Disclaimer – this is not an exhaustive list of resources. We hope to continue adding helpful links to this page.
Reports and Studies
- Report to the Governor and the General Assembly of Virginia, from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) Study, 2024.
- This study was commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly in spring 2024 after legislators rejected all proposed legislation proposals to reform the data center industry.
- Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models
- a study on data center water usage by Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, Shaolei Ren
- The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI
- A study on the air pollution effects of data center by Yuelin Han, Zhifeng Wu, Pengfei Li, Adam Wierman, Shaolei Ren.
- Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power, March 5, 2025.
- A study of ratepayer impacts of data centers by Harvard Law School
- Data centers drive buildout of gas power plants and pipelines in the Southeast, January 29, 2025.
- A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)
- Issued Air Permits for Data Centers, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
- A searchable database of air permits issued by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for data centers, including procedural reports and guidelines
Overview and Impacts: Webinars
- The Local Impact of Data Centers with Julie Bolthouse, Piedmont Environmental Council land use director
- A one-hour webinar presented by the Ohio State University Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. January 24, 2025
- Unpaid Toll: The Health Impacts of Data Centers
- A 90-minute webinar by Nature Forward on unmitigated public health impact of data centers with Shaolei Ren. February 25, 2025
- AI consumes a lot of water — but why?
- A TED talk on Data Center water usage with Shaolei Ren. October 2024
- Your Hour With APA Virginia: Planning for the Infrastructure of the Digital Age
- A webinar presented by Piedmont Environmental Council Land Use Director Julie Bolthouse. Virginia chapter of the American Planning Association, August 28, 2023.
Articles of Interest for Communities & Locality/Municipality
Taxes and Tax Revenue
- Data Center Tax Revenue Can Be Hard to Predict – Fauquier Times, Oct. 25, 2022
- City Officials Caught Off Guard as Bank Tenant Sidesteps Millions in Data Center Taxes – Potomac Local News | May 5, 2025.
- Secret data center tenant in Manassas not subject to business property taxes – Inside NoVA | May 7, 2025
- Guest Opinon: Banking on data center tax revenue? Wait before cashing that check | Culpeper Times — Opinion | insidenova.com – Culpeper Times, March 18, 2025
- Prince William County spending nearly $500K to fight data center lawsuits – Prince William Times, Dec. 3, 2024.
Power Shortages Impacting the Industry
- Power Shortages Can Lead to “Zombie Data Centers” – Business Insider, Oct. 23, 2025.
- Data Centers Face Seven-Year Wait for Power – Bloomberg, Aug. 29, 2024 [requires a subscription to view]
Other Topics of Interest
Realities of Jobs Creation: The AI Data-Center Boom Is a Job-Creation Bust – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
The Electrical Grid: How Tariffs Could Shock America’s Power System – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
Water Supply: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia’s water – Grist, May 8, 2024.
Air Quality: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Noise & Visual Impacts: Data centers are changing the landscape. Here’s how they may affect rural Virginia – Cardinal News, March 12, 2025.
Importance of Local Zoning: Northern Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else in the world. Here’s its advice for Southside | Cardinal News, March 17, 2025.
Data Center as Bad Actors: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Latest News Stories
Microsoft’s Clean Energy Reversal Collides With Virginia’s Climate Goals
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Inside Climate News
(06/15/26)
One of the world’s most profitable technology companies could be abandoning an ambitious clean-energy goal in Virginia as it races to build electricity-hungry data centers. Several of the company’s facilities are already operating in Virginia, the data center capital of the world, and more are planned, creating a tension with the state’s own climate commitments. Microsoft is considering ending its round-the-clock or 24/7 clean energy goal, which aims to meet 100 percent of its energy consumption 100 percent of the time with zero-carbon electricity by 2030.
Prince William supervisors hope to end data center overlay district by 2027; initial talks eyed for fall
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InsideNoVa
(06/15/26)
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is likely to consider by early fall a board-initiated zoning text amendment that would substantially reduce the county’s Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District and end by-right data center development entirely. If passed, the amendment would take effect in late 2026 or early 2027, according to a county staffer familiar with the proceedings, but there is no official timeline as of yet.
