New Mexico Supreme Court rejects 2 Project Jupiter challenges, allows permitting process to resume

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously shot down two environmental groups’ challenges to regulatory proceedings for the Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County.

In brief orders, the court denied August requests from the Santa Fe-based New Energy Economy and the national Center for Biological Diversity that challenged the data center’s pending air quality permit application with the New Mexico Environment Department and its use of an emergency water well for construction.

The New Mexico Supreme Court in August paused regulatory proceedings for Project Jupiter while it evaluated the environmental groups’ complaints. The air quality permit hearing was initially scheduled to begin Monday in southern New Mexico.

In the orders, which offered no further comment on the court’s rulings, justices also unpaused the regulatory proceedings that have been frozen since August.

“I don’t know what to say,” Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM Thursday. “I’m a little surprised that they granted both stays, which was pretty extraordinary and then pulled them without any explanation.”

In a statement, New Energy Economy Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said the plaintiffs were “terribly disappointed,” but acknowledged they had asked the state’s highest court “for extraordinary relief.”

“We went to the Supreme Court because we believed the rules of this proceeding were stacked against meaningful public participation,” she said. “We sought a fair opportunity for the public to obtain the evidence, test the claims being made by the applicant and present its case before New Mexico decides whether to authorize an enormous new source of pollution.” 

The New Mexico Environment Department’s hearing officer who presided over the air quality permit application abruptly recused himself from the matter in August. The department has yet to appoint a replacement or hold a scheduling conference to set a new hearing date.

NMED spokesperson Drew Goretzka told Source NM that department officials will follow the guidance of the new hearing officer.

State environment officials will decide whether to grant the data center developer’s request to issue an air quality permit for its proposed on-site energy source, a natural-gas powered fuel cell system. Projections show that, if approved, it would emit as many greenhouse gases annually as New Mexico’s largest cities combined.