Courtesy of Fox
New Mexico
Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion
After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.
It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.
Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.
Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:
- Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
- Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
- New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).
What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.
That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.
With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.
New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.
But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.
Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.
What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility
New Mexico
Timothy Busfield Charged With Child Sex Abuse On ‘The Cleaning Lady’s New Mexico Set; WBTV Will “Cooperate With Law Enforcement”
A 10-year-old New Mexico boy says Timothy Busfield “touched his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area” during production on The Cleaning Lady, an Albuquerque District Attorney–approved arrest warrant issued today says.
“In my training and experience, pedophiles often infiltrate families under a trusted role, like Timothy, who, as a producer, exploited the hectic film sets to tickle and touch SL on his penis and buttocks, masking it as play,” the warrant from Albuquerque Police Officer Marvin Brown asserts. “He would invite the family to off-set gatherings, with his wife buying Christmas gifts to foster closeness, making SL feel special and dependent—classic grooming to erode boundaries, isolate the victim, and silence suspicions by blending abuse into normalcy.”
Filled with accounts from two brothers of their alleged repeated experiences with the Thirtysomething alum, who was a director on the now shuttered Élodie Yung-led Fox drama from Warner Bros TV, the document charges Busfield with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse. It is unclear at this point if the Emmy winner has been arrested and booked by Albuquerque Police Department.
If found guilty of the charges, Busfield could face a minimum of three years behind bars.
In fact, the 68-year-old, who was accused but never charged in two previous sexual assault allegations in 1994 and 2012, could be looking at a lot longer sentence in the Land of Enchantment.
Under New Mexico statutes, prison time in sex crimes against minors leans heavily on context and circumstances in the degrees of punishment they hand out. That time and felony class can go up substantially if the crime involves children under 13 years of age — as it allegedly does here.
Named as “SL” and “VL” in the warrant, the two 2014-born boys appeared on The Cleaning Lady over multiple seasons before being let go for having aged out of the role, I hear. However, in a Nov. 3, 2025 phone interview with Busfield in the warrant, The West Wing vet told investigating Officer Brown that he “the lead actress, Elodie Young” informed him over a year ago that “the mother of SL and VL (sic) that she wanted revenge, and I’m going to get my revenge on Tim Busfield for not bringing her kids back for the final season.”
In interviews conducted with SL and VL on Halloween last year by a “forensic child interviewer,” and observed by Officer Brown, today’s arrest warrant says that the former told them the alleged abuse by Busfield started when he was 7 years old and on The Cleaning Lady.
“SL said that Tim touched him three to four times on his ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ area over his clothing,” the 12-page arrest warrant states of what is cited as a second incident with Busfield, very similar to a previous incident. “SL said he was very afraid of Tim and was relieved when he was off set. SL said he was afraid to tell anyone because Tim was the director, and he feared Tim would get mad at him. SL did advise that Tim touched him while he was only on set filming in Albuquerque.”
SL now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, the warrant says. SL disclosing having nightmares about the director touching him and waking up scared,” the document adds.
It goes on: “VL explained that Mr. Tim started touching them for the first two years, and he did not want to say anything, because he did not want to be mean to him. Therefore, VL did not say anything. VL said Mr. Tim would start touching him with his hands about his body while they were filming in the ‘house’. VL advised that it was about his body, but did not disclose that he was touched on his buttocks or penis area. VL said he did not like being touched, but did not say anything because he did not want to get in trouble.”
The matter actually first came to the cops’ attention in late 2024 when a doctor from University of New Mexico Hospital contacted the Albuquerque Police Department in regards to a “sexual abuse investigation.”
Noting that the boys’ father had been advised to go to the hospital by a local law firm, today’s warrant details: Officer Osborn talked with both VL and SL, who did not disclose any sexual contact at this time. However, both boys advised that Timothy Busfield, whom they referred to as ‘Uncle Tim’, would tickle them on the stomach and legs. Neither boy cared for the tickling. Officer Osborn contacted Detective Michael Brown with the Crimes Against Children Unit and determined that the case did not meet their acceptance criteria at this time.”
The matter came back to the police’s attention and became a much greater priority after the boys’ mother “advised that on 09/02/2025, SL reported to his counselor that Timothy Busfield touched his penis and bottom.”
In that same telephone conversation with Busfield in the weeks before Thanksgiving last year, the NYC-based filmmaker also dropped to Officer Brown that producers Warner Bros TV had conducted its own probe into allegations against him after SAG-AFTRA received an anonymous complaint in early 2025 of an incident on The Cleaning Lady set in December 2024. After writing up a search warrant for WB (which today’s warrant seems to mistakenly say occurred on “10/03/2025”) and several correspondences with WB attorney Richard Wessling at law firm Proskauer, Officer Brown on NYE last year got his hands on the March 31, 2025 external report put together by the LA office of Solomon Law.
Specifically the report, which saw Busfield suspended during the probe, looked into claims from the hotline caller that there was evidence of Busfield “tickling and caressing the head and body of minor boys” while working on the Albuquerque-filmed Cleaning Lady. Upon his own reading of the document, Officer Brown says in Friday’s warrant that Solomon investigator “Christina McGovern was not able to talk with anyone who would support evidence that Timothy Busfield engaged in this behavior.”
Working from what now seems to be limited accusations, the WBTV investigation viewed Busfield as “exonerated,” sources tell me.
In a statement to Deadline tonight, the Channing Dungey-led WBTV said: “The health and safety of our cast and crew is always our top priority, especially the safety of minors on our productions. We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and have systems in place to promptly and thoroughly investigate, and when needed, take appropriate action. We are aware of the current charges against Mr. Busfield and have been and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement.”
As well as speaking to the boys’ mother and father (who seem to have instigated and then ceased a civil suit on this), plus some Cleaning Lady production assistants and Make-up and Hair department staffers, today’s warrant also details a brief back-and-forth between Officer Brown and the series star Yung, who was a producer too.
“On 11/5/2025, I contacted Elodie Yung to set up an interview. Elodie agreed to meet with me at the Northwest Substation on 11/7/2025,” Officer Brown notes in his fairly comprehensive affidavit that e Albuquerque Assistant DA Savannah Brandenburg-Koch signed off on today. “I did initially advise Elodie that Tim Busfield gave me her name and said that she may have information about this case. On 11/06/2025, Elodie left me a voicemail declining to speak with me and said that she does not want to be involved with the investigation and that she would not have any information that could assist in this case.”
Busfield’s agents at Innovative Artists did not respond late Friday to Deadline’s request for comment on the arrest warrant and the charges against their client.
The New Mexico Public Education Department is facing a $35 million deficit, which it attributes to overpayments made to Gallup-McKinley County Schools, a claim the district disputes, arguing they are being wrongly blamed for the state’s funding mismanagement.
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