Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Media Contact: bill.rodgers@sierraclub.org

1,500 New Mexicans Agree: “NO to Project Jupiter’s Air Pollution”

Data Center Power Plant Would Doom NM’s Climate Gains, Deepen Water Crisis, Release Cancer-Causing Pollution

SANTA FE — Thousands of New Mexicans submitted signatures and comments opposing an air pollution permit for a massive methane gas power plant proposed to power the “Project Jupiter” AI data center in Doña Ana County.

In just a few days, Sierra Club supporters from Santa Teresa to Aztec to Raton to Silver City sent more than 1,500 comments, and thousands more sent comments through other organizations. In addition to almost 950 pages of personal messages to the New Mexico Environment Department, the coalition also prepared technical comments, highlighting the applicant’s failure to comply with state and federal clean air laws, and detailing how the power plant would harm air quality and public health in New Mexico and neighboring El Paso, Texas.

Residents raised grave concerns about their water and air quality, expressing fear for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their neighbors.

In the technical comments to NMED, a coalition of community groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club said the power plant would be the single largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the state, emitting more than Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined. The power plant would also release hundreds of tons of toxic and smog-forming pollutants into the atmosphere, including cancer-causing chemicals such as formaldehyde. It would make air quality significantly worse in Southern New Mexico and neighboring El Paso, Texas. These places already suffer from some of the worst smog in the country.

The coalition’s technical comments explained that the applications were “plainly deficient” and unlawful. Among other things, the comments faulted the developer for unlawfully requesting two separate permits for its power plant based on the legal fiction that they are unrelated facilities, even though the facilities are located in close proximity, owned by the same developer, and intended to power the same data center. The comments also faulted permits for “wildly underestimat[ing]” the pollution impact from the plant, and failing to demonstrate compliance with a wide variety of pollution control requirements that Congress and the New Mexico legislature apply to power plants.

Attorney David Baake, a Southern New Mexico resident who co-authored the technical comments, said:
“The attempt to split the power plant into two separate permits is flagrantly illegal. Honestly, it is baffling that they would even try this.  Project Jupiter’s own website says they are building a single power plant to power their data center. No one can say with a straight face that there are two separate, unrelated facilities just because they are using two plots of land on opposite sides of the Pete Domenici highway.”

Baake said he was confident NMED would reject the developer’s attempt to split the permitting process and require it to submit a single application for the whole plant. He said if the power plant is required to submit a single permit application, then the developer will need to implement the “lowest achievable emission rate” for smog-forming pollutants and obtain “emission offsets” for those pollutants, helping to mitigate the project’s harm to public health and regional air quality.

Other members of the coalition highlighted the impact the power plant would have on climate change, and questioned why the developer could not use solar instead— thereby avoiding the air pollution impacts and the massive water use associated with the gas plant.

“Southern New Mexico is one of the best places in the United States to install solar. It is often the cheapest and definitely the cleanest source of energy. It doesn’t contribute to smog or climate change, and uses far less water than gas power plants. It is simply a common-sense solution for our area,” said  Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter Director. “The power plant could emit a staggering 12.7 million metric tons per year— essentially wiping out New Mexico’s 29 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the last two decades.” 

New Mexico is experiencing a record snow drought, collecting just 6 percent of our median snowpack. This is a direct result of our present climate crisis and this project’s water use would waste more of this resource.

Sierra Club and commenters called on NMED to hold a public hearing to allow more community input on such a monumental and potentially disastrous decision.

Additionally, on February 27th Energy Transfer Partners filed an application to build a multistate pipeline from Texas to Arizona with a trunkline to supply Project Jupiter with methane gas to combust at the data center. Public comment on this permit is due by April 12th.

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