Project Jupiter TogetherForce Upgrade

Who to call. What to say.

Five county commissioners hold the lease. None of the six conditions is in it yet. Your comment and your call are step three.

1The county

The county negotiates the six conditions into the bond lease at its next consent point, before the fuel cells arrive.

Who signs the lease
2Santa Fe

Santa Fe passes the three bills so the same rules apply to the next data center.

The three bills
3You

You write a comment on the NMED permit record, speak at the commission on a second or fourth Tuesday, and call your commissioner.

How to comment

A petition has no force here. Two things do: a written comment on the permit record, and three minutes at the commission microphone. Here is how to do both.

  1. Write a comment on Permit 10883

    The record is open; the permit is being reissued. This is what to say, in six lines. Copy it, add your name and town, and file it on NMED's comment page.

    1. Catch the CO₂ at the stack before power-on.
    2. Every stack on a public meter, with limits set for the capture configuration.
    3. Offer the computers' heat to greenhouses next door.
    4. Fund the NMSU water plant, hand it to the towns' utility, recharge the towns' reclaimed water, and leave the unused farm water right in the aquifer.
    5. Tie the tax break to real jobs, with a training school on site.
    6. A closure and monitoring bond, so the land and wells are cared for after the lease ends.

  2. Speak at the commission

    The Board of County Commissioners meets at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month in the Commission Chambers, 845 N. Motel Blvd., Las Cruces, NM 88007. Public comment is three minutes per person.

    Public comment is three minutes. This fits in two.

    1. My name is ____ and I live in ____. I do not want Project Jupiter as it is filed. I want it only if it is upgraded: no conditions in the lease, no data center. Here is what to write in.
    2. Their draft permit allows 8.8 million tons of carbon a year, more than Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined, for 750 binding jobs, with smog estimated from one small test unit and never measured.
    3. The exhaust from their fuel cells is about 95% CO₂ once dried. Bloom has announced capture for it and the federal credit pays $85 a ton. Require capture-ready stacks and a meter before power-on.
    4. Their servers make hot water. In Sweden and the Netherlands that heat grows food. Require them to offer it to growers on the 150 empty acres beside the dry coolers. That is 1,000 more jobs.
    5. NMSU already designed a 5 million gallon a day desalination plant for Santa Teresa. It costs $269.5 million, 0.16% of their bond. Make them fund it.
    6. Same land. Same buildings. About 8% more on the $50 billion first phase, most of it repayable by the federal capture credit. Negotiate the conditions into the leases at the next consent the companies need.

  3. Call your commissioner

    Five commissioners hold the lease. The email opens with the script already written; change anything you like.

That's everything I know. Thank you for reading all of it.

