Four Las Cruces-area lawmakers criticized transparency, energy claims, air pollution and ratepayer risks tied to the Santa Teresa data center project.

Damien Willis, Organ Mountain News

LAS CRUCES - Four New Mexico state senators announced an Aug. 11 public listening session on Project Jupiter Thursday while sharply criticizing the transparency, energy claims, environmental risks and public process surrounding the Santa Teresa data center project.

Sens. Carrie Hamblen, Joseph Cervantes, Bill Soules and Jeff Steinborn spoke at La Llorona Park, with the Rio Grande behind them, as residents and opponents of the project gathered nearby.

The listening session is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, in the third-floor ballroom at Corbett Center. Hamblen said the session will be free and open to the public, and will focus on state-level agencies involved in permitting air, energy and water issues tied to Project Jupiter.

“We invite you to join us as we all try to get clear answers about how Project Jupiter will impact all of us,” Hamblen said.

Hamblen said the location of Thursday’s press conference was deliberate.

“Behind us flows the Rio Grande, life force to many of our farming and rural communities,” Hamblen said. “And although it’s quite bright out, we appreciate the clear blue skies that our region is known for.”

She said lawmakers do not want either threatened by a project residents have opposed.

“Let me be clear: We are not here to support Project Jupiter,” Hamblen said. “We share the same concerns that those who live and work in this area, many for generations, have about the future of their livelihoods should this move forward.”

A listening session after a disputed public process

The Aug. 11 meeting is intended to give residents another opportunity to question state officials about the project after lawmakers criticized earlier public outreach as inadequate.

Cervantes, who represents District 31, said he had initially remained open-minded after Doña Ana County approved industrial revenue bond capacity for the project. He said he expected a public forum where residents could ask questions and learn more about the proposal.

Instead, Cervantes said, the process changed.

“The date was changed. And then the purpose was changed,” Cervantes said. “And then the meeting took place a couple of weeks ago, and there was not a listening session, there was not questions, there was not information. It was a job fair.”

Cervantes said that prompted the senators to organize the Aug. 11 session.

“We are going to invite and ask the state leaders, the secretaries, the cabinet secretaries of environment, state government, state engineer who regulates our water and our state leaders to come together on Aug. 11 and give us the opportunity — all of you, the opportunity — to give us questions,” Cervantes said. “We’re going to take those questions, we’re going to present those questions and we’re going to try and get you answers.”

Hamblen said she and Cervantes represent districts where Project Jupiter is located, and that constituents have raised concerns about environmental impacts, water, air quality and the number of jobs being promoted by project backers.

Questions over transparency and shifting energy claims

Soules, who represents District 37, said he first heard about Project Jupiter last August, about two weeks before the Doña Ana County Commission was scheduled to vote on the project.

“This is a major economic development project, and legislators in the area were not consulted, were not made aware of, were not part of that decision,” Soules said.

Soules said he is concerned about what he described as a lack of transparency around the project and about a late-session amendment in 2025 that redefined microgrids in a way he said appeared to benefit Project Jupiter.

“Clearly, Project Jupiter is not a microgrid,” Soules said.

He also questioned the project’s changing energy explanations, saying he had heard the project described at different times as relying on combined-cycle natural gas, nuclear, solar and, more recently, fuel cells.

“It keeps shifting and changing,” Soules said. “I’m concerned about, with the fuel cells, where will the hydrogen come from? Is it gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen or green hydrogen?”

Soules said gray and blue hydrogen are carbon-intensive sources. He also questioned the project’s economic claims, including how many jobs would go to New Mexico residents and what the median salary would be.

“We keep hearing an average salary, but that is often skewed by very high corporate salaries when the median is much lower,” Soules said.

Soules said lawmakers and residents need more specific answers about the project’s true local economic impact.

“Everywhere data centers have gone, they’ve over-promised and under-delivered,” Soules said. “Why is this one going to be different? And what protections are there when they don’t live up to the promises?”

Cervantes says project is being ‘quarterbacked out of Santa Fe’

Cervantes said he does not oppose technology or artificial intelligence, which he said is already part of daily life and his law practice.