Prince William Supervisors Eye Data Center Overlay End
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Potomac Local News
(06/15/26)
Brentsville Supervisor Tom Gordy’s resolution at the June 9 board meeting directs staff to resume work on the zoning text amendment, with Planning Commission consideration eyed for late summer and full board action targeted for late 2026 or early 2027. The change would keep existing and approved projects in the 2016-created overlay while requiring special use permits for future data centers.
State senators Lucas and Locke advocate for removal of data center tax exemption
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WAVY
(06/14/26)
Making sure data centers in the commonwealth pay their fair share. That’s what state senators Louise Lucas and Mamie Locke were advocating for at Hampton City Hall on June 14th. The event was part of the Data Center Listening Tour, and came just days after a new $300 million data center began construction in Newport News. The goal of the tour is to discuss the impact of data centers, their rapid expansion across the commonwealth, and the role of tax exemptions for the centers.
Virginia lawmakers launch statewide listening tour on data centers
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13 News Now
(06/14/26)
The debate over data centers is heating up in Virginia, and State Sen. Louise Lucas is taking the conversation directly to residents. Lucas launched a statewide listening tour in Hampton on Sunday, focusing on concerns about the costs associated with the rapidly growing data center industry.
Virginia senators rally to end data center tax exemption ahead of June 30 budget deadline
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WTKR
(06/14/26)
Two powerful Virginia State Senators are pressing to eliminate a sales and use tax exemption for data centers, arguing the cost to the Commonwealth has grown far beyond what lawmakers anticipated when they approved its extension a decade ago. State Sens. Mamie Locke and Louise Lucas held a rally Sunday on the steps of Hampton City Hall, calling for an end to the exemption ahead of a June 30 budget deadline.
New House budget strips environmental standards for data centers, creates commission instead
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Fauquier Times
(06/14/26)
Speaker of the House of Delegates Don Scott, flanked by Appropriations Chair Del. Luke Torian, D-Prince William, and other bipartisan house members, unveiled the chamber’s latest budget proposal in Richmond on Friday, which they framed as a “compromise package” that they urged the state Senate to accept.The updated spending plan no longer includes environmental standards data centers would need to meet in order to be exempted from the state’s sales and use tax, an issue that has stalled budget negotiations for weeks and sparked speculation about a government shutdown if the parties can’t finalize the budget by June 30.
The Data-Center Panic Is Overblown
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The Atlantic
(06/12/26)
But the data-center panic is overblown. Most of the complaints inflate the costs of data centers and overlook the fact that, in some contexts at least, they can bring real benefits. If saying no is good politics, it isn’t always good policy. Let’s start with the claim that data centers do not create good jobs…
Data center moratorium fever for NC local governments
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Carolina Public Press
(06/11/26)
Dozens of local governments have passed data center moratoriums in the last six months. Officials in some of these communities told Carolina Public Press that the policies were necessary to update planning ordinances that aren’t equipped to deal with modern data centers.
New Virginia law requires data center water usage be made public
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WVTF
(06/11/26)
The law requires local water authorities to report data center water usage. The numbers will be available on the Department of Environmental Quality’s website, and it’ll be aggregated, comparing data centers versus some of the industries Srinivasan mentioned. “We’re going to have credible numbers reported by the local utilities on a simple website anyone can access,” Srinivasan told Radio IQ.
At a Google event, Spanberger stresses predictability
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
(06/11/26)
Gov. Abigail Spanberger took a moment at an event where Google announced a $50 million investment in job training to hit a theme she’s stressed during the budget impasse: businesses need predictability. She’s made that point regularly during the current stalemate over the state budget…
It’s not just Virginia. Data centers meet roadblocks around the U.S.
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Fauquier Times
(06/11/26)
The data center boom doesn’t just threaten the power grid supplying Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic. Fears of shortages are spreading across the country. With record heat expected this summer, the nation’s grid watchdog just issued its highest alert, telling grid operators to develop better systems to deal with the risks that data centers pose to the nation’s power delivery system.
Illinois moves to suspend data center tax breaks. Here’s how Virginia’s compare.
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Cardinal News
(06/11/26)
Last week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — in what Capital News Illinois called “a surprise move” — announced that he will suspend the state’s tax incentives for data centers. Whether this is smart policy is yet to be seen. Unfortunately for Virginia — which is now embroiled in its own debate over data center taxation — the impact of the Illinois policy change may not be known for years, which is longer than many politicians want to wait.
