Washington Post article
SAND SPRINGS, Oklahoma
This city bordering Tulsa is a battleground, one of many across the country where companies seeking to build massive data centers to win the AI race with China are coming up against the reality of local politics.
Sand Springs leaders were besieged with community anger after annexing an 827-acre agricultural property miles outside of town and launching into secret talks with a tech giant looking to use it for a sprawling data center. Hundreds of aggrieved voters showed up at community meetings. Swarms of protest signs are taking route along the rural roads.
Anger over the perceived trampling of communities by Silicon Valley has entered the national political conversation and could affect voters of all political persuasions in this year’s midterm elections.
Now about my county [Dona Ana] in NM.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center and several other parties have filed a lawsuit against the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners for what they are calling the board’s “unlawful” actions related to the controversial Project Jupiter data center project that would be built outside of Santa Teresa.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center is challenging the board’s “unlawful approval of three ordinances related to Project Jupiter.”
The first ordinance authorizes the County to issue $165 billion of industrial revenue bonds to support Project Jupiter.
The second and third ordinances authorize the issuing of New Mexico Local Economic Development Act funding to support the project.
https://www.courthousenews.com/nonprofit-sues-to-block-165-billion-openai-data-center-in-rural-new-mexico/
The Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners approved three new ordinances in September and October to fund the OpenAI-backed Project Jupiter, a development that began construction last week in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
January 5, 2026
Doña Ana County commissioners are facing accusations they violated New Mexico’s open meetings law several months ago when they went into closed session during a raucous public meeting where they approved a massive incentive package to lure a data center project.
County resident Derrick Pacheco on Monday said he filed a complaint with the New Mexico Department of Justice over the Sept. 19 meeting.
The Department of Justice did not confirm whether the complaint had been received as of Monday morning.
Regardless, with construction already underway, a determination of whether the county complied with state transparency law won’t likely kill the project.
What’s at stake are the tax breaks. It seems unlikely Project Jupiter’s developers will go elsewhere even if they lose those incentives.
Interim County Attorney Cari Neill responded
In her letter, Neill defended the county in part by asserting that it had provided the public with “as much information as possible at every step,” thus complying with the Open Meetings Act’s statement that the public is entitled to “the greatest possible information.”
The state regulates that aspect of Project Jupiter, and pollution numbers were not something county commissioners required disclosure on before voting to approve tax breaks in September. That’s another consequence of the rush.
While dangling the promises of jobs and payments to the county of $12 million a year, the developers threatened to go elsewhere if commissioners didn’t approve their tax breaks on Sept. 19.
February 2025:
So the fix was in and local voters were bulldozed.