The Piedmont News is an email digest of top news stories about conservation, land use, energy, and environmental matters of interest to the region. We hope you’ll share The Piedmont News with someone else who cares about these stories.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(March 13, 2026)
The General Assembly will require a special legislative session to resolve a standoff between the House of Delegates and Senate over revenue for a new two-year budget, as budget leaders report "meaningful progress" on a Senate proposal to end a 16-year-old sales tax exemption on data center equipment over the objection of the House and Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
29 News
(March 11, 2026)
“The level of subsidy was never really anticipated when it was approved in the first place,” said Christopher Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council. “There’s no guarantees on tax incentives and I think it’s unreasonable for this industry to expect to get this level of subsidy.”
Politico
(March 11, 2026)
Lindsay Shaw was happy when she found out a data center was going up 100 meters from her front door... But then the data center turned on, along with the eight natural gas turbines powering it. Now her home is barraged by a high-pitch whine that she says has made her newly screened-in porch unusable.
Fauquier Times
(March 10, 2026)
A lawsuit that has stalled construction of an Amazon data center in Warrenton for the past three years may finally be approaching resolution.
CBS 19 News
(March 9, 2026)
Hundreds of residents came out to a community open house Monday night in Orange County to learn more about a proposed high-voltage transmission line that could run through several Central Virginia counties. The project, known as the Joshua Falls to Yeat Transmission Line, would be a 115-mile, 765-kilovolt line...
WVTF
(March 9, 2026)
Two energy giants, Dominion and AEP, are planning to build a high voltage transmission line between substations near Lynchburg and Culpeper. At the Piedmont Environmental Council, analyst Mike Barber says it will have a huge impact on natural resources stretching 115 miles.
The radio piece features Michael Barber, PEC's Senior Energy Infrastructure Policy Analyst.
The Washington Post
(March 7, 2026)
Officials in Loudoun County say they were “blindsided” by George Washington University’s sale of its Ashburn campus to the tech giant.
Fauquier Now
(March 12, 2026)
Virginia Railway Express is on track for a big expansion in service by 2030, with its new CEO hoping for a total transformation of the system by 2050.
C-VILLE Weekly
(March 11, 2026)
On March 5, the idea entered the public realm as the BOV’s Buildings and Grounds Committee reviewed additions to the Major Capital Plan, the way UVA tracks development of new structures and infrastructure. One addition is $100,000 for design of the Copeley Connector Road.
C-VILLE Weekly
(March 11, 2026)
The Albemarle Housing Investment Fund was created in 2019 to provide support for the first phase of Habitat for Humanity’s redevelopment of Southwood, according to Stacy Pethia, Albemarle’s director of housing.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(March 12, 2026)
With a new board in place, deliberations continue on the future of the historic Culpeper Courthouse, increasingly challenged due to incredible growth in case loads as well as security shortfalls.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(March 8, 2026)
A group of neighbors has formed The Culpeper Citizens Information Network. Their mission statement is, ”To inform Culpeper Citizens about issues that affect the quality of life and cost of living and equip them with the knowledge to engage in the civic process."
PEC's John McCarthy will present at the 3/19 meeting at the Culpeper Methodist Church.
Fauquier Times
(March 11, 2026)
Tom McDougall, the hub’s founder and CEO, said 4P is working to build a new food system that enables small and mid-sized farms to thrive while also keeping healthy food accessible to all people.
Loudoun Now
(March 12, 2026)
The Purcellville Town Council approved a $200,000 budget amendment to replace failing underdrains at the town’s water treatment plant...
Loudoun Now
(March 11, 2026)
The park was originally planned for the county’s Fields Farm property near the Woodgrove High School campus, but moved to a new 142-acre site on Purcellville’s western boundary in 2022 amid friction with town leaders.
Loudoun Now
(March 5, 2026)
A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered at Buchanan Hall... to rally support for the Middleburg Training Center, which is under consideration to become the new home of the U.S. Army’s Caisson Detachment.
Blue Ridge Leader
(March 4, 2026)
After two unsuccessful attempts to annex the property into the Town of Purcellville... the application is now before Loudoun County. The industrial development would total 986,000 square feet, down 288,892 square feet from earlier plans.
