans deserve a fair shot at affording a college education or a career technical education without being crushed by debt.

That's why I've fought to make college more affordable--including major reforms that we passed last year to substantially expand eligibility for federal Pell Grants.

We must also build back better -- from universal and affordable broadband to clean water to electricity.

Universal broadband deployment will reorient and reimagine our economic landscape to help New Mexico fully step into the industries that are driving the 21st century.

Ensuring that every New Mexican has clean water and electricity must happen--and should have happened long ago.

We should refuse to accept a future that leaves so many among us in the dark or without clean water.

Period.

Finally, it is long past time for us to acknowledge what can be an uncomfortable truth for New Mexicans.

It is clear that we must confront the climate crisis that threatens our land, our water, and our children's right to a bright future.

It is crystal clear that the zero carbon, zero pollution economy is coming.

Multiple international oil and gas majors are already planning for that future and are even saying as much to the public and to their shareholders.

To weather the change that is already upon us, New Mexico needs a transition plan with a predictable glide path for our producers and robust investments in the communities that have long produced our country's transportation fuels.

And I want to emphasize the importance of not leaving behind the New Mexicans who have worked for so long to produce our nation's energy supplies.

I recognize that New Mexico and other fossil fuel dependent states must be supported through this transition with both revenue replacement and assistance in transitioning and diversifying our economies.

New Mexico's public education system is still heavily reliant on state revenues generated by fossil fuel severance taxes.

As is a sizable portion of our state government's operations as a whole.

Despite sustained calls to diversify New Mexico's economy, our reliance on fossil fuels has proven difficult to overcome.

Additionally, New Mexico has historically and will continue to power the nation.

Our nation has a responsibility to assist us with this transition.

That's why I want you all to know that I am putting together legislation designed to help offset the reduction of fossil fuel revenues as we work to reduce the industry's impact on our climate.

This will be a significant effort, but not an unprecedented one.

In 2000, Congress passed the Secure Rural School Act.

Secure Rural Schools addressed the impact of federal forestry policies on the timber industry and provided critical funding for schools, roads, and other municipal services that had previously benefitted from an unsustainable timber approach.

Yesterday, I also secured a public commitment from President Biden's Energy Secretary nominee, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to work with me on creating a place-based energy transition plan that ensures hard-working New Mexicans are not left behind during this transition to a cleaner future.

Our state's clean energy potential is a great opportunity to attract billions of dollars of private capital and create thousands of good-paying jobs.

We are home to some of the brightest energy innovators at our national labs and private companies, world-class research universities and community colleges, incredible renewable resources, and a proven energy workforce.

With the right policy decisions and the right transmission infrastructure in place, New Mexico can remain a global leader in producing and exporting energy.

We can see this in the Sagamore Wind Project in Roosevelt County.

When it was completed last month, Sagamore became the largest wind farm in our state's history.

This project also represents our capability to put people to work in rural communities on projects that export clean power and import investment into New Mexico.

We have so much room to scale up this type of success and build many, many more utility-scale renewable energy projects like Sagamore.

Especially once we finish building new transmission lines like Pattern Energy's Western Spirit, which just broke ground earlier this month.

Once it is online, Western Spirit will literally change the map of our state's energy landscape.

It will allow Pattern Energy to connect four new utility-scale wind projects in rural communities in central New Mexico to PNM customers and to other major energy markets beyond our state's borders.

Once they are built, these four new projects will combine to make up the largest single-phase wind development in American history--right here in New Mexico.

Western Spirit will create an estimated 1,000 construction jobs as well as creating high-paying permanent careers in our rural communities.

New transmission lines like Western Spirit are the missing link that will allow New Mexico to power our whole nation with clean electrons.

Once we can also move forward with the SunZia transmission line, and its proposed anchor projects, Pattern can add 3 GW more to their portfolio in New Mexico--or more than triple what they are bringing online with Western Spirit.

For scale, that's like having three or four nuclear reactors worth of clean power in rural, central New Mexico, without needing a drop water for cooling.

And of course, they would add many more construction jobs and additional careers for wind technicians.

You can see the pattern here…no pun intended.

This is what it looks like to build a whole new industry that will benefit communities in every part of our state.

This is what it looks like to diversify our economy and reposition ourselves for long-term, sustainable economic growth.

We should also invest in assets and resources we already possess--our state's creative and innovative people, and our natural resources.

In our schools, we need to reinvest in career, technical and arts education.

On the other side of that equation, we need to make smart policy decisions to incentivize and grow our outdoor recreation and creative economies.

That includes continuing to support our rapidly growing film industry, which has counteracted our long-running and much discussed "brain drain."

I was proud to see MovieMaker Magazine name Albuquerque as the No. 1 place to "live and work as a filmmaker."

I like it when we are No. 1 on lists for the right reasons.

In partnership with our higher education institutions, the film industry offers thousands of our young people the opportunity to be educated here and stay here with the promise of good paying jobs.

With world class natural landscapes, our state's outdoor recreation economy already produces nearly $10 billion in economic activity each year and $2.8 billion in wages.

Imagine how much we could grow that economic activity if we make a concerted investment in our state's outdoor recreation infrastructure, corresponding job training, and in the state's new Division of Outdoor Recreation.

Many of those investments will be made with the Great American Outdoors Act that I helped to pass last year.

Finally, if we think big, we can scale up our existing, advanced manufacturing capabilities in new high-tech fields.

We have multiple exciting projects moving forward that are the direct result of years of investment in our national labs, bases, and space innovation ecosystem.

Take THEIA Group, Inc.'s spacecraft manufacturing campus and the new mixed-use Max Q development right outside the fence of Kirtland that are leveraging our state's already prominent role in defense and aerospace.

THEIA's Orion Center alone will add 2,500 new jobs.

We need to move relentlessly and strategically to make our state the best place in America for emerging high-tech industries like small satellite manufacturing to put down roots.

This will mean being intentional about building comprehensive local business ecosystems around these new developments.

The planning around Max Q is a great example of this.

And while we are forging these new paths, we also need to fortify the areas where New Mexico already has major competitive advantages.

I'm committed to being a part of that work in the Senate.

Over the years, I've been able to strengthen the budgets, national security missions, and workforces at our national labs and military installations -- all of which contribute to our nation and to New Mexico's economy.

Sandia National Labs just released their latest Economic Impact Report yesterday.

Sandia's subcontract payments to local New Mexico businesses totaled more than $470 million.

The Lab also grew to over 12,600 permanent employees in New Mexico last year.

To put that in perspective, just over 8,000 people were employed by Sandia in New Mexico in the year before Pete Domenici retired from the U.S. Senate.

With funding and resources for our bases and labs, we can keep our nation safe, stay on the cutting edge of research and development, and grow our local economy.

When we make smart investments in the long-term success of New Mexico's diverse, creative, and resilient communities and in the assets that make our state so unique, there is no limit to what New Mexicans can accomplish.

Thank you.

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