‘Tuckahoe Tech Park’ data center campus proposed on 900-acre tract in Goochland
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Richmond BizSense
(06/11/26)
A developer from Colorado has stepped up to the plate to try to be the first to build a data center campus under Goochland’s newly enacted technology overlay district guidelines. Denver-based Tract on Wednesday submitted an initial conditional-use permit application to the county for Tuckahoe Technology Park, a multi-phase data center campus that would rise on nearly 900 acres just west of West Creek Business Park.
The exemption Virginia can’t price and won’t stop
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Virginia Mercury
(06/11/26)
Virginia built an incentive its own auditors say returns less to the state than it costs, watched it grow into a near-billion-dollar annual line, and has not decided whether it has the will to change course. Localities adopting their own budgets this month, waiting on state numbers that may not come, will feel that indecision first.
Abbott recommends sweeping data center regulation, including eliminating sales tax exemption
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Texas Tribune
(06/10/26)
Among his legislative priorities: … require annual reporting by all data centers on electricity and water use, establishing best-practice standards to address community concerns like noise, repealing data center sales tax exemptions and “other outdated or unnecessary incentives for data centers.”
Oracle Falls Most in Six Months on Mounting Data Center Costs
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Bloomberg
(06/10/26)
Oracle Corp. shares declined by the most in six months after the company reported quarterly capital expenses that were higher than estimates, raising investor concerns about the profitability of the AI infrastructure business.
Virginia budget talks near June 30 deadline as data center tax breaks spark debate
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ABC 13 News
(06/10/26)
“There’s disagreements between the governor and the state legislature, but more than that, there’s disagreements within the legislature itself,” Hult said. “My best guess is, although I’m not a gambler, and with good reason, is that they will get a budget passed by the deadline. It may come close to the edge though, however.”
Virginia’s business reputation at the center of state budget impasse
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VPM
(06/10/26)
“There are no guarantees that these data centers will exist or these tax credits will exist for the duration of the time. That’s in every memo signed,” said Ramadan. According to him, sunsetting the tax exemption early has “been talked about for two or three years now. It’s no surprise. So, again, that’s why it’s more of a spin than it is a reality.”
Column: Virginia’s future depends on building the electric infrastructure that powers it | Guest column
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
(06/10/26)
The construction of transmission lines, substations, generating facilities and related infrastructure creates thousands of family-sustaining careers for skilled electrical workers. These are careers that allow workers to buy homes, raise families, support local businesses, and contribute to the communities where they live. At IBEW Local Union 70, our members take great pride…
It’s not just Virginia. Data centers meet roadblocks around the U.S.
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Fauquier Times
(06/10/26)
Even power-rich Texas, with a data center concentration second only to Virginia’s, will need to nearly double its electric production in five years. Shortages are possible this summer, and the supply-demand gap could be five times worse by 2029, the state’s grid operator reports.
Residents fear Frederick County will be new ‘data center alley’
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The Frederick News-Post
(06/10/26)
Frederick has more planned hyperscale data centers than any other county in Maryland, according to an industry-created dataset. These facilities will come online in as early as three years, according to some estimates, prompting local concerns that the area will soon resemble “data center alley” in nearby Loudoun County, Virginia.
Spanberger backs House budget during caucus meeting
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Forbes
(06/09/26)
Under a tariff its utility regulator approved last November, any data center on Dominion Energy’s grid drawing 25 megawatts or more has to sign a 14-year contract, pay for at least 85% of the transmission and distribution capacity it reserves whether it uses the power or not, cover 60% of its reserved generation the same way, and put down collateral of $1.5 million for every megawatt it books. The rules take effect January 1, 2027.
With budget deadline looming, Virginia lawmakers remain at odds over data center tax breaks
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WTOP News
(06/09/26)
In a post on the social media site X, Lucas said she proposed several consequences, but “Data Center Diva and Amazon Don couldn’t understand that this is about the policy — fair taxation and protecting our resources and citizens.” Torian, meanwhile, said in a statement that the House is committed to working toward a budget agreement.
DEQ meeting about data center discharge water into Lake Anna tributaries turns contentious
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12 On Your Side
(06/09/26)
Amazon Web Services is seeking permission from the Department of Environmental Quality to release treated water from its data centers into Louisa County’s natural water sources. The requested Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit would be used at Amazon’s Lake Anna Tech Campus.
