SANTA FE _ A bill that would direct two New Mexico agencies to develop a plan to reduce the hazard that crossing wildlife poses to motorists cleared a second legislative committee Tuesday.
The Senate Finance Committee voted 5-to-4 to advance Senate Bill 228, sponsored by Sen. Mimi Stewart, an Albuquerque Democrat. The vote was along party lines, with Democrats in the majority. The measure, which cleared the Senate Conservation Committee earlier this month, now heads to the full Senate.
Stewart testified that the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and the state transportation department have been meeting in recent years to address the rising incidence of crashes on state roadways involving wildlife. The agencies recently have cooperated on the installation of fencing along I-40 east of Albuquerque and in other areas to keep wildlife out of traffic, she said. Options elsewhere could include overpasses, underpasses, lighting and fencing, she said.
The bill originally called for taking $100,000 for a comprehensive study of the issue from the state’s Game Protection Fund. Stewart told the committee on Tuesday that it has been amended to earmark $500,000 from the transportation department’s budget.
Michael Dax, New Mexico outreach representative with Defenders of Wildlife, has been working with Stewart on the bill. Dax testified Tuesday that the number of collisions between vehicles and wildlife in the state increased from roughly 1,200 in 2013 to roughly 1,600 in 2016. He said drought and other factors that stress wildlife are to blame.
“There’s a huge wildlife conservation benefit to this, but there’s also a huge public safety benefit to this,” Dax said of developing the comprehensive plan. He said authorities in Arizona have been able to reduce motorist collisions with elk in the Flagstaff area by 90 percent recently.
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation supports Stewart’s bill on the grounds that it promises to protect both people and wildlife.
Sen. Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, said Tuesday she believes the transportation department ought to address other road improvements first before seeking to address wildlife issues. She said transportation department officials have told ranchers in Lea County that there’s no money available to install culverts that would allow the movement of cattle under a state highway.
“If we need to spend money, I want to see us spend it on the roads first, ” Kernan said. “And then after we’ve taken care of our road situation, we’re going to spend millions of dollars providing and overpass or an underpass for our wildlife, I don’t object to that at some point. But I think our priorities have to be at this point, how do we fix our areas.”
Stewart responded that the bill would address how the game department and transportation department devise a plan of how to address wildlife issues as a component of future highway projects. She said it won’t mean that the agencies abandon their main jobs in the meantime.
In other legislative action on Tuesday, the Senate Conservation Committee failed to advance SB 417. The bill would have expanded the authority of the State Game Commission to oversee thousands of non-game species in the state. The bill is dead as a result of the committee action.
The New Mexico Wildlife Federation wrote to committee members this week stating that the bill promised take license fee money from hunters and anglers for the administrative costs of overseeing non-game species.
“The state’s 46-year history of no or nominal general fund appropriations for the state’s endangered species program gives no reason to believe an expanded non-game program would fare any better,” the federation wrote.
Another bill that would have increased hunting and fishing license fees for the first time in more than a decade died in the Legislature last week. The federation had supported the bill, SB 382, sponsored by Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas.
