New Energy Economy

10/16/2026

Today the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that a new analysis by Climate Matters released Wednesday found that Southern New Mexico tied for second as the fastest warming Congressional District in the United States, with temperatures rising 4.8°F between 1970 and 2025.

And that is precisely where Oracle is insisting on building Project Jupiter, where the immediate neighborhoods, playgrounds and six schools are already suffering from this heat caused by fossil fuel combustion. And they are the people who will be directly affected by up to 9°C warming due to data heat island effects that can be expected from this monstrous project.

This is why we continue to fight Project Jupiter tooth and nail!

Yesterday, in the wake of the new Hearing Officer's order to NMED to publish the administrative record in full, we filed a motion to dismiss Yucca Growth Infrastructure, LLC’s (“YGI”) Project Jupiter air permit application without prejudice. The newly accessible portions of the administrative record revealed a striking development: when more accurate information about the proposed facility was incorporated into air-dispersion modeling, modeled pollutant concentrations doubled.

Today at a Procedural conference the Hearing Officer scheduled a hearing on the Motion to Dismiss for October 26th, and said that discovery will be allowed in the case over the objections of Project Jupiter's lawyers.

In an October 2nd email contained in the administrative record, NMED explained that YGI had supplied additional information concerning the actual design of Bloom fuel cell stacks and resulting exhaust at the proposed Project Jupiter facility. According to NMED, the consequences were dramatic. Although total emissions increased by approximately two percent, modeled pollutant concentrations doubled. NMED expressly concluded that the new modeling “calls into question whether the original use of assumptions is a defensible and conservative approach.”

That sentence should stop this proceeding in its tracks. The agency charged with determining whether this massive facility complies with New Mexico’s air-quality laws has itself questioned whether the assumptions underlying the original pollution modeling are defensible. The Air Quality Bureau cannot simply proceed toward a hearing as though nothing material has changed.

YGI previously represented that a more exact characterization of the proposed pollution sources would have “no noticeable effect” on the modeling results. NMED’s records prove that assertion wrong.

In the same October 2nd communication, NMED stated that the Air Quality Bureau “must now assess the significance of YGI’s specific updates.” Then, in an October 9th communication, NMED identified still more information needed to evaluate YGI’s changing air-dispersion modeling, including emissions information, stack-specific emissions, flow rates, temperatures, stack parameters, supporting calculations, and a detailed explanation of changes to YGI’s configuration.

The Department also stated that the configuration and operating conditions described in the permit application must accurately represent the physical and operational design of the proposed YGI microgrid and that those characteristics must correspond to the parameters used in the air-dispersion modeling.

As our Motion argues, those disclosures lead to a straightforward conclusion: the application presently before the Hearing Officer is incomplete and a new application must be resubmitted if the developer wants to proceed. We asked Judge Browning, the Hearing Officer, to dismiss YGI’s application as incomplete and not presently capable of merits adjudication.

That determination will be made at the hearing on October 26th.

Oracle has responded by issuing a press release stating that they have a new plan - a "refinement" - with operating caps that will somehow reduce emissions by 35% without changing anything about the amount of data computation capacity, but we have not yet seen any of those details.

From our perspective this is yet another argument for dismissal of the air permit application. The application submitted is no longer relevant and the facts have not yet been disclosed, let alone reviewed and analyzed by the permitting agency.

In a significant development NMED stated at the hearing today that, given the new information, it has not yet determined if the existing application is deficient or made a decision on whether to support our Motion to Dismiss.

Project Jupiter is a massive hyperscale data center with potentially enormous consequences for New Mexico.

There is no legitimate reason to sacrifice scientific integrity or meaningful public participation to meet Oracle’s building schedule. When better information causes modeled pollutant concentrations to double, you do not rush forward.

You stop, follow the evidence, and require the applicant to get the science right.

Dear Friend, Today the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that a new analysis by Climate Matters released Wednesday found that Southern New Mexico tied for second as the fastest warming Congressional District in the United States, with temperatures rising 4.8°F between 1970 and 2025. And that is prec.....

10/16/2026

Santa Fe-based environmental advocacy group New Energy Economy moved Wednesday for Project Jupiter’s air quality permit application to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning developers would be able to reapply for the permit. The group argued the permit application is “administratively incomplete.”

Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said the details revealed in the email disclosures demonstrate “exactly why public access to the administrative record matters.”

“Once we could examine the evidence, we discovered something extraordinary: NMED’s own records show that when more accurate information about the power source was modeled, predicted pollutant concentrations doubled,” she said in a statement. “This is not our characterization; this is what the permitting agency itself documented.”

Staff with the state agency noted some pollutant concentration estimates doubled in recent modeling of emissions for the data' center’s fuel cell plant.

10/16/2026

“What happened here demonstrates exactly why public access to the administrative record matters,” Mariel Nanasi, NEE’s executive director and an attorney, stated in a Thursday news release.

