A new lawsuit accuses Doña Ana county leaders of violating the New Mexico Open Meetings Act in September before they approved $165 billion in bonds for the data center campus Project Jupiter.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed the legal challenge on Friday and accuse elected leaders of “abruptly” pausing the testy September public hearing on Project Jupiter to go into a closed-door session “without providing reasonable specificity as to the subject matter to be discussed.”
A map shows where the $165 billion data center campus — dubbed "Project Jupiter" would be located in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
A map shows where the $165 billion data center campus — dubbed «Project Jupiter» would be located in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
The Open Meetings Act is one of New Mexico’s “sunshine laws” aimed at making government business occur in the public’s view. The law prohibits elected leaders from setting policy or taking votes during closed sessions.
“The sunshine laws in our state, like the Open Meetings Act, exist to ensure that when public government bodies make decisions that stand to impact communities’ health, safety, environment, and lives,” New Mexico Environmental Law Center staff attorney Kacey Hovden said in a statement. “These decisions are made in the public eye where community members have the opportunity to meaningfully participate and inform the outcome of their futures.”
Friday’s filing marks the second New Mexico Environmental Law Center lawsuit against the project. The other, filed in October, accused county commissioners of voting on an incomplete application when they approved the $165 billion in bonds for the development.
The county commission chair and a Project Jupiter spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Critics of Project Jupiter for months have expressed concerns over its plans to use drinking water from a nearby troubled utility and to build natural gas plants to power its data processing.
Plans for Project Jupiter say its energy will come from a gas-powered “microgrid” — a self-reliant energy source that doesn’t draw from an existing utility’s grid. Lawmakers have disagreed over whether a last-minute floor amendment to a 2025 law on grid technology would let such developments skirt the state’s Energy Transition Act, which requires utilities to use 50% renewable energy by 2030, 80% by 2040 and 100% by 2045.