As Virginia inches closer to the 2025 legislative session all eyes are on a state watchdog report on data centers.
Loudoun County Democratic Delegate David Reid knows a thing or two about data centers. Not only was he an AT&T employee when the massive tech hubs were first being built, he also has hundreds of them in his district.
“We’ve got to be able to have a discussion about the role data centers play in our modern, highly connected economy,” Reid said after a recent meeting of the Virginia Small Business Commission.
To that end Reid and almost every other elected official is waiting for a report from the Joint Legislative Review Counsel, or JLARC, due Monday. The report aims to explain the impact data centers have on the Commonwealth.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is among those interested as well. Data center growth is expected to double Virginia’s power demand in the coming years, and they also use massive quantities of water. Those two issues combine on the environmental front as localities look to limit data center expansion but also limit new solar projects that could fill the power gap.
Democrats have floated a new override of local authority to deny such projects, but SELC’s Nate Benforado argues transparency could be a carrot instead of a pre-emption stick.
“Making sure localities have all the information and also making sure we can have all that information more transparent to the public so we can make better informed decisions,” Benforado told reporters in a press briefing Thursday.
Just this past March at an Amazon data center announcement, Governor Glenn Youngkin welcomed the quote “data center ecosystem,” saying they bring millions in tax revenue to localities.
“For every dollar that a county invests, there’s 13 dollars that come back to them from this ecosystem,” Youngkin said. “So this is truly an engine of economic opportunity.”
Whether all the issues around data centers can be solved during the shorter 2025 legislative session remains to be seen, but we’ll get a clearer window on Monday.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
