The Watch · Take Action
Before New Mexico decides, here’s what you can do.
You don’t need to be a lawyer or an expert. Every step below is something an ordinary resident can do — and each one has already been done by people in Doña Ana County.
Comment to FERC on the pipeline
The one open comment window on this project with a fixed date — 5:00 p.m. Eastern, Docket CP26-80-000.
Tell NMED what you think
A few honest sentences is real testimony — and the record you build now is the record the proceeding resumes on.
Contact your county commissioners
The Doña Ana County Commission holds the local levers.
Vote
The largest lever any resident holds, and it does not depend on a court.
Keep scrolling — more ways to get involved
The one that matters most: all of them.
Comments moved the date twice. Records requests broke the water story. One reporter kept the record alive. Every action below has already changed something — pick whichever is yours.
Every action, at a glanceHide the list
01Speak up
Written comment, a call, a meeting — the record hears residents.
Comment to FERC on the pipeline — by October 5
FERC found no significant impact from the 17.77-mile pipeline that would fuel the campus. Comments are due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern on October 5, 2026.
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Tell NMED what you think
A few honest sentences is real testimony. NMED has published two different closing dates for written comment — file early rather than trusting the later one.
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Contact your county commissioners
The Doña Ana County Commission holds the local levers. Ask them to enforce the agreement they signed and to verify the water numbers publicly — the county already declared the project out of compliance once.
Lawmakers take up Project Jupiter in Las Cruces — October 6
A legislative committee meets at New Mexico State University on Tuesday, October 6. At 10:30 a.m. its agenda item is “Data Centers — Project Jupiter, Water Use and Power Generation.”
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Grant County votes on a moratorium — October 8
Not this project, and the same question: Grant County will consider a one-year moratorium on data centers on October 8. Residents can speak; everyone else can watch.
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02Vote
The ballot and the legislature — the levers that do not wait on a court.
Vote on November 3
Two offices on this ballot have already ruled on this project, and both nominees for governor have said what they would do. This is the largest lever any resident holds, and it does not depend on a court.
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The bill that died in the House
Senate Bill 235 would close the carve-out that put a private gas plant outside utility oversight. It passed the Senate and died in the House; the session reconvenes January 19, 2027.
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03File or request
Paper that institutions have to answer.
File a federal civil-rights complaint
A Title VI complaint opens a federal investigation the state cannot close, settle, or run out the clock on. Any person or organization may file one — within 180 days of the most recent act complained of.
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Ask for the records
New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act lets any person request government documents — and the Foundation for Open Government shows you how.
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04Watch & learn
Where the proceeding stands, who is watching it, and the facts behind it.
The emergency well authorization is active again. The air-permit proceeding has a new hearing officer as of October 2, and still no hearing date.
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On September 17 the New Mexico Supreme Court denied both petitions — New Energy Economy’s and the Center for Biological Diversity’s — and lifted the stays it entered on August 23. No explanation was given. The emergency well authorization is active again. The air-permit proceeding resumed with no hearing officer. On October 2 the Environment Secretary appointed James O. Browning, a former federal district judge, to replace the officer who recused; final decision authority stays with Deputy Secretary John Rhoderick. No hearing date has been set, and the November 23 decision deadline has not moved. A denial of mandamus is not a ruling on the merits — the Court declined to intervene; it did not say the process was lawful.
Written comment to NMED is still worth filing: the department still holds the application, and the record you build now is the record the proceeding resumes on. The ruling, in the record →
Show the earlier rulings, from March 20Hide the earlier rulings
- MAR 20The State Land Office denies the pipeline’s state-land crossings.
- MAR 20The same day, a judge refuses to throw out the Open Meetings challenge to the $165B vote — and refuses to pause the ordinances. The challenge to the approval lives; construction has proceeded unstayed ever since.
- MAY 1BLM grants the federal right-of-way — the federal yes against the state’s no.
- JUL 14The State Land Office denies reconsideration — the second no.
- JUL 16NMED orders a public hearing and moves the decision to November 23.
- JUL 24The Ethics Commission suit settles, and the secretive nonprofit that lobbied NMED to approve this permit has to name its funders: all $3,667,000 came from the company applying for it.
- JUL 29The hearing is moved up five weeks — to September 14 — at the applicant's request.
- AUG 5The hearing officer orders the company to answer whether the campus can be built at all without the pipeline the state twice refused.
- AUG 6The motion to move the hearing back is denied. September 14 stands — and so does every deadline in front of it.
- AUG 10He takes the question back: the show-cause order is withdrawn and the motion to dismiss denied as premature — the fuel question will be answered under oath at the hearing instead.
- AUG 12Discovery is denied after he had said it would be allowed — the third reversal. Opponents say the administrative record, thousands of pages, would not reach them until the day their technical testimony was due.
