Project Jupiter air permit hearing delayed

A public hearing on the air quality permit for Project Jupiter will not take place in December. The state Environment Department and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, the developers of the data center microgrid, filed a motion on Tuesday to vacate the scheduled session. The hearing was originally set to begin on Dec. 7 in Sunland Park. This move delays the project's biggest regulatory hurdle into the new year. Governor-elect Deb Haaland takes office in January. She will decide who leads the state agency responsible for the permit.

The delay follows revisions to the fuel cell power plant design announced in October. Oracle, the primary company behind Project Jupiter, stated that the changes would cut emissions by approximately 35 percent. Environmental advocates have described the shifting plans as a moving target. The developers had previously maintained a tight timeline for the permit process. The buildings on the Southern New Mexico campus remain without power. This motion marks the first time developers have asked for more time on the air quality permit schedule.

Attorneys for the Environment Department argued in an Oct. 22 filing that material revisions at this late stage meant the application was not ready for primetime. They stated that the department required extra time for a technical review of the changes. The agency has not specified when that analysis will be complete. Under the previous timeline, the department had to submit a notice of hearing with a draft permit to newspaper publishers by Tuesday. As that deadline approached, it became clear the end-of-year hearing was not feasible.

Drew Goretzka, a spokesperson for the Environment Department, wrote in an email response that the agency cannot currently estimate how long the review will take. He noted that staff has been in regular correspondence with the developers since the plans changed last month. The department is actively gathering information to ensure the draft permit protects New Mexico's air quality. Goretzka said the agency has continued to receive missing information from the initial application in the weeks following the revisions.

New Energy Economy, an environmental advocacy group based in Santa Fe, filed a motion to dismiss the permit application on Wednesday. Mariel Nanasi, the group's executive director, wrote that the issue is no longer about needing a little more time. She argued that an applicant may not fundamentally change a facility and fail to supply necessary information. The group wants the agency to stop reorganizing the process around a shifting proposal.

Opponents also question the math behind the developers' emissions modeling. Bloom Energy based its projections on a test of one 65-kilowatt cell scaled up by a factor of 37,800. Colin Cox, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that a small mistake could be magnified almost 40,000-fold. He noted that the new design uses only 1,600 megawatts of the 2,462 allocated megawatts. This leaves 862 extra megawatts of capacity on-site, which critics question.

State Sen. Carrie Hamblen said she expects a different story once the new administration is in place. She believes Governor-elect Haaland will listen to people in their communities. Haaland has said she plans to sign an executive order pausing large data center development on her first day in office. This pause would give the Legislature time to develop guardrails for such projects. The permitting dispute will now carry over to the next administration.