State Land Office Denies Pipeline Route for Project Jupiter Data Center

New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard denied Energy Transfer's application to cross 0.63 miles of state trust land in Doña Ana County, a ruling that threatens the compressed timeline the Dallas-based pipeline company had set for its Green Chile Project and raises new questions about the infrastructure underpinning the proposed Project Jupiter data center complex in southern New Mexico.

The State Land Office issued its denial letter on March 20 and made it public April 1, citing the commissioner's fiduciary duty to beneficiaries of the state's trust. Approving the lease "would not be in the best interest of the state's trust," the agency said, directing Energy Transfer to pursue a route that avoids state trust lands entirely.

That 0.63-mile parcel is a fraction of the Green Chile Project's roughly 17-mile total length, but its loss reshapes the entire undertaking. Energy Transfer, which owns Transwestern Pipeline, filed the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January 2026, proposing a natural gas lateral that would carry fuel from near El Paso to on-site power plants built to serve Project Jupiter. The company had targeted an in-service date of August 2026, with the FERC public comment period scheduled to close this month. A reroute now means new surveys, fresh environmental and cultural reviews, and likely revised federal filings, making that August target increasingly difficult to meet.

Energy Transfer said the pipeline remains in planning stages and that its final route will be determined through surveys and FERC's review process. Company officials pointed to ongoing civil, environmental, and cultural studies aimed at selecting a path with the least environmental impact, but stopped short of identifying what an alternate alignment might look like or how much delay a reroute could add.

The New Mexico Environmental Law Center's staff attorney called the State Land Office action "really exciting," saying it demonstrated the state taking Project Jupiter's impacts seriously. That framing signals that opposition to the project's fossil-fuel infrastructure is organized and positioned to contest each subsequent filing.

The denial does not kill the Green Chile Project. Energy Transfer can still pursue routes across private land or federal parcels, though each alternative carries its own permitting burden. Private land crossings can trigger eminent domain proceedings if landowners refuse easements; federal land crossings require National Environmental Policy Act review and coordination with agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management.

Project Jupiter has divided opinion across southern New Mexico for months. Opponents have focused on long-term methane dependence, air quality impacts from on-site gas generators, and the precedent of building fossil-fuel infrastructure to serve a single private client. Supporters argue that firm gas-fired capacity stabilizes a regional grid under rising demand pressure from data centers and electrification alike.

The State Land Office ruling is not the final word, but it is a concrete checkpoint that Energy Transfer cannot clear with a single amended filing. How quickly the company identifies a viable alternate route, and how FERC processes any revised application, will determine whether Project Jupiter's power infrastructure arrives on anything close to its original schedule.