LAS CRUCES — Developers behind the massive Southern New Mexico data center Project Jupiter are urging the state Supreme Court to get their key permitting processes moving.
“There is no time to waste,” developers wrote in a Wednesday filing for an air quality permitting case that remains one of the development’s largest legal hurdles.
Plans for the $165 billion Project Jupiter data center campus — intended to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence for companies like Oracle and OpenAI — have spurred protests, lawsuits and fierce pushback over concerns about its environmental impact and transparency. Developers tout its economic impact, arguing placing a pause on permitting processes — which the state Supreme Court did twice in late August — only serves to harm New Mexico residents.
The high court previously paused the air quality permit proceedings Aug. 23 following a petition from Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy, which alleged due process violations amounting to a “trial by ambush.” New Energy Economy said the hearing officer in the proceeding accelerated the timeline for a public hearing and denied requests for discovery.
The high court unanimously rejected Project Jupiter developers’ request to partially resume air quality permit proceedings Tuesday.
”This is an important victory for due process, science and the people of New Mexico,” said Mariel Nanasi, executive director and senior attorney of New Energy Economy, of Tuesday’s ruling. “Project Jupiter tried to turn a Supreme Court stay into a fiction — asking the Court to stop the proceeding while simultaneously allowing the machinery of that proceeding to keep racing forward. The Supreme Court said no. A stay means stop.”
Project Jupiter developers filed a separate response Wednesday again urging the court to lift its pause, arguing a string of reversals by New Mexico Environment Department hearing officer Max Shepherd amounted to normal scheduling decisions within his authority. Shepherd has since removed himself from the case.
The developers argued the process should be appealed later rather than intervened in now, noting the Environment Department’s deadline to approve the air quality permit is Nov. 23.
”Every day the Stay remains in place inflicts concrete, irreparable harm on YGI, the Project, and New Mexico citizens who will benefit from the jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits that flow from the Project,” the developers wrote. “The Court should decline to upend the hearing process, deny the Petition, and fully lift its Stay.”
The Environment Department had not filed its response with the Supreme Court as of Wednesday evening.
Dispute over incentives
Wednesday was also a busy day in a separate Project Jupiter legal fight over the Board of County Commissioners’ decision nearly one year ago to authorize $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds for the data center. The case will determine whether the county’s basis for approving the data center met legal criteria.
Project Jupiter developers requested to add documents to the case’s administrative record — claiming county commissioners had access to more Project Jupiter information before the Sept. 19, 2025, vote than they claimed to.
”The information that they were providing to supplement the record served only one purpose. And that was the purpose of rationalizing the county’s decision after the fact,” said Maslyn Locke, senior staff attorney at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, a party in the case. “Our position continues to be that the board did not have adequate information to make this decision.”
State District Judge Jennifer DeLaney denied nine of the documents in a remote hearing Wednesday, allowing six others into the administrative record.
”It was nice to see the rules working as they’re intended,” Locke said, especially given “this ongoing pattern that we see from the project developers where they expect to get what they want.”
However, she said, “it’s also kind of disheartening, only because a lot of this information … was not provided to the public. Without adequate information, members of the public can’t make fully informed public comments, which ultimately means that the board isn’t making a fully informed decision.”
DeLaney gave parties a 30-day window to finalize the complete administrative record before the case proceeds.
Spokespeople for Project Jupiter’s developers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
‘Do the math’
Amid the court filings, U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury used a Wednesday news call to express continued frustrations over Project Jupiter’s water usage.
Project Jupiter is using about 782 million gallons of water per year during its construction phase, said Stansbury, who sent an Aug. 24 letter on the issue to the Office of the State Engineer.
”If you do the math … that’s enough water for about 30,000 New Mexicans,” Stansbury said, or “enough water to irrigate 2,000 to 3,000 acres of green chile, which would produce potentially up to 30 million pounds of green chile.”
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican file photo
Stansbury said 32 protests remain open at the Office of the State Engineer, each challenging the legality of a replacement emergency well drilled for the data center’s construction. She added Project Jupiter developers have not filed any permits with the state for the project’s ongoing water use.
The Office of the State Engineer argued in its Wednesday filing that the 32 protests should not go before the state Supreme Court but should instead proceed through an administrative hearing. The office cautioned the court against altering existing water rights, warning it could affect “rights held by public entities such as NMSU, CRRUA, and numerous municipalities and farmers.”
”The Court should carefully consider how its ruling on the Petition could impact the longstanding reliance interests of other water rights holders and those they serve throughout the state,” the Office of the State Engineer wrote.
The office’s Friday response raised “implications and concerns,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury called for New Mexico to conduct “an immediate inquiry into the long-term usage of water by Project Jupiter.” She warned any increase in large-scale water usage could threaten the state’s ability to meet its obligations under the Rio Grande Compact, given a May U.S. Supreme Court settlement among New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and the federal government that requires New Mexico to reduce its Lower Rio Grande groundwater use.
”It’s very clear that there has not been a transparent public process to determine whether or not this transfer and sale of water rights should have occurred,” Stansbury said. “We don’t know what the long-term implications of this project are in terms of water usage and impacts on senior water users like our tribes, like our acequias, like our farmers and ranchers who have been there for generations.”
Julia Gentin is a reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. She covers the Southern New Mexico region. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.