The Rapidan Register
(March 10, 2026)
A new, more positive path forward has seemingly been reached in the tensions between the Gordonsville Town Council and the Rapidan Service Authority (RSA).
Bristow Beat
(March 2, 2026)
Rulings with wide-ranging implications for western Prince William County are pending after a three-judge appellate court panel heard two separate cases serving as challenges to the PW Digital Gateway data center project Tuesday in Arlington.
Virginia Mercury
(March 9, 2026)
Virginians can once again fish and swim in portions of the Potomac River that were affected when a sewage pipe collapsed... and spilled more than 200 million gallons of wastewater into the river. But while state health officials say residents can resume recreational activities, others are concerned that contaminants remain in the water.
Cardinal News
(March 13, 2026)
Senate and House of Delegates conferees this week are deciding the fate of at least two data center bills — one of which would relegate them to industrial zones, and another that would require them to reveal their water use to the public.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(March 12, 2026)
Like the sales tax exemption and the lower rates for big industrial and commercial customers, the lower consumption tax rates are meant to help woo businesses to Virginia. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report reported that Virginia data centers used 24 million megawatt-hours of electricity that year.
Cardinal News
(March 12, 2026)
Sen. Deeds said that the consumption tax was a proposal brought by the industry. “Nothing has been proposed that could approximate the revenue given up through the sales tax exemption,” he said in a text message.
Cardinal News
(March 10, 2026)
A Colorado-based company with ties to a data center developer plans to buy 2,990 acres at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, the largest industrial site in Virginia.
Frontier Group
(March 10, 2026)
A recent report shows that while data center water use in Northern Virginia isn’t a crisis yet, it is a growing concern – and potentially a big problem during times of water stress. The report estimates that data centers’ share of total water consumption in...
WVTF
(March 10, 2026)
Farm workers don’t have to be paid the minimum wage in Virginia. That's because Virginia law has an exemption that allows them to be paid less, something the Delegate Adele McClure has spent years trying to overturn.
Virginia Mercury
(March 10, 2026)
Public interest in portable solar panels, often referred to as “balcony solar” panels, is growing inside and outside the state. The panels are meant to hang off balconies or the sides of homes and plug directly into the wall to put up to 1,200 watts per dwelling back into the home and offset some of the power usage.
The Virginian-Pilot
(March 9, 2026)
More than 60 data center-related bills were introduced in the General Assembly this legislative session. About half have been continued to next year or left to languish in committee. Some advocates worry the legislation that does pass this year will not do enough to rein in data center growth they say could strain Virginia’s resources.
Cardinal News
(March 9, 2026)
The bills reduce the penalty from a class 1 misdemeanor to a civil fine for failing to notify property owners before installing invasive plants.
VPM
(March 6, 2026)
"Today's siting decisions are largely local level, and while local governments evaluate land use impacts and zoning, most of the significant consequences of these projects, including electric grid reliability and transmission… extends far beyond local boundaries," Srinivasan said to members of a House subcommittee on Tuesday.
This article quotes Julie Bolthouse, PEC's Director of Land Use
The Washington Post
(March 6, 2026)
At the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over how to tax data centers — those high-tech facilities that provide the backbone of the internet but use enormous amounts of electricity and water.
CBS 19 News
(March 6, 2026)
Virginia lawmakers are working to resolve differences between two proposals addressing water use by data centers as the General Assembly debates how the fast-growing industry should disclose its water consumption.
Heatmap
(March 6, 2026)
Google has released its water use plans for a major data center in Virginia after a local news outlet argued regulators couldn’t withhold that information under public records laws.
AP News
(March 8, 2026)
Although advances in artificial intelligence are seen by President Donald Trump as critical to the nation’s economic and national security, their energy needs are threatening to overwhelm the power grid...
Utility Dive
(March 6, 2026)
The data centers being planned and built across the U.S. need a massive amount of electricity, and utilities are racing to build new generation and grid infrastructure to meet unprecedented demand growth... while coming up with contract structures that protect their other customers.
