NM — State Policy Updated 2026-07-17

New Mexico

Statewide, generally available programs New or modified incentive conditions in 2026 Clean energy conditions Statewide Local zoning and permitting Environmental constraints

Last updated: 2026-07-17

1. Incentive programs

Statewide, generally available programs

  • Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRBs) — local issuance, statewide authority

    • What it is: Cities and counties may issue IRBs for qualifying “projects” and lease them to private users; title held by the local government is the basis for property-tax treatment during the bond/lease term. The IRB Act is general economic-development authority, not a data-center-only statute. Justia, 2026-06-10
    • Property tax exemption: Property titled to a municipality or county is exempt from property taxation while held by the governmental entity, which is the statutory basis for negotiated IRB property-tax abatements. Justia, 2026-06-10
    • Local implementation example: Doña Ana County’s IRB ordinance describes property-tax exemption for county-owned IRB property and gross-receipts/compensating-tax treatment for qualifying IRB purchases, illustrating that project terms are administered locally. Doña Ana County Code, 2026-06-10
    • Eligibility, thresholds, duration: New Mexico’s IRB statute does not set data-center-specific investment, job, water, or power thresholds; those conditions are negotiated project-by-project by the issuing local government. Justia, 2026-06-10

  • Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) — grants and infrastructure assistance

    • What it is: LEDA authorizes state and local economic-development assistance, including land, buildings, infrastructure, and other assistance to qualifying entities under project participation agreements. Justia, 2026-06-10
    • State LEDA fund disbursements: State LEDA fund awards are made by the Economic Development Department under statutory definitions and project participation agreements. Justia, 2026-06-10
    • Water-rights limitation: LEDA annotations cite Attorney General guidance that LEDA funds may not be used to purchase or pay for water rights, which is material for water-intensive data center projects in a prior-appropriation state. Justia, 2026-06-10
    • LEDA GRT Share: This generally available program can apply to a data center even though it is not data-center-specific. The Economic Development Department reported that Project Jupiter qualifies because its construction exceeds $350 million, making the project eligible for performance-based sharing by the state, county, and city of up to 50% of construction-related gross receipts tax deposited in their general funds. New Mexico Economic Development Department, 2026-03

  • Statewide data-center tax incentives

    • No enacted statewide data-center GRT/property-tax incentive was verified. Earlier data-center tax bills would have created a gross receipts/compensating-tax deduction and property-tax valuation treatment, but they did not become law: HB 324 (2018) died, and SB 26 (2021) did not advance beyond referral. New Mexico Legislature, 2018-02-12; New Mexico Legislature, 2021-01-19

New or modified incentive conditions in 2026

  • Bernalillo County IRB guardrails: On February 10, 2026, the Bernalillo County Commission approved a data-center resolution for projects seeking county IRBs. Reporting says the resolution requires projects seeking incentives to take responsibility for electricity and water usage, satisfy wage/workforce expectations, include water conservation/reuse planning, and meet renewable-energy expectations. City Desk ABQ, 2026-02-11; Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, 2026-02-13
  • Lea County data-center regulations: Lea County commissioners unanimously approved an initial set of data-center regulations on February 26, 2026. Reported requirements include closed-loop or other low-water cooling, either behind-the-meter power or negotiated power arrangements that avoid rate increases for existing customers, and IRB/payment-in-lieu-of-tax structures that benefit school and hospital districts countywide. Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19
  • No new statewide data-center incentive was enacted in the 2026 regular session. HB 27 died by action postponed indefinitely. Its January 29 committee substitute would have expanded the Technology Jobs and Research and Development Tax Credit but expressly excluded a facility that is a data center from the definition of a qualified facility. A parallel proposal, SB 97, also died by action postponed indefinitely; its fiscal analysis warned that, absent an explicit exclusion, Project Jupiter eligibility could create very large general-fund exposure. Neither proposal became law. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; New Mexico Legislature HB 27 committee substitute, 2026-01-29; New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; Legislative Finance Committee, 2026-06-22

Clean energy conditions

2. Restrictions and moratoriums

Statewide

  • No statewide data-center moratorium or ban was enacted by July 17, 2026. In early July, Democratic lawmakers announced that they plan to introduce a moratorium on large-scale data centers in the 2027 regular session; this is a future proposal, not current law. Source New Mexico, 2026-07-02; Source New Mexico, 2026-07-14

