By Julia Goldberg | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, everyone. It’s Wednesday and those promised monsoons may have arrived. Tuesday brought more discussions of data centers in New Mexico, albeit of the wonky variety as lawmakers on the New Mexico Legislature’s interim Water and Natural Resources Committee dug into air emissions and microgrids (among other topics). Read all about it below, along with stories on a new push to continue expanding compensation for people exposed to radiation from the federal nuclear program, and what a rollback of protections for Utah’s national monuments could mean in New Mexico. As always, find more to read at sourcenm.com, with more on the way.
Aerial photos taken on June 26, 2026, show the construction site for Project Jupiter, the Oracle and OpenAI data center project planned for southern New Mexico. (Photos courtesy of Alexa Reynaud, Food & Water Watch, with aerial support provided by LightHawk)
Energy expert tells NM lawmakers Project Jupiter could roll back air quality progress by 20 years
Environmental advocates this week told New Mexico lawmakers that power plants built specifically for large data centers such as Project Jupiter could undo more than 20 years of progress on air quality. Source’s Joshua Bowling reports members of the interim Water and Natural Resources Committee say they intend to hold hearings on data centers for the rest of the year.
Workers repair power lines in Albuquerque on Feb. 25, 2026. (Photo by Danielle Prokop/Source NM)
Energy leaders tell New Mexico lawmakers large users like data centers could help modernize grid
Also on the data center front, leaders in New Mexico’s energy industry told state lawmakers Monday that attracting data centers and other big energy users could be a key step toward modernizing the state’s outdated grid and meeting its ambitious renewable energy goals. One Democratic legislator pushed back.
President Donald Trump on Monday announced he was greatly reducing two Utah national monuments. The leader of a New Mexico environmentalist group is concerned about what that could mean for New Mexico’s monuments, including Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, pictured above. (Photo by Julia Goldberg/Source NM)
New Mexico environmentalist group on ‘high alert’ after Trump shrinks Utah national monuments
A New Mexico environmentalist group is sounding the alarm about what President Donald Trump’s decision to dramatically reduce the footprints of two national monuments in Utah could mean for several “beloved” national monuments in New Mexico. “We’re on high alert,” Mark Allison, executive director of New Mexico Wild, told Source NM reporter Patrick Lohmann.
New Mexico advocates, including Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium founder Tina Cordova, above, are part of a nationwide effort to further expand the federal Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act. (Photo by Danielle Prokop/Source NM)
New Mexico advocates back effort to expand federal radiation exposure compensation program
A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers announced Tuesday they will soon seek to further expand the federal Radiation and Exposure Compensation Act to include more communities sickened by historic nuclear tests and production. Last year, Congress greatly expanded RECA to include Downwinders and post-1971 uranium miners in New Mexico, but U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) and Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium founder Tina Cordova say more needs to be done.
ICYMI
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We're reading (and gifting) the New York Times obituary for Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist (and Santa Fe resident) Pat Oliphant. A documentary about his life will screen in Santa Fe this weekend. We interviewed the director last year.
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