“NMED’s own records show that when more accurate information about the power source was modeled, predicted pollutant concentrations doubled. This is not our characterization. This is what the permitting agency itself documented.”

NEE filed a petition asking Browning to dismiss the application without prejudice, meaning it could be resubmitted, or to stay the proceedings and require YGI to update and correct the application with new technical information to provide time for intervenors and technical experts to review the information and prepare testimony.

The hearing officer presiding over a vital air quality permit application for Project Jupiter will weigh a new motion seeking to dismiss the application as incomplete, due to changing estimates of pollution from the site once operational.

Correspondence earlier this month between the New Mexico Environment Department and the builder of its proposed microgrid facility indicated that updated modeling of the projected exhaust doubled previous estimates of concentrated pollutants along with a 2% increase in emissions.

A motion seeks to dismiss the data center permit after updated modeling doubled some pollutant concentrations.

09/29/2026

THE BATTLE AGAINST DESTRUCTIVE NEO-LIBERAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY APPEARS NEVER ENDING

Neo-liberal, pro-corporate "solutions" and "economic development" excuses for every violent, extractive industrial project proposed in New Mexico continue to influence legislators, regulators and elected officials across the state.

We were grateful to learn that our intervention at the recent State Land Office rulemaking to strengthen financial assurance bonds for oil and gas wells resulted in critical improvements to the proposed rule - particularly the inclusion of a new trigger for enhanced bonding requirements that will apply to some of the worst operators, "a pattern of repeated spills or releases of hydrocarbons, produced water, or other contaminants on the lease premises or on the lessee’s other state oil and gas leases" as a trigger for enhanced bonding requirements.

But a new report found that more than 300 wells were added to the state’s inactive list in 2025, a pace of growth three times faster than New Mexico’s well-plugging program. The report also points out that there are now more than 16,800 likely soon-to-be-abandoned st****er wells in operation, and that the average cost to remediate such wells has risen to $250,000 each. The legislature continues to do nothing of substance to address this looming environmental and financial crisis.

The new State Land Office rule raising the minimum bond to $150,000 for oil and gas leases is a courageous example of government for the public good, but it will not discourage abandonment of the wells already drilled with insufficient bonds. Or the many wells regulated by OCD on federal and private lands.

The PRC passed rules that create new barriers to public-interest participation and give presiding officers expanded authority to restrict discovery, testimony, cross-examination, and the scope of public hearings. Yesterday we filed a Joint Motion for Reconsideration with the Coalition for Community Solar Access and the New Mexico Consumers Protection Alliance, with support from many, including the City of Las Cruces and others. Numerous other groups, including the NM Department of Justice and the Public Interest Staff Attorneys at the PRC also filed motions calling for reconsideration.

These tools (cross-examination and discovery and expanding the scope of hearings) are how we win - this is how NEE holds corporations accountable and has saved NM ratepayers more than $1.75 billion. The PRC's proposed new rules are radically undemocratic and an affront to public access.

New data center proposals continue to pop up, and while residents try to fight back, decision makers are lured by vague promises about jobs and community benefits. In Raton the city council voted down a community led call for a data center moratorium.

In Lea County, Commissioners are set to vote on an IRB inducement proposal for a new Google data center, which comes with promises of co-developed solar and "closed loop" water consumption, but presentations about the project include no details about fossil fuel power plans or actual water sources.

This is a critical moment. As AI developers rush to build, no matter the consequences to the economy as a whole, their shareholders or humanity, New Mexico officials need to slow down and make sure that decisions in our state are scientifically based and grounded in democratic community engagement.

Are we clairvoyant? Last week on Tuesday we wrote to y'all about the precarious financial position of Project Jupiter developers. The very next day Oracle informed investors behind the project, Stack Infrastructure owned by Blue Owl, that it was declaring "force majeure," a contractual clause normal...

09/29/2026

Senator Hamblen writes in an op-ed: “New Mexico needs a two-year statewide moratorium on large-scale data centers enacted into law.

We applaud Deb Haaland’s commitment to issuing an executive order on day one expressing her gubernatorial position against hyperscale data center development. An executive order is not a substitute for legislative action, and rushed “guardrails” legislation in this 60-day session is not a substitute for the comprehensive, science-based and democratically generated protections New Mexicans deserve.

New Mexicans are very clear about needing a pause. A recent statewide poll found 65% oppose large data centers and 75% support a state law pausing new large-scale projects until New Mexico establishes standards regulating their impacts. That support crosses political lines.

The public has valid reasons for caution. These enormous industrial facilities raise serious concerns for our water, air, climate, health, electricity system and economic stability.

Regarding is heat waste: Nearly all electricity consumed by computing (the data campus and the power for the data campus) ultimately require the heat generated to be expelled into the surrounding environment.

