A Suite of Critical Bills is Currently Being Debated in the Virginia General Assembly
Things are moving fast in Richmond. Last week, we asked for your support on HB155/SB619, the “keystone” legislation that would finally bring state-level oversight to the data center industry. Since then, the stakes have only grown higher.
We are disappointed that the General Assembly has already taken out of consideration a bill that would have placed a moratorium on new data center approvals (HB1515) until projects with all their local approvals were interconnected to the electric grid or until 2028, whichever came first.
There are still many impactful data center bills being decided on soon and we need your help supporting them. See below for more information about those bills.
We cannot afford to let this session slip by without action. Please join us in demanding a comprehensive solution to this crisis. Take a moment to write to your legislators in support of the remaining data center reform bills.
The Path Forward
We are advocating for reform across four critical areas:
- State oversight to evaluate and plan for the far-reaching regional impacts of data center development affecting neighboring jurisdictions and state policies.
- Enhanced transparency around each data center’s energy use, water consumption and emissions
- Ratepayer protections that ensure average residents and businesses aren’t shouldering industry risks and subsidizing the operation of the wealthiest companies in the world
- Tax incentive reform that ties tax breaks for data centers to best practices, pollution reduction and energy efficiency
Please use our advocacy page to send a letter to your state legislators today and ask them to support this legislation.
The Massive Scale of the Crisis
The proposed legislation above is a direct response to a landscape that is quickly becoming unsustainable. Virginia is currently home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, with more than 500 facilities and approximately five times that capacity still in the pipeline. This unconstrained growth is pushing our state to a breaking point:
- Grid at Risk: Data center energy demand is projected to triple the size of our electric grid, requiring thousands of miles of new transmission lines and hundreds of substations. Dominion Energy alone forecasts that its peak energy demand will more than double by 2038, due to the contracts it holds with data centers.
- Skyrocketing Costs: The new power plants and transmission lines, along with increased capacity costs needed to fuel the boom of this industry, threaten to raise power bills and place unprecedented risk on all electric ratepayers.
- Billion-Dollar Subsidies: The state sales tax exemption for this industry is larger than any other, reaching a staggering $1.6 billion in 2025—money that could be used for schools, conservation or infrastructure.
🗣️ Virginians Are Demanding Change 🗣️
This isn’t just an environmental concern; it is a clear mandate from the public. Recent poll data shows that Virginians across the political spectrum are ready for the General Assembly to act:
- A Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) Action Fund poll found that the vast majority of voters want state legislators to take action to manage the impacts of data centers and don’t like big corporations getting special tax breaks to build new data centers.
- Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center poll shows residents’ clear support for site assessments before data center approvals that look at water usage, the electric grid, carbon emissions and agricultural impacts, and that prohibit locating them within a mile of a national park, state park or historically significant site.
Demand Accountability Today
We are in this situation because localities have approved massive data center campuses without any state review of the implications to the larger grid, ratepayers, and the environmental and energy policies of the state. Now is the time to bring discipline to this haphazard approach.
Please use our advocacy tool to ask your Delegate and Senator to support the Four Pillars of Data Center Reform.
Thank you for speaking up for a smarter digital future.
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at our Data Center Reform Lobby Day next week. Our 200 spots are currently filled!
Sincerely,
Julie Bolthouse
Director of Land Use
[email protected]