Local zoning and permitting

  • Zoning authority is local: Municipalities may regulate and restrict land use and structures for health, safety, morals, and general welfare. This leaves data-center siting and conditions primarily with county and municipal land-use processes unless state law otherwise applies. Justia, 2026-06-10
  • Socorro County moratorium: On June 9, 2026, the Socorro County Board of Commissioners unanimously adopted a one-year moratorium on data centers and related infrastructure in unincorporated county land and began forming an advisory committee to recommend regulations. The moratorium followed opposition to Green Data’s proposed roughly 10,000-acre data center and solar-array concept tied to New Mexico Tech; Source NM reported that New Mexico Tech had halted the proposal for the time being because it lacked sufficient contiguous land. Source NM, 2026-06-10
  • Santa Fe County moratorium adopted: On June 30, 2026, commissioners unanimously adopted Ordinance 2026-06, an 18-month moratorium on development approvals and permits for data centers. During the public process the proposed duration increased from 12 to 18 months and the covered-load threshold fell from 100 MW to 1 MW. The county said no data center was pending and that it will use the pause to develop rules addressing water and energy use, environmental justice, monitoring, and cumulative impacts. Santa Fe County, 2026-07-02; Santa Fe County Ordinances and Resolutions, 2026-07-02
  • Lea County regulations, not a moratorium: Lea County chose targeted development conditions rather than a moratorium, including cooling, power, and incentive-payment requirements for potential data centers. Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19
  • Chaves County special use process: Chaves County previously required a special-use process for a proposed data center/solar facility in an agricultural district, illustrating that data centers can be conditional or special uses rather than by-right projects. Chaves County, 2024-12-19
  • Raton proposal and postponed moratorium vote: Raton entered a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Atterix LLC in February for a possible conversion of the former Kmart into a data center. On June 9, the city commission postponed action on Resolution 2026-29, a proposed moratorium, to gather more information; no later final action was located through July 17. City of Raton Commission Agenda, 2026-06-09; Source New Mexico, 2026-06-10
  • Gallup/Teraplex wastewater decision deferred: Teraplex proposed a 330-acre Gallup Tradeport data center with on-site solar and gas generation and an option to buy up to 109.5 million gallons (about 336 acre-feet) of treated effluent annually. After residents raised water, environmental, and transparency concerns, the City Council voted 4-1 on April 28 to defer the third amendment to the effluent option agreement; no later council disposition was located through July 17. City of Gallup Council Agenda, 2026-04-28; Source New Mexico, 2026-04-29

Environmental constraints

  • Water rights/availability: New Mexico’s prior-appropriation system and local groundwater scarcity are central siting issues. 2026 county actions focused heavily on water: Lea County required closed-loop or low-water cooling, while Socorro residents opposed the Green Data/New Mexico Tech proposal partly over water concerns and skepticism about atmospheric-water-generation claims. Lea County reporting also noted that absent broader produced/brackish-water reuse rules, data-center cooling would draw on limited potable groundwater sources. Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19; Source NM, 2026-06-10
  • Air permitting and on-site generation: Project Jupiter developers replaced the proposed gas-turbine/diesel design with natural-gas-fed Bloom Energy fuel cells. The revised application seeks approval for about 2.462 GW of fuel-cell capacity; Oracle says the design would reduce NOx by about 92% versus gas turbines and use negligible water, but it still requires natural gas and an air permit. The May 31-July 6 public-comment period closed, and NMED scheduled an October 19 hearing in Sunland Park; the agency’s decision deadline is November 23. No air permit had been decided by July 17. Oracle, 2026-04-27; New Mexico Environment Department permit application, 2026-04; New Mexico Environment Department, 2026-07-06; New Mexico Environment Department scheduling order, 2026-07-16; Source New Mexico, 2026-07-16
  • Project Jupiter gas-pipeline approvals remain incomplete: BLM used an accelerated 14-day review to authorize rights-of-way across 16 miles of federal land for the 24-inch Green Chile pipeline, proposed to deliver about 400 million cubic feet of gas per day. On July 14, however, the State Land Commissioner again denied two rights-of-way and a business lease for the 0.6-mile state-trust-land segment, citing emissions, water and natural-resource strain, and inadequate benefit to trust beneficiaries. The denial leaves a material route obstacle; it is not a cancellation of the data center itself. Bureau of Land Management, 2026-05-06; New Mexico State Land Office, 2026-07-15