Recent research has identified a “data heat island effect,” with waste heat increases ranging from 0.2 degrees Celsisu to more than 10 degrees C across the facilities studied. In a warming, drought-stricken state, the temperature increases could be devastating on the environment, and the quality of life for New Mexicans.
Noise presents another public-health concern. Cooling systems, fans and generators operate around the clock.

The health impacts of nonstop noise are significant. Excessive environmental noise can disrupt sleep, cognitive function, and increase the risk of hypertension and heart disease.

The threat of the potential air and climate pollution is also unprecedented. For example, Project Jupiter’s proposed methane-fueled power system could emit many millions metric tons of greenhouse gases every year — more than the current annual emissions inventories of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe combined. It would also add nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and carbon monoxide to our challenged border airshed.

There is financial uncertainty, too. $18 billion in debt tied to Project Jupiter is already trading below face value. Oracle was downgraded in July to one notch above junk, raising important questions about stranded assets and who bears the cost if projections change after communities and utilities commit water, land, generation and transmission.

Even researchers and executives inside the AI industry are now calling for “pacing” — slowing the development of increasingly powerful AI while adequate governance and safety systems catch up.
These AI insiders are calling for the government to act — and that’s what my colleagues and I are doing.

Lawmakers in 16 states are considering data center bans or moratoria. After years of competing for these facilities with subsidies, states are also reassessing that bargain: At least 13 states have considered rolling back preferential tax incentives.

We need at least two years to bring stakeholders including affected communities, tribes, acequias, scientists, public-health experts, utilities, labor, local governments, environmental advocates, financial experts and industry to develop a comprehensive framework addressing water, heat waste, noise, pollution, electricity rates, grid reliability, climate impacts, financial assurance, transparency, cumulative impacts and local authority.

Those protections should be the product of the moratorium — not a substitute.

New Mexico does not need to race an industry that is itself racing ahead of the science, existing regulatory architecture and even the certainty of its own financial future.

A statutory moratorium gives us extraordinarily valuable: time. Time to understand the science, listen to communities, integrate best practices, and build durable regulation for future generations.
We can build a prosperous New Mexico without sacrificing the land, water and communities we love — or the inheritance we owe generations yet to come.”

Sen. Carrie Hamblen represents District 38 in Southern New Mexico, where Project Jupiter is currently under construction.

08/25/2026

The Santa Fe New Mexican editorial board writes, “The air permit hearing for Project Jupiter, a planned data center in Southern New Mexico, shouldn’t become a rubber stamp, allowing the project to go forward regardless of its impact on state air quality.

That’s why a New Mexico Supreme Court stay on the proceedings — a rare Sunday evening ruling — is so important.

New Energy Economy asked the court last week to table the air-quality permit proceedings, alleging the process was violating due process and amounted to a “trial by ambush.” On Sunday night, the court issued the stay against the Environment Department.

At the same time, justices granted a stay — against the state engineer and Santa Teresa Capital LLC — over an emergency drilling authorization issued in October. The authorization had permitted drilling a new well for water to build Project Jupiter. The stay, requested by the Center for Biological Diversity, temporarily freezes water use from the well.

Parties have until Sept. 2 to file responses in connection with both orders.

The stays are halting what has been a race to the finish to get the data center up and running without fully considering its impact on New Mexico’s air and water resources.

Here’s what New Energy Economy correctly identifies as a violation of due process against the opponents of Project Jupiter, a $165 billion AI-training data center complex under construction in Doña Ana County.

The air permitting hearing is being sped up, first of all.

First scheduled for October, the hearing now will begin Sept. 14 — yet hearing officer Max Shepherd initially had wanted the later date. He believed both sides needed ample time to prepare for a “highly technical hearing.” Oh, make that ex-hearing officer Shepherd. He now has recused himself.

The data center developers wanted the accelerated timeline. Officials with Oracle, one of the companies behind Project Jupiter, met with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham the same day as the July 27 scheduling conference. Two days later, the hearing was moved to Sept. 14 from October. Coincidence or a push from the Fourth Floor?

What’s more, objectors to the permit are being denied discovery — that’s the process by which parties exchange evidence and documents prior to the legal proceeding. That would have clarified issues ahead of the hearing. Experts for New Energy Economy also were being asked to begin entering testimony without viewing the administrative record on which testimony will be based.

As for the water permit, the Center for Biological Diversity is alleging no true emergency existed — therefore, the grounds for issuing an “emergency” permit lacked merit. The Office of the State Engineer also allegedly failed to provide adequate public notice and didn’t hold a required hearing to consider the change in water use.

So far, the emergency well has pumped 103 million gallons of freshwater since April — in an area already facing a severe water shortage.

The Supreme Court’s welcome intervention will slow down the process to open Project Jupiter, offering an opportunity to consider whether this project truly benefits New Mexico.

