Permian Development Fueling Climate Change, Martha Burk and Augusta National & Ukrainian Americans of NM Reflect on Ongoing Invasion

This week on New Mexico in Focus, Gene Grant and The Line Opinion Panel react to Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller’s announcement that the city’s police force will be smaller than promised. Gene asks our panelists whether we should be focused on the number of officers, or how they’re being used. Then, Gene and the panel dissect the Santa Fe District Attorney’s decision to withdraw from the deadly Rust filmset shooting case. Two new special prosecutors have been appointed after the first one stepped down last month. The panel reflects on that decision and looks ahead to the case’s preliminary hearing scheduled for May 3.   

The continued oil boom in the Permian Basin is reflected in the state’s budget. But it also affects the climate, local communities, and the landscape. Not only that, but many companies pollute beyond what regulations allow, with few repercussions. Jerry Redfern, a reporter with Capital & Main, talks about the role his reporting played in fines levied against two Texas companies —  and about New Mexico’s disproportionate contributions to the planet’s warming climate. 

Every year on the second week of April, the golf world turns its attention to Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia — it’s time for the Masters Tournament, one of the sport’s four annual major championships. In 2003, a concussion bomb fell on the carefully controlled environment in the form of New Mexico’s Marth Burk, a longtime champion for women’s pay equity and a host of other issues.  Burk had set her sights on Augusta’s exclusionary membership policies and on the massive pay gaps in companies led by some of the club’s members and television sponsors. Burk’s protest is now the stuff of legend. NMPBS Executive Producer Jeff Proctor caught up with Burk for a chat — on Masters week, no less — about what’s changed and what hasn’t in the two decades since her protest. 

One year after Russia invaded Ukraine, a group of Ukrainian citizens in New Mexico is pushing even harder to rally support for their home country. Nataliya Pavlenko-Edleman and Larysa Castillo lead the organization, Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico. Senior Producer Lou DiVizio sits down with them to ask about the emotional burdens of the past year, and the role women have played in the war effort, both in Ukraine and in New Mexico.

Host: Gene Grant

The Line opinion panel:
T.J. Trout, radio host, KKOB 
Laura Sanchez, attorney 
H. Diane Snyder, former NM State Senator

Segments:
Permian Development Fuels Climate Change 
Correspondent: Laura Paskus 
Guest: Jerry Redfern, reporter, Capital & Main 

Martha Burk and Augusta National, 20 Years Later 
Correspondent: Jeff Proctor 
Guest: Martha Burk, Author, Host of the Podcast ‘Equal Time with Martha Burk’ 

Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico Reflect on Ongoing Invasion, More Than One Year Later 
Correspondent: Lou DiVizio 
Guests: Nataliya Pavlenko-Edleman, president, Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico 
Larysa Castillo, vice president, Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico