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Environment & Climate

Three new data centers could undo New Mexico and El Paso climate plans

ProPublica reports that New Mexico and El Paso climate plans could be undercut by two data centers under construction and a third planned at Fort Bliss.

Updated Oct 14, 2026 · 12:19 UTC1 reports

The short version

  • New Mexico and El Paso have each published or adopted plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.[ProPublica]
  • Oracle's Project Jupiter and Meta's El Paso data center are under construction, and a third site is planned at Fort Bliss.[ProPublica]
  • Estimates put Project Jupiter and Meta's plants at up to 10 million tons of emissions annually.[ProPublica]
  • State climatologist Dave DuBois said the data centers are going to undo much of that climate work.[ProPublica]

Key facts

  • New Mexico officials published a climate plan last December aimed at cutting state greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and El Paso city officials adopted a similar plan a few months later.[ProPublica]
  • Oracle is building Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, and Meta Platforms is building a data center in El Paso, Texas, about twenty miles away.[ProPublica]
  • A third, larger data center is planned on the Fort Bliss Army post in east El Paso, less than a 30-minute drive from the Meta site.[ProPublica]
  • An air permit would allow Project Jupiter's fuel cells to produce up to 8.8 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.[ProPublica]
  • The Meta power plant in El Paso could release up to 1.3 million tons of climate emissions per year, according to an El Paso Matters estimate based on regulatory filings and EPA emissions factors.[ProPublica]
  • The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved the Meta data center air permit 20 days after it was filed, following an expedited review.[ProPublica]
  • Texas had 596 data centers in operation or planned as of early September, according to research by The Texas Tribune.[ProPublica]

What remains uncertain

  • The emission figures are estimates or permit ceilings, not measured output from operating plants.[ProPublica]
  • The Fort Bliss data center's expected 3 gigawatt power demand and likely natural gas supply were described by Department of Defense officials at an April briefing and remain expected rather than confirmed.[ProPublica]
  • The view that the data centers will undo climate work is the opinion of one state climatologist, Dave DuBois.[ProPublica]

Sources

Outlet counts describe coverage, not independent confirmation. Reports may share a wire service or original source.