12 State Attorneys General Urge FERC to Approve New Mexico Gas Pipeline

A coalition of attorneys general from 12 states is urging federal regulators to approve a New Mexico gas pipeline, arguing its environmental review should exclude the AI campus it would power.

Led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, the group includes attorneys general from West Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio and South Carolina. McCuskey announced the coalition’s position Oct. 15; its comments were filed in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) dockets CP26-80-000 and CP82-534-000.

Transwestern Pipeline Company has proposed the Green Chile Project in Doña Ana County as a pipeline measuring 17.77 miles long and 24 inches in diameter. The line is designed to carry as much as 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. It is intended to deliver gas to Green Chile Ventures for power generation at an AI and data center campus. Oracle is a tenant of Project Jupiter, the southern New Mexico campus. Transwestern filed its request Jan. 29, 2026.

The attorneys general oppose broadening the review to cover the data center and its on-site power generation. They argue the pipeline should be evaluated separately, citing the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County and a D.C. Circuit decision involving a pipeline that supplies a power plant. McCuskey said, “That is not what Congress intended, nor is it what the Supreme Court said the law requires.” The disagreement centers on how closely regulators should connect a pipeline’s review to the facility planned to use its gas.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has urged FERC to include the campus’s environmental effects alongside those of the pipeline. In comments filed in CP26-80-000, Torrez wrote, “Project Jupiter in its current form cannot function without the pipeline.” His filing argues that the pipeline and campus should be considered together because the line is intended to supply gas for power generation there.

FERC staff concluded in an environmental assessment that approving the line would not count as a major federal action with significant effects on the human environment. The assessment is not the commission’s authorization decision. FERC also required additional historic-preservation documentation and moved the application into a case-specific authorization process.

FERC is scheduled to make its federal authorization decision by Dec. 3, 2026.