Days remaining in the session: 15

 

Lab taxes: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday signed Senate Bill 11, which would allow the state to maintain its tax revenues if nonprofit organizations become the primary contractor at Los Alamos or Sandia national laboratories.

 

Nonprofits operating in the state are exempt from paying gross receipts taxes. Senate Bill 11 ends this exception if a nonprofit organization receives the contract to run a national lab.

 

As it stands, some $77 million in gross receipts taxes are paid annually by the contractor at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and $95 million are paid by the contractor at Sandia National Laboratories.

 

Neither lab is run by a nonprofit, but legislators fear that could change.

 

Triad National Security LLC last November took over management of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Triad’s associates in the venture are the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Texas A&M University System and the University of California, all of which are nonprofits.

 

“This is an important safeguard,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “I’m glad legislators addressed the issue with speed and that there was bipartisan agreement on its necessity.”

 

West Side story: Hundreds of students from Albuquerque filled the halls, offices and legislative chambers of the Capitol on Thursday as part of West Side Day.

 

As part of the event, Sen. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque, joined Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, in hosting a question-and-answer session with many of the students, taking up such topics as school safety, gun control and open government.

 

Emma Smith, a sophomore at West Mesa High School, asked Maestas about teacher shortages in Albuquerque. She said the visit “gives me a chance to ask questions I’m worried about. The lack of teachers really bothers me.”

 

PTSD coverage: The House of Representatives on Thursday voted 50-4 for a bill that would include post-traumatic stress disorder as a medical condition to be covered by insurance for firefighters.

 

Freshman Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-Albuquerque, sponsored the proposal, House Bill 324. It was her first bill to clear the 70-member House.

 

Veteran legislators told her she had to go through an initiation of singing a song.

 

Stansbury managed to unite Democrats and Republicans in joining her for a sing-along to Garth Brooks’ country song Friends in Low Places.

 

Quote of the day: “It’s a circle. There’s no such thing as a wrong way.” — A staff member of the House of Representatives to a man who was lost in the Capitol, informally called the Roundhouse.