3. Local governance and preemption

  • State law does not appear to preempt local zoning for data centers: The state zoning statute continues to give local governments broad land-use authority, and 2026 county actions show local governments using that authority for moratoriums, permit conditions, and incentive guardrails. Justia, 2026-06-10; Santa Fe County, 2026-07-02; Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19
  • Local discretion is central to incentives: IRB and LEDA benefits remain negotiated at the local level, and 2026 Bernalillo and Lea County actions added local conditions for projects seeking IRBs or comparable local economic-development support. City Desk ABQ, 2026-02-11; Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19
  • Community opposition patterns: By July 2026, opposition had become a recurring policy driver in Socorro, Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Doña Ana, Gallup, and Raton discussions, with water, electricity costs, emissions, transparency, local fiscal return, and Indigenous/community consultation as recurring themes. Food & Water Watch issued a July report urging a statewide moratorium, and lawmakers announced a 2027 moratorium proposal. These are advocacy and prospective legislation, not current restrictions. City Desk ABQ, 2026-02-11; Source New Mexico, 2026-04-29; Santa Fe County, 2026-07-02; Food & Water Watch, 2026-07; Source New Mexico, 2026-07-07
  • Project Jupiter litigation: NMELC filed a second lawsuit on February 6 alleging that Doña Ana County violated the Open Meetings Act during the September 2025 Project Jupiter hearing. On March 20, a state judge denied the county’s motion to dismiss a separate lawsuit challenging the county’s approval of IRB/LEDA support, allowing that case to proceed. These are pending allegations, not merits judgments. New Mexico Environmental Law Center, 2026-02-09; New Mexico Environmental Law Center, 2026-03-20

4. Legislative activity (2024–2026)

Data center and large-load bills in 2026

  • SB 235 — Microgrid Oversight Act: SB 235 was the session’s most data-center-relevant bill. The committee substitute would have created PRC oversight of large microgrids, required annual reporting of energy generation and water use, set renewable/zero-carbon milestones for microgrids, allowed limited alternative compliance through low-income residential solar, and barred public utility rate increases to cover microgrid infrastructure-development costs. It passed the Senate 22-20 on February 14, 2026, was sent to the House Judiciary Committee, and died by action postponed indefinitely. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-02-10; New Mexico Legislature, 2026-02-15
  • SB 235 fiscal/agency analysis: Legislative analysis described the substitute as responding to data-center expansion and the electric-load implications of data-center microgrids, including microgrid applicability to facilities with aggregate load of at least 500 MW. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-02-05
  • HB 329 — Energy Affordability & Grid Reliability Council: HB 329 would have created a council to evaluate rate affordability, generation and infrastructure needed for growing demand and economic development, and impacts on residential, rural, tribal, and small-business customers. It died by action postponed indefinitely after an Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee do-pass recommendation. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; New Mexico Legislature, 2026-02-10
  • SB 177 — general fund transfers for advanced technology: SB 177 included appropriations for high-performance computing, quantum-computing access, and data-center renovations tied to bioscience and AI/quantum activities, but it was not a private data-center siting or incentive bill and died by action postponed indefinitely. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-02-11; New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29
  • HB 27 — Technology Jobs R&D Tax Credit Expansion: HB 27 died by action postponed indefinitely; its committee substitute expressly excluded data-center facilities from the proposed qualified-facility expansion. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; New Mexico Legislature HB 27 committee substitute, 2026-01-29
  • HB 207 — Water Quality Commission Produced Water Rules: HB 207 would have required produced-water permitting rules by December 31, 2026, but it died by action postponed indefinitely. The bill was not data-center-specific, but it matters indirectly because Lea County tied data-center cooling constraints to whether treated produced/brackish water can be reused instead of limited potable groundwater. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19
  • SB 39 — Microgrid Oversight Act: The original microgrid-oversight proposal would have expanded PRC jurisdiction and imposed renewable-energy, reporting, and ratepayer-protection requirements; it died by action postponed indefinitely and was superseded politically by the later SB 235 effort. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29
  • SB 97 — Technology “Qualified Expenditure”: SB 97 would have extended the Technology Jobs and Research and Development Tax Credit to property held through an IRB and died by action postponed indefinitely. Its LFC fiscal analysis modeled Project Jupiter exposure of $208.3 million in FY2027 and as much as $1.0625 billion in FY2030 if half of modeled expenditures qualified, while warning that eligibility was uncertain; these are bill-risk estimates, not an enacted subsidy. New Mexico Legislature, 2026-04-29; Legislative Finance Committee, 2026-06-22
  • HM 6 and HM 45 — studies and water: HM 6 would have requested a study of private-equity infrastructure ownership, including high-load/data-center cost shifting, but it was tabled 8-3 on February 13 and died. HM 45 would have asked the Water Quality Control Commission to consider a produced-water petition within 90 days and explicitly mentioned data centers; it also died. Neither memorial would itself have created binding regulation. New Mexico Legislature HM 6, 2026-01-21; New Mexico Legislature HM 6 tabled report, 2026-02-13; New Mexico Legislature HM 45, 2026-02-04; New Mexico Legislature final legislation list, 2026-04-29
  • 2024 amendment to the Industrial Revenue Bond Act: The IRB statute includes a 2024 amendment note updating the definition of “project,” including certain energy-storage facilities, which can indirectly affect data-center-adjacent infrastructure financed through IRBs. Justia, 2026-06-10
  • 2024 change to LEDA distributions: A 2024 law modified distributions to the state LEDA fund, with changes effective July 1, 2025. Justia, 2026-06-10

