State Sen. Carrie Hamblen, discusses concerns around Project Jupiter.

But first, I wanted to ask you about kind of one of the biggest stories of the year in New Mexico is happening right in your Senate district.

Project Jupiter, a hyperscale data center.

From what I'm reading, based on what's happening in Southern New Mexico, community members are scared about the impacts on their water and air, yet construction is ongoing.

What went wrong with this project?

So unfortunately, this is a project that is really showing how you do not introduce a data center into a community.

And it is an example all over the country.

It goes back to kind of a bigger question of or bigger concern is that communities depend on us for capital outlay money.

So in Dona Ana County, which I have 36 colonias, so that we need a lot of money for roads and for basic infrastructure.

And so the county was looking at this opportunity to help fix a lot of those things that they're dependent on me for capital outlay for.

So I understand the purpose.

However, how it unraveled.

problematic.

There was an NDA involved, which I had recommended to our county commission.

Like when, if they're going to have you sign an NDA, you need to be very, very concerned about that.

And then the whole idea of, oh, we want the community involved.

And yet they had already started building.

And now what has happened and over this series of the last 18 months is that even just recently, they filed, Yucca Growth International filed a new report that was over 100 pages long or a new application that was over 100 pages long, which is a completely different application from what they filed before.

And so the people behind Project Jupiter have destroyed any trust with anybody in this community.

So even if they did anything that we asked, like not suck up all of our water that our farmers are using on a day-to-day basis, or not polluting the air when we're already close to a border community and to a major metropolitan city with El Paso, not to increase their electric rates, So many different things.

There's no trust whatsoever, no goodwill.

This community doesn't want it.

And all along, I've talked about I'm not against economic development.

But what I am against is economic development not driven by the people who are actually impacted by it.

This is a project that is being driven by somebody who doesn't live in Las Cruces or in southern New Mexico and by companies that don't even reside in this state.

And so that's what's so problematic about this is that there is no trust We are a state that has very limited resources.