DPS plane took lawmakers to rally, hearing

SANTA FE – Two Republican state lawmakers and a top staffer in the office of Lt. Gov. John Sanchez flew to Roswell on a state-owned aircraft earlier this week to attend a rally and federal hearing on the lesser prairie chicken.

The round-trip flight from Santa Fe cost $1,388 and was requested by Sanchez’s office. The Department of Public Safety owns the aircraft and State Police Chief Robert Shilling gave final approval.

Gov. Susana Martinez’s office defended use of the aircraft.

“The reason they flew was so they could miss as little as possible of the legislative session, while still testifying before the federal government on a very important issue,” Martinez spokesman Enrique Knell said.

State-owned planes can be used only for official purposes and to transport authorized individuals, a definition that includes elected or appointed state officials.

Martinez has criticized the travel habits of her predecessor, former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson and his administration. She has trimmed the size of the state air fleet by selling several planes, including the executive jet Richardson had purchased. As a result, use of state-owned planes has decreased dramatically since she took office in 2011.

On their trip this week, Sanchez’s chief of staff, Mark Van Dyke, and the two GOP legislators – Rep. Bob Wooley of Roswell and Sen. Carroll Leavell of Jal – attended a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hearing on whether the federal government should designate the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species.

The three also attended a rally before the hearing. Both Wooley and Leavell spoke at the rally, which was organized by the Roswell and Artesia chambers of commerce, and raised concerns that listing the lesser prairie chicken as threatened could severely damage oil and natural gas production in the area.

Leavell said Thursday that he was asked to make the same-day trip because Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, a Portales Republican, could not go.

“I have never requested the use of a state plane, but I appreciated it the other night,” Leavell said. “I think I was exactly where I needed to be at that rally and testifying at the hearing.”

He also said he felt it was an “obligation” to represent residents of his Senate district at the hearing. New regulations that could be enacted if the lesser prairie chicken is ultimately listed as a threatened species could cost the state between $500 million and $1 billion in lost oil and gas tax revenue, Leavell said.

Meanwhile, Wooley, when asked this week about traveling on the state-owned aircraft, said, “I’m not going to go there.”

“You can request that information from them if you’re going to blast me in the paper,” Wooley told the Journal.

Sanchez’s office originally asked the General Services Department to provide the flight, but its lone aircraft was undergoing repairs, an agency spokesman said. That led to the request being redirected to the Department of Public Safety.

“Had there been any public safety missions operating at the same time, those missions would have taken precedence over this flight,” GSD spokesman Tim Korte said.

The lesser prairie chicken, a member of the prairie grouse family, has a range that includes parts of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas. Most of its grass and brushland habitat is on private land.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in November that it was considering formally listing the bird as a threatened species. A decision on the listing is expected by November of this year.

This week’s hearing in Roswell was one of four review meetings scheduled by the federal government. The other three meetings are outside New Mexico.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal