As Block Goes Personal, Nagamine Goes to the Numbers: HD 51 Challenger Releases Oil and Gas Fiscal Policy Brief

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — With two weeks left before the Nov. 3 general election, the two campaigns for New Mexico House District 51 are running on very different fuel.

Incumbent Rep. John Block, a Republican, has spent much of the closing stretch on personal attacks against his challenger on social media and in campaign messaging.  He has declined repeated requests from Alamogordo Town News to discuss his record or his positions or an on air interview with Anthony Lucero on KALHRadio.org

Independent candidate Grace Nagamine has answered with paperwork and detailed policy briefs. On Monday her campaign, Grace for Neighbors, released a ten-page policy brief titled Supporting Responsible Oil and Gas Development for New Mexico's Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability, a footnoted document with three data tables, 38 source citations, and five specific legislative commitments. It is the latest in a series of written position statements and draft bills the campaign has published since the summer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CSc3rV8cr5cLnfnicowv6mxXkoBaKFxn/view?usp=drive_link

"Supporting oil and gas is not an ideological choice; it's my choice because it is a fiscal necessity for New Mexico today and a practical strategy for sustainability tomorrow," Nagamine writes in the brief's conclusion.

Nearly half the General Fund

The brief leans on the state's own numbers. Citing the New Mexico Tax Research Institute's fiscal year 2025 accounting, it reports that the oil and gas industry generated $13.0 billion in state and local revenue last fiscal year, including $7.5 billion to the General Fund, or 48.6 percent of all General Fund revenue. About $5.67 billion of that supported day-to-day state operations, which works out to 41.7 percent of recurring revenue.

Because that share applies across the whole budget, the brief argues, it supports the same share of every General Fund program: $2.4 billion in education spending, $750 million of the state's Medicaid match that unlocks roughly $2.5 billion in federal dollars, $1.9 billion in capital outlay, and $228 million for public safety in FY25.

House District 51 produces no oil or gas. The brief's answer is that it does not matter. Drawing on county-level tables in the NMTRI report, it puts the oil and gas share of Otero County education funding at $61.9 million in FY25, including $25.8 million of Alamogordo Public Schools' state formula funding, $6.7 million for Tularosa, $3.2 million for Cloudcroft, and $4.0 million of NMSU-Alamogordo's operating budget. By the same measure, the industry funded 11 of the county's 26 public schools, 195 teachers, and 2,710 students. Oil and gas revenue also funded $37 million in capital outlay located in Otero County over the last five legislative sessions.

Save it, don't spend it

The core of the document is not the production numbers but what the state does with them. The brief makes the case for New Mexico's permanent funds, the sovereign-wealth-style accounts that convert one-time extraction revenue into permanent investment income, and for the 2023 law, Senate Bill 26, that caps the amount of oil and gas revenue flowing directly into the General Fund and routes the excess into the Severance Tax Permanent Fund and the state's early childhood, behavioral health, and Medicaid trust funds.

The results, according to the brief, are measurable. The Land Grant Permanent Fund reached $40.9 billion and the Severance Tax Permanent Fund $13.5 billion as of June 2026, and total assets managed by the State Investment Council now exceed $75 billion. The August 2026 consensus revenue estimate projects more than $13.8 billion will flow to the Severance Tax Permanent Fund between FY26 and FY30, and that investment earnings will overtake personal income taxes as the state's second-largest revenue source beginning in FY27. State Investment Council projections cited in the brief show permanent fund distributions growing from 13 percent of General Fund revenue today to about 32 percent by 2050 as direct oil and gas revenue declines.

"Oil and gas are finite," Nagamine writes. "The question is not whether direct production revenue will eventually moderate, but whether New Mexico will have converted enough of it into permanent investment income before it does."

The brief does not shy from the downside. It notes the state's own estimate that a $1 change in the price of New Mexico oil moves revenue by about $56.5 million, and that in the Legislature's low-price stress test, oil at $31 a barrel would leave the General Fund $1.73 billion short in FY28 even after the savings transfers absorb most of the shock. It also flags a warning from state economists that new earmarks are cutting projected revenue growth nearly in half in FY28 and that new demands on the Early Childhood Trust Fund have put that fund at risk.

Five commitments

Nagamine lays out five pledges for her first term if elected:

 Maintain responsible production under clear environmental and safety standards while maximizing state revenue, including support for the State Land Office's higher royalty rates and funding to plug abandoned wells.

Defend the Senate Bill 26 cap and oppose any effort to lift it, redirect windfall revenue into recurring spending, or create new earmarks that intercept money before it reaches the permanent funds.

 Oppose raising permanent fund distribution rates beyond what the funds can sustain or appropriating from the principal.

 Push for Otero County's share of oil-and-gas-funded capital outlay and trust fund distributions, naming water and road infrastructure, Holloman Air Force Base-related needs, senior and caregiver services, behavioral health, child welfare, and school capital funding for Alamogordo, Tularosa, and Cloudcroft.

 Require plain-language annual public reporting of how much oil and gas revenue is spent versus saved, and where the permanent fund distributions go.

The positions place Nagamine, who carries a Sierra Club endorsement, squarely in support of the industry that funds the state. The brief frames that as consistent rather than contradictory: production under clear water and air standards, with the proceeds saved rather than spent.

The contrast

Block sits on the House side of the Legislature that wrote the revenue estimates and the savings laws the brief cites. Alamogordo Town News asked his campaign whether he supports the Senate Bill 26 cap and the permanent fund distribution rules, and whether he would oppose new earmarks on oil and gas revenue. The candidate has not issued statements accordingly.

Voters can read the full brief, with its sources via the link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CSc3rV8cr5cLnfnicowv6mxXkoBaKFxn/view?usp=drive_link

Early voting in Otero County continues through Oct. 31.

Sources: Grace Nagamine, Supporting Responsible Oil and Gas Development for New Mexico's Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability (Grace for Neighbors, October 2026); New Mexico Tax Research Institute, The Role of Oil and Gas in New Mexico's Budget: FY2025 Update; Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, General Fund Consensus Revenue Estimate, August 2026; New Mexico State Investment Council, presentation to the Investments and Pensions Oversight Committee, Aug. 13,

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