New Mexico’s top court denies Project Jupiter request to partially resume air quality case

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously denied a request from Project Jupiter’s developers to partially resume proceedings on the New Mexico Environment Department’s air quality permit application hearing for the massive data center under construction in Doña Ana County.

The Supreme Court in August paused the air quality permit hearing, which was scheduled to begin Sept. 14, after the Santa Fe-based clean energy organization New Energy Economy filed a petition arguing that the hearing was premature since a natural gas pipeline needed to fuel the project has yet to clear its own regulatory hurdles.

Yucca Growth Infrastructure, one of Project Jupiter’s developers, in its own Supreme Court filing argued that the justices should partially resume proceedings, particularly by allowing attorneys on both sides of the matter to submit their pre-hearing filings.

The New Mexico Environment Department has until Nov. 23 to make a final decision on Project Jupiter’s air quality permit, and keeping the hearing paused could run the risk of making that deadline “impossible to meet,” Yucca Growth Infrastructure’s attorneys wrote.

In a unanimous filing Tuesday afternoon, the state Supreme Court justices denied the developer’s request without further comment.

Contested New Mexico hearing officer for Project Jupiter air quality permit hearing recuses himself

“A developer cannot manufacture an emergency and then use that emergency to strip the public of meaningful participation,” Mariel Nanasi, New Energy Economy’s executive director, said in a statement. “Project Jupiter chose its technology, chose its schedule, and chose to pursue construction while critical governmental approvals remained unresolved.”

A spokesperson for Yucca Growth Infrastructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other parties to the case, including the New Mexico Environment Department, have until Wednesday to file responses of their own. NMED did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Wednesday also marks the deadline for the Office of the State Engineer to file a response in a related Supreme Court case, in which the Center for Biological Diversity accused it of violating state law by approving the drilling of an emergency well for Project Jupiter without first holding a public hearing.