House concurs on federal aid spending bill, sending it to governor | Legislature | New Mexico Legislative Session

It took the House of Representatives about 20 minutes to approve some Senate changes to a $ 478 million federal budget bill, and the bill is now moving to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk.

Funds in House Bill 2 account for approximately one-third of the American Rescue Plan Act’s available funds of $ 1.1 billion, plus an additional $ 130 million in federal funding. The funds will be used, among other things, to expand broadband services, rehabilitate roads and bridges, provide assistance to the homeless and set up a fund to provide teacher loans.

Legislators plan to deal with the remaining funds during the regular 30-day session that begins next month.

While the spending bill itself didn’t spark much conflict or controversy during this month’s special session, which primarily focuses on redistributing efforts, the issue of federal pandemic aid appropriation sparked a legal and political battle between lawmakers and Lujan Grisham, one of the Democrats.

The governor argued she had the right to spend federal funds, but two senators – Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, and Greg Baca, R-Belen – filed a lawsuit to challenge the move and won the state Supreme Court, who ordered a freeze on federal spending on pandemic aid until legislature approves funding.

Throughout the session, lawmakers – mostly Republicans – thanked Candelaria and Baca, noting that the lawsuit upheld the lawmakers as an appropriative body.

“We’re here because these two stood up to the governor and said, ‘No, appropriation is our job, not your job,'” said Senator Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque, during a Senate session on the bill Tuesday.

At the beginning of the session, the Senate Finance Committee made a financial change to House Bill 2 by cutting $ 26 million from broadband expansion. Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, told House members Thursday the move won’t stop broadband expansion plans and said lawmakers could allocate that $ 26 million during the 2022 session.

During Thursday’s House of Representatives debate on the bill to agree, Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, wondered aloud whether that $ 26 million could be reused to supplement emergency feeding programs at food banks across the state. HB 2 currently provides $ 5 million for these programs.

“It would have been great to put that on the chalkboards because I know we have a lot of needs when it comes to food problems … and people who are not getting enough food right now,” said Lord.

The governor has three days to respond to the bills sent to her during a special session, wrote her spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett in an email on Thursday.