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Dear Supporter,
On Saturday, we shared an overview of our priority topics for this year’s Virginia General Assembly legislative session, which began last week. Today, things are moving fast, and we need your voice to support a “keystone” piece of legislation that could finally bring real accountability to the data center industry.
As electricity prices rise for all Virginians, our state should not be subsidizing the biggest, wealthiest companies in the world by $1.6 billion a year with little real benefit to the majority of residents.
Tackling the Root of the Problem: Unconstrained Growth
Virginia is home to over 500 data centers, with five times that amount already in the pipeline. Currently, there is no overarching state plan to manage the cumulative impacts on our energy costs, our air quality, and our natural resources. Until meaningful reform legislation is passed, Virginia needs to pause all approvals of new data center projects so state agencies can actually assess the impacts, identify the repercussions that await us if we continue with the status quo, and make a plan to mitigate them.
Dozens of bills aimed at bringing more transparency and oversight to data center development have been introduced by members of the General Assembly. However, HB155/SB619, sponsored by Delegate Josh Thomas in the House and Senator Srinivasan in the Senate, gets to the root of this crisis by requiring meaningful state-level oversight. This bill is currently being considered in a House Labor and Commerce Subcommittee.
What HB155/SB619 Will Do:
This bill requires any new “high-load facility”—specifically those demanding more than 25 megawatts of electricity—to obtain a Certificate of Operation from the State Corporation Commission (SCC). This bill would encapsulate all new data center applications because most new data center proposals in Virginia require between 60-90MW of electricity (the equivalent to about the energy used by ~15,000 homes).
If passed, HB155/SB619 would ensure that before a project moves forward, the SCC must consider:
- Ratepayer Protection: Whether the facility will increase energy costs for families and small businesses.
- Grid Reliability: If there is sufficient energy and infrastructure to support the load without jeopardizing the grid.
- Environmental Impact: Alignment with the state’s clean energy goals and the cumulative effects on public health and natural resources.
Take Action: Ask Your Legislators to Support HB155/SB619
We believe that passing HB155/SB619 is the single most important step Virginia can take this year to ensure a smarter digital future. Please use our advocacy page to send a letter to your state legislators today.
Now is the time to bring discipline to what has been a decentralized and haphazard approach to managing the impacts of data center development. The past two years, the General Assembly has taken little action on data center legislation. We can no longer afford to just “nibble around the edges” while our electric bills skyrocket and our communities are industrialized.
We are in this situation because localities have approved data center campuses without any state review of the implications to the larger grid, ratepayers, and the environmental and energy policies of the state. If HB155/SB619 passes, it would create genuine reform providing the SCC a means of assessing these issues.
Thank you for staying engaged on this critical issue!
Sincerely,
Julie Bolthouse
Director of Land Use
[email protected]