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.
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Fauquier Now
(December 8, 2025)
A coalition of 17 conservation groups from Fauquier, Loudoun and beyond are banding together to fight a high-end resort pitched near the convergence of Loudoun, Fauquier and Clarke counties. The Eastwind Blue Ridge project calls for 40 hotel rooms, an 88-seat restaurant and a standalone spa on 147 acres near Route 50 and Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway, on the southern slope of Paris Mountain.
The article features a quote of PEC's President, Chris Miller.
E&E News
(December 8, 2025)
States facing drought and dwindling groundwater supplies are seeking to pull back the curtain on water use at data centers, in a push for transparency that has scrambled traditional partisan alliances. Lawmakers from at least eight states this year introduced legislation to require data centers to report their water use, which supporters say is crucial to protecting consumers and managing a finite resource.
Government Technology
(December 5, 2025)
Virginia utilities should be able to tap the brakes on new data centers and other big power users if they don’t have the power plants on hand to supply them, a General Assembly panel said. The Commission on Electric Utility Regulation is recommending a bill that would allow utilities to delay connecting customers needing more than 90 megawatts — enough to power 22,500 homes — if a delay is needed to avoid overloading the grid in a way that risks blackouts or brownouts.
Fauquier Times
(December 10, 2025)
Amazon Web Services is headed to the Warrenton Board of Zoning Appeals to see if the data center powerhouse still has a right to develop a 42-acre site along Blackwell Road. The site has sat dormant for two years since Amazon was granted a special use permit on Valentine’s Day 2023, as multiple legal challenges worked their way through Virginia courts.
Loudoun Now
(December 5, 2025)
In the first of a new series of Town Hall meetings hosted by U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, Loudoun residents spoke about the health impacts, environmental effects and national security implications of data centers and proposed transmission lines. “You're seeing noise. You're seeing the impact on the environment, on water. You're seeing the impact on your utility bills,” Subramanyam said. “You're seeing the power infrastructure literally being built in your backyard."
Charlottesville Tomorrow
(December 5, 2025)
A grassroots campaign in Gordonsville has raised millions of dollars to turn a decaying facility into the centerpiece of an expanded park. Along the way, the project pushed Gordonsville to reckon with the pool’s segregated past — and gave the town a chance to rebuild something more inclusive in its place.
PEC has long supported the Town to Trail project in Gordonsville, including purchasing and then donating to the town the two parcels connecting Verling Park to Fireman's Fairgrounds mentioned in the article. Read more on our website.
InsideNoVa
(December 9, 2025)
Data center reform was a pressing issue at a joint legislative meeting between the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, School Board and several members of the county’s delegation to the Virginia General Assembly, with state lawmakers stressing the urgency of mitigation measures for the tech hubs’ proliferation. State Sen. Danica Roem, D-30th District, was adamant the state legislature should take two major steps during its 2026 session: limiting the placement of data centers to exclusively industrial areas and removing the sales tax exemption for data centers.
WJLA-ABC7News
(December 9, 2025)
After three hours of public comment, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors rejected stricter zoning recommendations for electrical substations. The proposed rules, voted on unanimously by the Planning Commission in October, would have expanded the residential setback from 100 feet to 200 feet, meaning substations would have to be at least 200 feet from homes. However, Tuesday night's vote will keep the setback at 100 feet.
GreaterGreaterWashington
(December 4, 2025)
This fall, the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board rejected a highway widening proposal to pursue better solutions for the southside of the Beltway, and a regional task force advanced a plan for dedicated WMATA funding and rail system modernization. But regional leaders also took a step backward: drafting a largely status quo long-range transportation plan that would spend $20 to $30 billion on widening highways in contrast to $16 billion for expanding transit.
The writer of this opinion piece, Bill Pugh, is senior policy fellow with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a project of PEC.
The Winchester Star
(December 10, 2025)
On Wednesday, the local conservative group Mountain Patriots published a 21-page document titled “Data Center Development: Issues & Solutions,” which outlines concerns its members have with the potential approval of new data centers in Frederick County and ways to address them.
WHRO
(December 12, 2025)
Stormwater runoff has become part of a growing, contentious debate around solar energy development in Virginia. Virginia Tech is in the midst of an effort to collect on-the-ground data to help inform state leaders how to move forward.
Bay Journal
(December 10, 2025)
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released a guidance memo in November proposing to expand the conditions under which certain facilities, including data centers, can use emergency backup diesel generators throughout the state. Environmentalists and residents who live near data centers are worried about the air pollution that could result if the state allows facilities to use diesel generators more often. If DEQ finalizes the guidance, it will take effect Jan. 3.
This article quotes Julie Bolthouse, PEC's Director of Land Use .
InsideNoVa
(December 9, 2025)
Data center reform was a pressing issue at a joint legislative meeting between the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, School Board and several members of the county’s delegation to the Virginia General Assembly, with state lawmakers stressing the urgency of mitigation measures for the tech hubs’ proliferation. State Sen. Danica Roem, D-30th District, was adamant the state legislature should take two major steps during its 2026 session: limiting the placement of data centers to exclusively industrial areas and removing the sales tax exemption for data centers.
Virginia Mercury
(December 5, 2025)
Ahead of the 2026 General Assembly legislative session, Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi joined environmental advocates from the National Resource Defense Council and Evergreen Collaborative in Richmond to share policy ideas they believe will put money back in consumers’ and electricity rate payers' pockets. “Policies must shift so that the cost is not on the everyday rate payers,” Hashmi said.
Washington Business Journal
(December 5, 2025)
Virginia lawmakers are considering legislation that would give utility companies authority to delay service to the state's largest power users, which could have ramifications for data center development in Northern Virginia.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(December 2, 2025)
The state’s data center boom is now the subtext to increasingly intense politicking over longtime Virginia issues — climate change, electricity rates and the powers of local governments.
The Guardian
(December 8, 2025)
A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.
While PEC did not sign on to this letter calling for a national moratorium, we support a smarter approach to data center development in Virginia
The New York Times
(December 7, 2025)
Meetings of the Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners in New Mexico are typically snoozy and sparsely attended, with a handful of spectators in a nondescript room seated on black plastic chairs. But not on Sept. 19, when the Commissioners held a meeting and public hearing on a proposed complex of data centers sprawling across 1,400 acres of desert scrublands.
Independent
(December 5, 2025)
With data centers flooding into Georgia, utility regulators face a big decision: Should they let Georgia Power Co. spend more than $15 billion to increase its electricity capacity by 50% over the next six years to serve computer complexes? Or could the utility overbuild and stick other ratepayers with the bill?
