New Mexico Dem governor nominee Haaland announces data center moratorium executive order if elected

Deb Haaland, the former U.S. Interior secretary and New Mexico’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, on Thursday said if elected she would sign an executive order immediately upon taking office to pause all new large-scale data center proposals while state lawmakers craft guidelines for such developments.

Several lawmakers announced plans in recent months to introduce such a moratorium, amid increasing public consternation about data centers, and as various local governments also grapple with the issue.

Haaland said she hopes that any guardrails the Legislature proposes in next year’s legislative session include specific requirements, including: prohibiting non-disclosure agreements; requiring that developers build their own renewable energy infrastructure; requiring closed-loop cooling systems; prioritizing hiring New Mexicans for union jobs; mandating compliance with the state’s clean-energy goals; adhering to high standards for light pollution, noise and more; and imposing decommission bonds similar to those in the oil and gas industry.

Developers must exceed those standards to qualify for incentives from state business programs, she said.

“Big tech’s mantra may be ‘move fast and break things,’ but here in New Mexico, we do things our way,” Haaland told reporters during a news conference at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. “The lack of transparency, the NDAs and backroom deals will never build trust with New Mexico communities.”

She said she remains open to working with a diverse range of industries seeking to do business in the state, but wants to first establish guardrails to protect New Mexico’s air, land and water.

“I want to be crystal clear that New Mexico is open for business,” she said. “These guidelines will provide more predictability and certainty and will help businesses be more responsible, and that’s good for everyone.”

Haaland cited her time as Interior secretary under the Biden administration and said she oversaw the investment of more than $10 billion in statewide infrastructure, conservation and clean energy projects.

Her announcement comes as her latest campaign finance reports show she’s received donations from Oracle, one of the tech companies behind the controversial Project Jupiter data center in Doña Ana County, and its CEO.

During the news conference, Haaland said that campaigning for office is excessively expensive work and said she remained committed to holding industry leaders to account, even if they donate to her campaign.

New Mexico State Ethics Commission says Oracle’s $3.4M Project Jupiter ads sought to sway permitting

“I believe that I can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said.

When asked how she would apply the proposed guardrails to data center developments that finish construction before New Mexico elects a new governor, she said it would be “embedded into any rulemaking that the Legislature decides to work up.”

Haaland’s plan also calls for data center developments to use renewable energy. Developers across the nation have increasingly proposed building small nuclear reactors on-site to power their data centers. Haaland said she would prefer other renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal power.

“The majority of New Mexicans that I speak with are not in favor of nuclear anything,” she said. “We have all the sun, we have all the wind, we have all the geothermal.”

The state House Democratic Caucus in a Thursday statement responding to Haaland’s plan said that no industry should have “free rein in our state.”

“Over the past several months, members of the House Democratic caucus have been working diligently on a range of legislation for the 2027 session to address these concerns,” the statement said. “New Mexicans deserve clean and safe water, affordable utility bills, and assurance that if data centers set up shop here, they must benefit our communities and provide good paying union jobs.”

A spokesperson for Gregg Hull, the former Rio Rancho mayor running as the Republican nominee for governor, told Source NM that Hull believes a moratorium “signals to businesses that New Mexico is closed for business” and referred to Hull’s prior comments on the matter.

Hull previously said in a statement to Source NM that he doesn’t “support a blank check, either.”

“Data centers need to be sited responsibly — with real accountability for water use, energy impact, and community input and with siting decisions driven by local infrastructure capacity, not just available land,” he said at the time. “As governor, I’d rather fix the guardrails than shut the door on an entire industry.”