SANTA FE, N.M. – Roughly 50,000 tons of goods travel along New Mexico’s stretch of I-40 every year, and even more travel by freight trains.

New Mexico’s state lawmakers know there’s economic opportunities hiding in all that traffic.

“Economic development is about location, location, location. And when you think about where New Mexico is in the country, when you’re looking at I-40, I-10, BNSF and Union Pacific rail, we’re right in the center,” said state Rep. Patty Lunstrom. 

But Lunstrom knows capitalizing on those trade routes will require new infrastructure in the form of trade ports.

“It is an Industrial Park on steroids, but it basically is, it’s an industrial park that provides a razor sharp focus on trade and distribution,” said Lunstrom. 

The goal is to provide new facilities for companies to store and distribute goods throughout the country without relying on the limited warehouse space in major port cities.

“We’ve seen some changes at the national level in terms of trade, and we want to be ready. We want New Mexico to be ready for that,” Lunstrom said.  

Lunstrom’s bill would incentivize public-private partnerships to get that new infrastructure built.

Bernalillo County is already working on a trade-port project for the Albuquerque area, and Lunstrom says there’s already conversations about building trade ports near Gallup and Las Cruces — just a few miles from the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

“Santa Teresa sits smack in the middle between the Port of Houston and the Port of Long Beach. Think about that location, location, location. We’ve got that right here in the state. This is a tremendous opportunity to build out that infrastructure,” said Speaker of the House Javier Martinez. 

House Bill 19 already cleared its First House Committee, but because it is a tax-related bill, legislative leaders say the plan is to roll it into a massive tax package — something we’ve seen before — to be approved later in the session.

Track HB 19 during the legislative session.