In the latest reversal for the data center’s critics, a hearing officer for Project Jupiter’s application for an air quality permit denied discovery Wednesday — the process whereby opposing parties exchange evidence relevant to a case — after previously saying it would be allowed.
Max Shepherd, the New Mexico Environment Department air quality permit hearing officer overseeing the case, adopted language from the applicants — Yucca Growth Infrastructure, the developers behind the massive data center proposed in Santa Teresa — to renege on his “initial interpretation of discovery,” which “was incorrect,” his Wednesday order reads.
Shepherd wrote in an email his seemingly sudden reversal was due to “more research into the rules governing procedures in an air quality permit proceeding, which are different from the rules applicable in other administrative proceedings that I have [presided] over.”…