09-02-2025
Turning up the heat at the Leg: Lawmakers mull making August "Red or Green Chile Month'
Feb. 9—SANTA FE — Reaffirming New Mexico's position as the prime location to grow and get chile, legislators are looking to permanently mark August as Red and Green Chile Month.
House Bill 172 passed its first committee, the House Rural Development, Land Grants And Cultural Affairs, Tuesday morning. The two-page-long bipartisan bill is sponsored by a quarter of all state legislators.
"We are trying to build an agricultural tourism industry in New Mexico, and this has to be part of it," sponsor Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, told the committee on Tuesday.
Naturally, Colorado was roasted at the hearing.
"Is there a tagline, like we're the best and Colorado sucks?" Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, asked jokingly.
Rep. Catherine Cullen, R-Rio Rancho, who's from Colorado, said she supports the bill, too, and didn't even know Pueblo, Colorado, grew chile until she moved to New Mexico.
When asked "Why August?," bill expert Travis Day explained the summer month is usually when harvest is happening, in both northern and southern New Mexico. Day is the executive director of the New Mexico Chile Association.
Measures like this are usually introduced in the form of memorials, which pass more quickly through the Legislature, but Dow told the Journal after the committee meeting she wanted the celebratory month to be permanent.
"We really are trying to be intentional about highlighting the season and working with New Mexico True and New Mexico Grown and farm-to-table and all these different issues around hunger," she said.
And, she told the committee, the bill unites everyone regardless of how they answer the question, "Red or green?"
"We didn't leave out jalapeños. We didn't leave out habaneros," Dow said. "We're going to celebrate at all."
