US Interior cancels maintenance, programming at national parks, including several New Mexico sites

By Joshua Bowling | Senior Reporter

Hot air balloons inflate at this year’s Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. (Photo by Danielle Prokop for Source NM)

Good morning, everyone. It’s Tuesday. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is officially over and now we prepare for New Mexico’s next big event — expanded early voting. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office is expected to release new total vote counts today as government offices were closed yesterday for Indigenous Peoples Day. As of Oct. 9, approximately 21,000 voters — less than 2% of the state’s electorate — had cast early ballots and nearly 60% of those came from registered Democrats. Registered Republicans have cast about 26% of the ballots so far; independents or Decline to State voters account for nearly 14% and the rest of the votes have come from the Forward, Green and Libertarian minor parties. Early voting is still limited to county clerks’ offices but will expand to several more locations on Oct. 17. For more information on this year’s federal, statewide and legislative contests, check out Source NM’s Voter Guide. Below and on sourcenm.com, you’ll find stories on potential cuts to New Mexico’s national parks, a fight over a federal proposal to pare back the Head Start program and much more. Thanks for reading!

US Interior cancels maintenance, programming at national parks, including several New Mexico sites

The U.S. Department of the Interior has canceled contracts to conduct routine maintenance and programming at numerous national parks and downgraded nearly 1,500 more projects across the country to “low priority” status, including several in New Mexico, according to the nonpartisan conservation group Center for Western Priorities. The conservation group pulled records from an internal National Park Service database and published them in an interactive map that contains details for each of the canceled or downgraded projects.

New Mexico US Sen. Heinrich touts bipartisan permitting reform bill amid environmentalist criticism

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Monday held back-to-back meetings in Albuquerque with labor leaders, manufacturers and renewable energy companies to tout his new, bipartisan permitting reform bill, which has drawn criticism from local and national environmental advocacy groups. Heinrich, who serves as the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, described the 417-page Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 on Monday as a “very fine balancing act” achieved over months of negotiations.

New Mexico officials, program leaders rebuke proposed Head Start federal rollback

New Mexico’s congressional delegation, Attorney General Raúl Torrez and state program leaders have all denounced the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the Head Start program, which they argue would illegally modify and weaken program services. The proposal would increase staff-to-child ratios, require English-only instruction and lower the cap on administrative spending to 5%.

Election betting is booming as the midterms near. Do states have the power to curb it?

Prediction markets have emerged as a flashpoint in state and federal relations, as a host of states struggle with the Trump administration over who has authority to regulate the platforms and whether state laws restricting gambling apply to them. Four New Mexico pueblos and tribes sued Kalshi in U.S. District Court, where their case remains pending, alleging that the app violates gaming compacts and federal law by enabling sports gambling on tribal land.

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