This text was taken from an email sent out on June 10, 2026. Sign up for email alerts →
Dear supporter,
Virginia is facing a crisis — one being written, contract by contract, right now.
Dominion Energy has agreed to supply power to future data centers totaling 51 gigawatts (GW) — an amount which would triple the grid’s current peak demand.
Meeting that demand will require hundreds of new substations, thousands of miles of transmission lines, and dozens of new power plants. Our communities, our environment, and our electric bills are all on the line. We need a plan.
Earlier this year the General Assembly failed to pass any significant legislation regulating data centers, addressing cost shift to other ratepayers, nor the tax exemption. It now has one more opportunity to act before this gets worse.
Legislators return to Richmond on June 18 to finalize the state budget ahead of a June 30 deadline. The budget debate has centered on whether to end the annual sales tax exemption for data centers — but PEC is calling on legislators to go further and use the budget to:
- end the sales tax exemption and
- pause approvals of new data center projects so Virginia can actually plan for the impacts of the 51GW’s of data center demand that’s already been approved.
The Senate has emphasized that the industry has placed heavy demands on the electric grid across the state, provides relatively few long-term jobs, and the large amount of revenue being forfeited is critically needed to invest back into communities through the state budget needs. The House and the Governor have argued that ending the sales tax exemption prematurely, before 2035, would damage Virginia’s reputation with businesses and discourage future investment.
PEC strongly believes that Virginians should not continue to subsidize the richest corporations in the world and that our state needs a pause to plan and manage the situation. The budget negotiations are one last opportunity this year to stem the tide – to stop both the give away and the crisis by contract.
Tell Your State Elected Officials to Take Action
Please send an email to your state delegate, state senator, and Governor Spanberger today — before they reconvene on June 18.
Urge them to pause data center approvals to plan for their impacts and end the sales tax exemption.
This tax break has ballooned from $1.6 million in 2008 to nearly $2 billion today. It’s now the largest tax break to any single industry in Virginia — roughly 6% of the state’s annual revenue. With around 10 GWs of operational IT load in Virginia, Virginia is already the data center capital of the world, and remains one of the fastest growing markets on the globe. This unconstrained growth is breaking our grid, straining our water resources, threatening air quality, and communities are demanding real action.
The industry will not leave Virginia if the tax exemption ends. States like Ohio and Illinois have paused their sales tax exemptions. If we keep approving data centers without a plan, Virginians will face rising energy costs, worsening air quality, industrialized neighborhoods, and an unreliable electric grid. We must pause and plan.
Want to understand the full scope of this crisis? Read our blog post for the details on what’s at stake and why a pause is urgently needed.
Thank you for your continued support and engagement on important issues in our region. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Julie Bolthouse
Director of Land use
[email protected]
