Clean Virginia putting pressure on Spanberger, House Dems over data center tax breaks

A powerful environmental lobby is pushing back at Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Democrats for siding with data center developers over tax breaks that cost the state $1.9 billion a year.

“With 67 percent of Virginians supporting an end to special tax breaks for Big Tech data centers, the House conference budget is badly out of step with the public,” said Brennan Gilmore, the executive director of Clean Virginia, in response to the Spanberger/House Democrat proposal released on Friday, which calls for the “establishment of a Commission to thoroughly evaluate the direct and indirect costs and benefits of the data center industry, with a report and recommendations for legislative bill and budgetary changes to address financial, energy, and air/water/noise impacts in time for consideration by the 2027 General Assembly.”

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ICYMI

• Spanberger, House Democrats propose data center study as way around budget impasse
• Spanberger seems to be trying to split hairs on data center tax incentives
• Louise Lucas to the ‘Data Center Diva’: No more tax breaks for data centers
• We don’t like data center tax breaks: But there’s more to it than that

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Louise Lucas, the chair of the Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee, who has been leading an effort to end the tax incentives in 2027, countered on Friday that “the issue has already been studied by the legislature,” and that “Virginians are dealing with the negative consequences of data centers today. They expect action now rather than waiting another year, and want us to protect their interests rather than those of wealthy corporations.”

A Clean Virginia press release backs Lucas on the point about the General Assembly already having gone the study route – noting that “a 2024 report commissioned by the General Assembly already thoroughly studied the industry’s impacts.”

And then, Clean Virginia goes scorched earth on Luke Torian, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, telling us in the press release that Torian “has received over $1.8 million in campaign contributions from tech, utility, real estate, and lobbying interests associated with the data center industry since 2020.”

A search of the Virginia Public Access Project database shows Torian having received $1.04 million from Dominion Energy alone.

Full disclosure: Clean Virginia is also a big player in the money game.

Per VPAP, it gave $1.6 million to the Jay Jones campaign for attorney general and $1.2 million to the Spanberger gubernatorial campaign in the 2025 cycle.

Money is used to get people in power to listen. Clean Virginia is putting its money toward getting the governor and House leaders to come over to where most of us are on the data center issue, according to several recent polls showing widespread opposition to allowing the tax breaks to continue.

The Clean Virginia release highlights how leaders in other states are moving to rein in their spending of tax dollars on data center development.

The State of Washington, for instance, has limited its tax breaks to first-time investments in data centers, while Ohio paused its data center tax exemption after projected losses approached $2 billion in 2025, and Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has called to end data center incentives.

“States across the political spectrum recognize that these subsidies are unsustainable and that the public is demanding accountability,” Gilmore said. “Virginia remains the national epicenter of the data center industry, yet House leadership continues to avoid even the most basic reforms while the financial consequences for taxpayers and ratepayers grow larger every year.”