Is data center growth out of control in Virginia? Some people are calling for a pause.
It's time for a moratorium on data centers in Virginia. That's the proposal from state Senator Glen Sturtevant, a Republican from Colonial Heights. He says now that Northern Virginia is rejecting proposals, developers are moving toward his district in Central Virginia.
"Because many of them don't feel welcome in Loudoun and Fairfax anymore, they're moving their way south down I-95, and they're barreling right towards the area that I represent, in the Richmond area, Central Virginia," Sturtevant says. "And so, I'm calling for this moratorium because I don't want my area to become the next Data Center Alley."
Delegate Joshua Cole is a Democrat from Fredericksburg who says he's not yet ready to call for a moratorium. But he says the dynamics might shift by the time the General Assembly gavels into session in January.
"Over the past couple of months, we have seen the approval rating of data centers sour, not just in Prince William County, and not just in Fredericksburg, but all over the Commonwealth and the United States," Cole says. "And so, I think the more and more we don't do something about it, the more and more the people are going to have an appetite for us to do something."
So far, Governor Abigail Spanberger is not agreeing with calls for a moratorium like the one recently implemented in New York. In a written statement, a spokesman for the governor says Virginia is "showing what it looks like to be a national leader" by implementing a new energy consumption tax while increasing standards for environmental protection and noise pollution.