5. Notable projects and operators

  • Meta — Los Lunas

    • Meta’s Los Lunas data center campus is operational and has expanded in phases; regional economic-development reporting described a $2 billion investment and 400 operational jobs tied to the expansion. Albuquerque Regional Economic Alliance, 2023-04-26

  • Project Jupiter — Doña Ana County / Santa Teresa

  • Green Data / New Mexico Tech — Socorro County

    • Green Data proposed a roughly 10,000-acre renewable-led data center and solar-array project tied to New Mexico Tech discussions. New Mexico Tech later halted the proposal for the time being, and Socorro County adopted a one-year moratorium on June 9, 2026. Source NM, 2026-06-10

  • New Era Energy & Digital — Lea County

    • New Era announced in November 2025 a land-option purchase agreement for about 3,500 acres in Lea County for a proposed AI data center campus of up to 7 GW, combining data-center infrastructure with dedicated power generation. Lea County’s March 2026 regulatory discussion referenced that project while adopting local data-center rules. Business Wire, 2025-11-06; Hobbs News-Sun, 2026-03-19

  • Zenith Volts — Chaves County / Roswell

    • Zenith Volts obtained Chaves County approval in 2025 for a planned Roswell-area data center project designed to support roughly 1.24 GW of capacity on a 300-acre project site within a larger 8,500-acre footprint; no February 1-July 17, 2026 final buildout milestone was verified. Data Center Dynamics, 2025-08-26

  • Teraplex — Gallup Tradeport

    • Teraplex proposed a 330-acre data center with on-site solar and natural-gas generation, an unnamed prospective hyperscale tenant, up to 109.5 million gallons of treated effluent per year, an estimated 2,500 construction jobs, and 300 permanent jobs. The wastewater option amendment was deferred April 28, so the proposal had not received that agreement approval as of July 17. City of Gallup Council Agenda, 2026-04-28; Gallup Sun, 2026-05-08

Research gaps / verification notes

  • Monitor local ordinances: Track Socorro County advisory-committee recommendations, Raton’s postponed moratorium, Gallup’s deferred effluent option, implementation of Santa Fe County Ordinance 2026-06, and whether Lea/Bernalillo conditions are applied in executed IRB/PILOT agreements.
  • Monitor statewide proceedings: The 2026 bills died, but lawmakers have announced a 2027 moratorium proposal and PNM plans a separate large-load tariff filing.
  • Monitor environmental permits: Track NMED’s October 19 Project Jupiter air-permit hearing and November 23 decision deadline, plus any revised route or challenge involving the Green Chile gas pipeline.