“I’m acknowledging the frontiers and the future,” Cervantes said. “And I think we have to do that.”

But he said the process surrounding Project Jupiter has been flawed from the start.

“This project is being quarterbacked out of Santa Fe,” Cervantes said. “And it has been starting back in 2025. And it continues to be quarterbacked out of the state capital even today.”

Cervantes said the project’s technology, parties and corporate structure have continued to change.

“The technology has changed, the parties have changed,” Cervantes said. “This was going to be Jupiter. This was going to be something. Now it’s Oracle. I don’t know who the players are.”

He described the project as a “shell game” and said southern New Mexico residents were being treated as “guinea pigs.”

“This project would have never been initiated in Bernalillo County,” Cervantes told a cheering crowd. “This project would have never been initiated in Taos or Los Alamos.”

Cervantes said the region’s need for jobs and economic development has made it vulnerable to less scrutiny and oversight from what he described as an "absence of abundant media, candidly — print media, public media, television media."

“We have a community that is desperate for good jobs, good wages,” Cervantes said. “They’re purposefully treating this community and this project as a guinea pig.”

Steinborn raises ratepayer and pollution concerns

Steinborn, who represents District 36, said the debate over Project Jupiter fits into a broader pattern of New Mexico communities being asked to bear the environmental costs of major development.

“For too long, New Mexico has a history of being treated as a sacrifice zone,” Steinborn said, citing uranium mining, PFAS contamination near military bases, orphaned oil and gas wells and toxic plumes threatening water supplies.

“We are not going to tolerate being sacrificed again from these new data centers,” Steinborn said.

Steinborn focused on the state’s microgrid law, saying lawmakers created a loophole that allows self-generated power plants to avoid renewable energy requirements that apply to utilities.

“Do you all know (that) when you plug into El Paso Electric right now, 40% of the energy has to come from renewable energy and this will grow to 100% by 2050?” Steinborn said. “We specifically passed an amendment saying if you create your own power, you don’t have to use any renewable energy.”

Steinborn also raised concerns about whether utility customers could end up subsidizing power infrastructure tied to large data center projects.

“If a utility then buys that power, they can raise your rates, meaning that the rest of us would be subsidizing power plants for billion-dollar companies,” Steinborn said.

Steinborn said Project Jupiter, as currently proposed, would be a major source of pollution. He criticized the project’s shift toward fuel cells and said that change did not resolve the environmental concerns because the fuel cells would still be powered by natural gas.

“This proposal, as it stands now, would emit 10 million tons of CO2 into our environment,” Steinborn said. “We cannot accept that. And we are not going to accept that.”

Steinborn said the state can still act through the permitting process. He urged residents to submit public comments to the New Mexico Environment Department on the project’s pending air permit, which he said is listed under Yucca Growth Infrastructure and has a July 6 deadline.

“The state can reject this air permit,” Steinborn said. “And we urge them to do so.”

Lawmakers pledge renewed microgrid legislation

Steinborn said he introduced the Microgrid Oversight Act during the last legislative session to close loopholes and require microgrids to use the same amount of renewable energy as utilities.

The bill passed the Senate by one vote but was not heard in the House, he said.

“We are all committed to passing the Microgrid Oversight Act next session in Santa Fe,” Steinborn said. “You can count on it. And in fact, we’ll probably make it stronger.”

Steinborn also said that if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham calls a special session before leaving office, lawmakers should include the Microgrid Oversight Act in that session.

Hamblen closed the press conference by saying the lawmakers are not opposed to economic development, but object to pursuing it at the expense of residents.

“We are not opposed to economic development, but not to achieve it on the backs of the people who have been living and loving and working in our region,” Hamblen said. “That is not a sacrifice we are willing to make.”

The Aug. 11 listening session is free and open to the public.

Damien Willis is founder and editor of Organ Mountain News. If you have a personal story to share or a lead we should follow up on, reach out at OrganMountainNews@gmail.com or connect with him on X at @damienwillis.