- AUG 19Two conservation groups move to disqualify him, citing that pattern.
- AUG 22He recuses himself. That is not a finding that he was biased — but the proceeding that decides this permit now has no one presiding over it, and the November 23 decision deadline has not moved.
- AUG 24A member of Congress asks the state, in writing, to account for every source of this project's water, its rights and its permits — by Friday.
- AUG 28The State Engineer answers on the deadline: the construction water was bought from an existing right already permitted for industrial use, and because the use is pre-existing it is “not a new depletion of water in the Lower Rio Grande.”
- SEP 1The developer asks the Supreme Court to let the air case restart in pieces, warning the November deadline could become impossible to meet. Denied unanimously, without comment.
- SEP 2The Attorney General of New Mexico files in support of BOTH petitions — against the Environment Department and against the State Engineer. “The same rules must apply to everyone.”
- SEP 8Oracle tells commissioners that if the air permit fails the campus would have to work with a grid provider. The chair notes the bond agreements were built around on-site generation — so that would come back to the commission.
- SEP 10FERC publishes its environmental assessment of the pipeline and finds no significant impact. Comments are open until October 5.
- SEP 16The State Ethics Commission announces Oracle has disclosed a $3,444,500 advertising campaign aimed at the air permit — “likely the largest lobbying advertising campaign ever disclosed in New Mexico.” With the applicant’s $3,667,000 through Elevate, more than seven million dollars to influence one permit.
- SEP 17The Supreme Court denies both petitions and lifts both stays, without explanation. The well is active again. The air case resumes with no hearing officer and no date.
- OCT 2Fifteen days later, a new hearing officer: James O. Browning, a former federal district judge. Final authority stays with the Deputy Secretary. Still no hearing date.
- SEP 22One year after the bond vote, the county seats its monitoring committee and adopts open-meetings rules stricter than the law requires. Of 29 public comments, one supports the project.
- SEP 24Oracle sends the developer a force majeure notice protecting itself against two delays: this air permit and the pipeline. The same day a member of Congress calls for a pause on new data centers in New Mexico.
- JUL 21The day the decision was due. No ruling came — and counting.
NOV 23the decision deadline
The decision deadline — NMED was to rule on the permit by this day, and every acceleration in this proceeding was justified by it. The Attorney General's September filing says it was never a wall: NMSA 1978, § 74-2-7(B)(3) lets the department extend its own deadline for good cause. The Supreme Court lifted the stay on September 17 without reaching that argument. On October 2 the department appointed a replacement hearing officer, James O. Browning, a former federal district judge, and kept final decision authority with Deputy Secretary John Rhoderick; as of October 3 its docket shows no scheduling order and no hearing date. Oracle’s September 24 force majeure notice names this permit as one of two delays it is protecting itself against. Whether this deadline holds is the department's decision to announce, and it has not announced it.
Dates that have passed, and what happened to them
AUG 17the written-comment deadline
Written-comment deadline on the notice we harvested — but NMED has since published two later and conflicting dates for the same docket. Treat this as the safe one and file by it.
AUG 24the technical-testimony deadline
Technical testimony and prehearing motions were due — then the New Mexico Supreme Court stayed the proceeding on August 23. The stay was lifted September 17; whether this deadline is reset is for the new hearing officer to say.
SEP 2the Supreme Court response deadline
Responses were due in BOTH Supreme Court cases — the air proceeding and the emergency well. They were filed, and the Attorney General filed alongside the petitioners in both, against two agencies of his own state. On September 17 the Court denied both petitions without explanation.
SEP 3the rebuttal deadline
Rebuttal deadline — suspended by the August 23 stay, which was lifted September 17. Not yet reset.
SEP 14the public hearing
The public hearing was set for this day at the Sunland Park Multi-Generational Center. It did not happen: the Supreme Court stayed the proceeding on August 23 and the hearing officer recused on August 22. On September 17 the Court lifted the stay. On October 2 NMED appointed a new hearing officer, James O. Browning; no new hearing date has been announced.
These are the dates NMED had ordered before the Supreme Court stayed the proceeding on August 23; the stays were lifted September 17 and no new schedule has been issued — and the schedule itself has been fought over throughout. The hearing was moved up five weeks at the applicant’s request, opponents have asked to move it back, and a separate motion asks the department to dismiss or postpone the application outright because the pipeline that would fuel the campus has been denied. Check before you travel.
The monitoring committee
On September 22 commissioners seated the citizen monitoring committee — one district’s picks still to come. No first meeting has been set.
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See if your county is next
Doña Ana is one of five named Stargate sites — the same play is running in other counties. Erin Brockovich’s national map shows where data centers are landing near you.
Let Project Jupiter be something that connects and unites this community.
Whatever the ruling brings — that part is ours.