Appendix: six draft lease clauses for the commission (model text, not legal advice)
  1. Catch the CO₂ at the stack before power-on. Lessee shall install capture-ready exhaust manifolds on each fuel-cell cluster before that cluster is energized, and shall meter captured and released carbon dioxide by continuous monitoring meeting the quality-assurance provisions of 40 CFR Part 75. From the fifth lease year the metered share of carbon dioxide kept out of the air shall be not less than fifty percent, and from the tenth lease year not less than ninety percent, on the public meter. Any shortfall shall reduce that year's conditioned payment in proportion and shall be subject to the County's Industrial Revenue Bond Safeguards policy.
  2. Every stack on a public meter, with limits set for the capture configuration. Lessee shall install and operate a continuous emissions monitoring system on each fuel-cell cluster in the manner of 40 CFR Part 75, and shall publish hourly data within twenty-four hours. No cluster shall be energized before its monitor is certified. Lessee shall request that the New Mexico Environment Department incorporate these conditions into Air Quality Permit 10883, with emission limits set for the capture configuration.
  3. Offer the computers' heat to greenhouses next door. Lessee shall install a plate heat exchanger on the warm-water header ahead of the dry coolers and shall offer the recovered heat at a published tariff not exceeding propane parity, with a right of first refusal for growers based in Doña Ana County. The header shall be operational before the first greenhouse block is occupied. Lessee shall report heat delivered, in megawatt-hours, with the quarterly reports required under the Community Benefits Agreement.
  4. Fund the NMSU water plant, hand it to the towns' utility, recharge the towns' reclaimed water, and leave the unused farm water right in the aquifer. Lessee shall fund and construct the 5 MGD brackish-water system designed by New Mexico State University and shall convey it, with its wells, brine-disposal wells and lines, to the regional water utility by the fifth lease year. Lessee shall file an application under the Ground Water Storage and Recovery Act (NMSA 1978, §72-5A) in the first lease year for the recharge of reclaimed water. Any acquired groundwater right not needed for campus operations shall be placed in a water conservation program approved by the State Engineer under NMSA 1978, §72-12-8, and shall not be pumped.
  5. Tie the tax break to real jobs, with a training school on site. Lessee shall deliver to the County each year an audited count of full-time positions on the Project Site, derived from payroll records, and the County shall publish it. Conditioned payments and the property-tax benefit shall be released only against verified positions. Any shortfall against the schedule in this Lease shall be remedied under the County's Industrial Revenue Bond Safeguards policy by repayment of the benefit or an increased payment in lieu of taxes.
  6. A closure and monitoring bond, so the land and wells are cared for after the lease ends. Within one year of the start of operations Lessee shall post a bond, letter of credit or escrow for the decommissioning of the Project Site, restoration of the land and post-closure monitoring of the wells, sized by a New Mexico licensed professional engineer without salvage value and revised every fifth year, in the manner of the County's solar-facility decommissioning requirements. The instrument shall include the fifty-year post-injection site care required of carbon dioxide storage wells under 40 CFR 146.93. This obligation shall survive assignment and the expiry of this Lease.

Model text for counsel, not legal advice. The instruments named are real; the wording is this site's.

SANTA FE: THE THREE BILLSUpgrade

The lease fixes this data center. Three bills fix the next one. 3 of Doña Ana County's legislators already sponsor a moratorium bill: Carrie Hamblen, Micaela Lara Cadena, Angelica Rubio.

Why these three asks: the bills in one line eachopen

Microgrid Oversight Act

Real bill. Senate Bill 235 passed the New Mexico Senate in the 2026 session and died in the House. Sponsors plan to reintroduce it in 2027.

“If public utilities have to follow the Energy Transition Act, a private data center microgrid should not get a free pass to pollute.”

The ask: Reintroduce and pass it. Add a clause requiring point-source carbon capture on any fossil-fueled behind-the-meter generation over 100 MW.

Statewide data-center moratorium (proposed)

Real proposal, no bill text yet. Announced July 2026 by Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, Sen. Carrie Hamblen, Rep. Eleanor Chávez, and Rep. Angelica Rubio for the 2027 session. "Data Center Standards" is this site's shorthand for what the bill could carry.

“Pause new hyperscale permits until the state has rules for water, emissions, ratepayers, and community benefit.”

The ask: Support it, and write the standards so a project that meets them, capture, one air permit, heat reuse, conditioned bonds, can proceed on its existing timeline.

Industrial Symbiosis & Waste-Heat Reuse Mandate

Proposed by this campaign. Modeled on Dutch and Scandinavian rules that require data centers to route heat into district heating or agriculture.

“Any facility over 500 MW must offer its waste heat to greenhouses, water treatment, or district heating before venting it.”

The ask: Ask your representative to sponsor it. The text can be short: a heat off-take requirement, a right of first refusal for local growers, and a reporting rule.

All eleven Doña Ana County legislatorsopen

State Senate

  • Joseph Cervantes (Senate 31)
  • Jeff Steinborn (Senate 36)
  • William Soules (Senate 37)
  • Carrie Hamblen (Senate 38)
    Co-sponsor of the proposed statewide data center moratorium
Office phones and emails: official State Senate list

State House

  • Micaela Lara Cadena (House 33)
    Lead sponsor of the proposed statewide data center moratorium
  • Raymundo Lara (House 34)
  • Angelica Rubio (House 35)
    Co-sponsor of the proposed statewide data center moratorium
  • Nathan Small (House 36)
  • Joanne Ferrary (House 37)
  • Doreen Gallegos (House 52)
  • Sarah Silva (House 53)
Office phones and emails: official State House list