The New Mexico Environment Department will hold a public hearing in Sunland Park in October over whether to approve data center Project Jupiter’s controversial air quality permit application.
Developer Yucca Growth Infrastructure’s application shows plans to use fuel cell technology to power the OpenAI and Oracle data center. The technology can convert natural gas, biogas or hydrogen into electricity and documents filed as part of the air quality permit application shows they rely on natural gas pipelines. The permit, if approved, would allow the project to emit more greenhouse gases annually than Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined.
The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. on Oct. 19 at the Sunland Park Multi-Generational Center and will “continue as necessary,” according to a notice posted on the state Environment Department’s website Thursday. The department has until Nov. 23 to make a decision on whether to issue the permit, according to NMED spokesperson Drew Goretzka.
A written order announcing the hearing’s date and venue was released one day after what was expected to be a brief, routine scheduling conference turned testy.
Max Shepherd, the hearing examiner presiding over the matter for the Environment Department, at first appeared poised to schedule the hearing for mid-August, which would have given attorneys on both sides of the issue just two days to complete their initial filings, which are due 30 days before the hearing begins.
“I think that the citizens of Doña Ana County need to get a resolution of this issue, whatever it is,” Shepherd said during Wednesday’s meeting. “This is going to have a huge impact on their lives…I think that they have the right to have this decided as quickly as possible.”
Maslyn Locke, a New Mexico Environmental Law Center senior attorney involved in litigation over the proposed data center, told Shepherd that scheduling the hearing in August would unnecessarily rush a “highly technical” case.
“Rushing this is going to create significant due process issues,” she said.
Jennifer Bradfute, an attorney representing Project Jupiter’s developer Yucca Growth Infrastructure, countered that the issue has been pending with the state Environment Department for months and could not have come as a surprise to other attorneys involved in the proceedings.
Although Wednesday’s meeting was held virtually, it quickly grew chaotic. Derrick Pacheco, a Las Cruces resident who is using OpenAI’s ChatGPT service to represent himself in a lawsuit against county officials over their role in approving Project Jupiter, repeatedly unmuted himself to speak while attorneys representing the developer and opposed parties were hammering out the schedule — and was subsequently kicked out several times.
As lawyers representing Project Jupiter’s developers debated over when the public hearing should be held, notifications repeatedly flashed across attendees’ screens saying that Pacheco was seeking admittance back into the meeting.
While the pending air quality permit application to build a “microgrid” energy source with fuel cell technology is pared back from developers’ initial plans to build natural gas plants on-site, it remains unclear how they will pipe natural gas to the site.
Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard earlier this week shot down the developer’s second request to build a portion of a natural gas pipeline for the project along state land, citing a need to “stop the out-of-control acceleration of climate change.”
