Raúl Torrez says regulators failed to fully account for the data center’s environmental impacts when reviewing the proposed Green Chile Project pipeline

Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is pushing back against the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s review of a proposed gas pipeline intended to power the Project Jupiter data center, calling it “inadequate.”

Texas-based Energy Transfer early this year asked federal regulatory officials to approve construction of a gas pipeline, known as the “Green Chile Project,” to serve the Oracle and OpenAI Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County.

In a Monday filing with the commission, Torrez argued that federal regulatory officials have not adequately assessed the proposed pipeline’s environmental impact because their assessment did not include the environmental impacts of Project Jupiter itself. Source NM previously reported that the data center’s power system could emit more greenhouse gases annually than New Mexico’s largest cities combined.

“The commission is asking us essentially to consider the fuel line from a car’s gas tank to its engine wholly separate from the rest of the vehicle and to completely ignore the emissions coming out of the tailpipe,” Torrez wrote. “Project Jupiter in its current form cannot function without the pipeline, and this pipeline has no reason to exist other than to provide fuel for Project Jupiter.” 

Torrez also wrote that regulatory officials aren’t meeting their responsibilities as described in the National Environmental Policy Act, which says that officials can only conduct an environmental assessment of a proposal like this — rather than a more exhaustive environmental impact statement — if the proposal does not have “a reasonably foreseeable significant effect” on the environment.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Plans for the pipeline initially described it as a $60 million project that would carry gas from El Paso to Project Jupiter. It fits into Energy Transfer’s broader Desert Southwest Pipeline Expansion Project, though, which aims to build a data center-serving pipeline that stretches from Texas to Phoenix.

The plan has hit several roadblocks in the months since then. New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard, who is running as the Democratic nominee to be lieutenant governor, twice rejected Energy Transfer’s requests to build a portion of the pipeline on state trust land. In August, Energy Transfer’s federal regulatory filings showed that company officials expected the pipeline to be delayed to 2027.

Joshua Bowling is a senior reporter for Source New Mexico. He's reported in New Mexico, where he broke stories of lavish spending at Western New Mexico University and more, since 2022.