Gov MLG fiddles with the law, adding fossil fuels to the fire, while New Mexico burns

Remember when the Governor was caught putting her finger on the scale to try to get reuse of fracking waste "over the finish line" for oil and gas? She's at it again. Deja Vu! First she was caught trying to fast track approval for Class VI well regulations favored by fossil fuels at the Oil Conservation Division, and now she's trying to shove a sham Project Jupiter hearing down our throats before she leaves office. That day can't come soon enough!

How do we know the fix is in?

On July 27th the Hearing Examiner reaffirmed his earlier decision to set a hearing for Project Jupiter's air pollution permit in October. That same afternoon, however, we've learned that Oracle had a private meeting with the Governor. Within a few days the Hearing Examiner announced that he had changed his mind, moving the already rushed hearing schedule to September 14th, making any meaningful discovery process and relevant expert testimony impossible.

Then last week New Energy Economy filed a Motion to Dismiss the hearing because the permit for a gas pipeline through State Trust Land was denied by the State Land Commissioner. The Hearing Examiner then ordered Project Jupiter developers to respond with information about their new plan, but on Sunday he rescinded his own order, again allowing the sham hearing to proceed without requiring any explanation of how developers now plan to bring methane to the data center.

We filed a Motion for Reconsideration and will take it to the Supreme Court if that is what is required.

Finally, today we learned that NMED has retained outside counsel to represent them at the hearing - proof positive that the agency itself is anything but a neutral arbiter in the regulatory process as it spends taxpayer dollars to try to help Project Jupiter obtain a permit from itself!

Meanwhile New Mexico burns. The Frijoles Fire has driven residents of Cundiyo from their homes, from Espanola to Pojoaque to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, the smoke burns our eyes, and the fire continues to spread rapidly. The thermometer in my garden hit 100 F and above 15 days out of the last month. The coyotes, the bears, the birds - every living thing that cannot escape the drought and the heat are suffering and dying.

The last thing New Mexico needs is more fossil fuels for this fire!

A coalition of groups opposing Project Jupiter plans to protest outside NMED on the 21st at 12:00PM. Hope to see you there!

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THE FIGHT TO OPPOSE BLACKSTONE CONTINUES

We previously reported that Prosperity Works filed a new Show Cause Motion at the PRC, asserting that a $350 million merger termination fee in the original contract with Blackstone that TXNM executives waived in their recent compliance filing should now be owed to ratepayers as a rate credit, which would translate to a yearlong 16% reduction for PNM customers.

New Energy Economy and the NM Consumer Protection Alliance last week followed that up with a Motion asking the PRC to investigate a $200M purchase of TXNM stock made by Zimmer Partners LP. Our motion asserts that this stock purchase also violated Section 62-6-12 of NM law and should also be declared “void and of no effect” in accordance with the law. Further, New Mexico ratepayers must bear none of the financial consequences associated with any unlawful transactions. Like Blackstone's $400M illegal stock purchase, the evidence shows that the Zimmer transaction was another essential piece of the same merger financing structure that the Commission has already found violated New Mexico law. The Zimmer shares were contractually tied to the Blackstone merger through mandatory voting commitments and were negotiated in coordination with Blackstone as part of the same transaction.

Our Motion asks the Commission to exercise its constitutional and statutory authority to determine whether the Zimmer acquisition independently violated New Mexico law.

In the meantime, Blackstone and PNM have already backtracked after press reports called attention to their efforts to relabel illegal profits of $13.3 million as "interest" on a loan.  Blackstone folded before we even had a chance to file our response to their non-compliant Compliance filing, amending their plan in a new filing at the PRC yesterday.

PNM has opened a new docket seeking PRC permission to issue $400 in common stock to replace the illegal merger related investments from Blackstone. That issue will have to be resolved before any hearing on the proposed merger will resume.

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WHAT IS ALL THIS VIOLENCE FOR?

Over the last few weeks, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta all disclosed that their newest models escaped closed testing environments and accessed the open internet to carry out cyberattacks. But, as reported in Politico this morning, leading AI labs face a dilemma:

"Some of their most advanced models have outsmarted developers during recent security testing. But if they slow down or pause these tests, the U.S. may lose its competitive edge with China. Some in the industry also fear the technology is already too advanced to meaningfully rein in, and that we’ve passed a critical threshold toward digital superintelligence."

Michael Dalton, a researcher at OpenAI, disclosed that OpenAI's advanced AI agents communicated secretly with each other about how to cheat their way through a hacking evaluation, indicating that they were capable of being deceitful. Over 1,000 employees at OpenAI and leaders from other top AI labs, recently signed an open letter calling on the Trump administration to support an international effort to “deliberately pace” AI development.

But others disagree. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg, “Any policy that slows American model releases — even by a month — could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead.” 

Translation: we can't slow down to protect humanity or the earth because a few billionaires might lose some of that sweet sweet profit.

In the words of Senator Bernie Sanders:

"We are already starting to see AI’s impact. There are estimates, from very credible sources, that tens of millions of jobs could be lost here in the United States in the next 10 years, whole professions wiped out, and young people finding it harder and harder to land entry-level jobs.Psychologists worry about the mental health challenges facing our young people and about the increased isolation they experience when they become more and more dependent on AI chatbots for their emotional support.Civil libertarians tell us that AI will be able to analyze every email, every text, every phone call, every website visit, every purchase that we make, and that our privacy rights may well be eviscerated.Political scientists worry that AI could threaten the integrity of our elections and political institutions, where voters will find it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between truth and lies.And yet, as enormously significant as all of these profound changes might seem, there is another AI development that could have an even more frightening impact. If AI becomes smarter than human beings, as many scientists believe will happen, the human race could lose control over this technology with catastrophic consequences.In other words, the richest, most powerful people in the world are now building a runaway train with no brakes. They acknowledge that they don’t understand how it works and they don’t know where it is heading."

It is not only our cyber systems that are at risk. To put the terrifying end game into perspective, another headline caught our eye this week "This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature." What could possibly go wrong?