Democratic governor candidate Haaland says ‘transparency’ the lesson of Project Jupiter

Southern New Mexico residents deserve a voice in decisions that are being made for the rest of the state, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland told Source NM during a visit to the area over the weekend.

She added that people bring up Project Jupiter, the Oracle and OpenAI data center underway in southern Doña Ana County, each time she visits the area. She told Source that transparency is “the lesson to be learned” from how the project has been handled by government officials and agencies. 

“The community deserves to know what industry is coming into their community,” Haaland said.
 “They deserve to know exactly how much water they want to use, how they’re going to get their electric power, what they plan to do with respect to moving our renewable energy goals forward. That’s not too much to ask…In talking with legislators, they want to put guardrails on data centers, but I’m feeling like it should be any industry that comes to New Mexico.”

NM Supreme Court temporarily halts Project Jupiter air quality permit hearing

Haaland spoke with residents in Las Cruces and Mesilla Sunday during a visit on her latest statewide tour leading up to the Nov. 3 general election, in which Haaland faces Republican Gregg Hull, the former mayor of Rio Rancho. Haaland’s tour started in Rio Rancho last week, with stops in Grants, Silver City, Deming and Lordsburg, and was scheduled to stop in Truth or Consequences and Socorro on Monday. She touched on major topics of focus for her campaign such as education, economic development, access to health care, public safety and affordability. 

“There’s this overarching umbrella over every single thing that New Mexicans do every day and that’s the affordability crisis,” Haaland said to a crowd of supporters, pointing to the Trump Administration’s tariffs and various program cuts. “Under this president, New Mexicans are sicker, poorer and hungrier and so we need to ensure that New Mexicans can have a little bit more money in their pockets every single month.”

Haaland said she wants to enhance the state’s child tax credit and working families tax credit to give New Mexicans “a raise” to help make ends meet. She recalled her experience worrying about paying rent and buying groceries while raising her daughter as a single mother, and not qualifying for emergency food stamps. 

“I cried right there in the food stamp office. I just understand what it’s like for so many New Mexicans,” she said. “We just need to make sure that we are acting like a real community, that all of us are working to lift up the people who need help the most.”

She said she also believes the film industry is a sustainable industry for the state and an area that she wants to help modernize through updated tax credits and reviewing how they are applied.

Abbey Gallegos, a Las Cruces resident and area farmer, told Source that she has followed Haaland since she served as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and hopes if elected governor Haaland will put “New Mexicans first over corporate” and foster more opportunities for New Mexico students to continue their education and careers in the state. 

“We have so much to improve on, but for New Mexicans, not corporations,” Gallegos said, adding that she wants to see plans in writing, not just discussed. “I want to know a first-year plan, third-year plan, fifth-year plan.”