Look at air quality: Even with state-of-the-art energy generation, it’s estimated the project will produce more than 10 million tons of greenhouse gases every year, more than the combined emissions of Albuquerque and Las Cruces.

Developers are saying that if they can’t get the permit, they instead could hook up to the El Paso Electric grid; they’ve resisted calls to use renewable energy. When grid connections happen, ratepayers are stuck with higher electricity costs. Working people pay more so big companies can make billions, an unfair equation.
Increased electricity costs in areas with data centers are why politicians on the left and right now are calling for moratoriums on future centers.

Backlash against data centers has become the issue of the midterm elections, with 7 in 10 Americans opposing construction near them.

That battle is happening now in New Mexico — and because of the state Supreme Court, citizens have an opportunity to present their case.

08/25/2026

The NM Supreme Court just delivered a massive victory for critics of Project Jupiter, a massive AI data center for Oracle and OpenAI being built in southern New Mexico. The court unanimously decided on Aug. 23 that the data center’s air quality and water usage permit processes should be temporarily halted.⁣
⁣
Mariel Nanasi, executive director and senior attorney at New Energy Economy () explained to Courier New Mexico about how the project had been fast-tracked and why this decision from the NM Supreme Court matters now.⁣
⁣
Do you think this could mean the end of Project Jupiter?⁣
⁣
Let us know in the comments and follow Courier New Mexico for more coverage.

05/08/2026

“The financial danger of Blackstone buyout of PNM entails has been amply documented. I wish to focus on the threat to New Mexico’s culture.

My husband and I have owned used bookstores in Santa Fe for 38 years. Yes, small mom and pop stores like ours are an important part of culture.

Not only bookstores, but also feed stores, boot repair shops, panaderias, print shops, local restaurants where families gather on Sunday afternoons, paperback exchanges, resale shops and thrift stores are a necessary part of a vital local economy.

Our state has already lost huge numbers of such places. My husband used to count the bookstores that came and went in Santa Fe since we first opened in 1988. After counting more than 40 such closures, he stopped counting.”

In small towns these losses are felt even more than in Santa Fe. A locally owned mom and pop shop can be the anchor for a neighborhood. It can be a place where people stop and chat, where neighbors meet or where one can spend time browsing.

During our years of renting commercial spaces and paying commercial PNM rates, we have often worked in spaces that were not well-insulated. Drafty open spaces work for businesses like ours, but double or quadruple our utility rates and many more of us will disappear.

Then are the places that are usually included in any list of cultural resources: local art centers, theater groups, galleries, museums and performance spaces. Often, these institutions are located in old warehouses, abandoned schools, banks or churches. Utilities comprise a huge chunk of their budget.

04/14/2026

Last week and filed a Motion asking why the oil & gas WATR Alliance attorneys, who are seeking permission to reuse and discharge fracking waste in New Mexico, fabricated quotes from peer-reviewed scientific papers in their petition to the WQCC. 

Now WATR filed an errata stating that their petition contains “minor clerical errors relating to the ordering and numbering of certain footnotes” and attempts to correct those errors by adding the actual source of their quotes - unsworn statements from a Dr Stoll of the Produced Water Research Consortium at a legislative committee meeting.

The errata compounds the WATR Alliance’s misrepresentation:

* The actual sources of the quotes were omitted while peer-reviewed studies were cited, giving the impression that the authors of the peer-reviewed scientific papers made those conclusive statements. When citing to a direct quote the name of the source is the proper citation. Misattributions of direct quotes are not “minor clerical errors relating to the ordering and numbering of certain footnotes.” They materially impact the weight given to an argument.

The errata perpetuates the material misrepresentations made to the WQCC by again including citations to the peer-reviewed studies as additional sources supporting Dr. Stoll’s statements, a representation that we contest.

None of the studies cited conclude that their “findings indicate that produced water can be treated to a non-toxic level in a real-world setting” as Dr. Stoll said in his unsworn statement to the Committee. Each article cited concludes that further study is necessary.

04/09/2026

👏👏👏👏👏New Mexico Department of Justice attorneys are arguing the issuance and sale last year of $400 million in TXNM Energy stock to private equity firm Blackstone should be considered null and void — like it never happened — according to a brief submitted recently to state utility regulators.

The stock deal has come under scrutiny in the course of the private equity giant’s $11.5-billion bid to purchase the utility company, which is the parent of New Mexico’s largest electric utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico.

In regulatory filings this week, the attorney general suggested the companies should be made to start over in their quest for approval from state regulators for the merger. But the companies’ attorneys have maintained the regulatory proceeding can still move forward even if there is a finding that the stock deal violated state law.

The Public Regulation Commission will consider the issue at a hearing Thursday, April 30th

As reported by Nicholas Gilmore in the Santa Fe, New Mexican