A coalition of environmental groups is calling for a moratorium on new data center construction in Virginia until developers can show that they can meet specific environmental goals and standards on clean energy, water use and transparency.
The impetus for the move: the release of Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s Data Center Accountability Framework, which calls for guardrails on data centers and more skin in the game from the massive energy and water consumers.
“For far too long, Virginia’s energy policy has been driven not by the public interest, but by corporate profits. The unchecked expansion of data centers is a prime example of that injustice,” said Brennan Gilmore, the executive director of Clean Virginia, an influential, with Democrats, environmental lobbying group.
Clean Virginia is a member of a group calling itself the Pause to Protect Coalition, whose roster includes:
- Appalachian Voices
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation
- Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund
- Clean Virginia
- Friends of the Rappahannock
- National Parks Conservation Association
- Piedmont Environmental Council
- Potomac Riverkeeper Network
- Sierra Club Virginia Chapter
- Solar United Neighbors of Virginia
- Southern Environmental Law Center
- Virginia Conservation Network
- Virginia Interfaith Power & Light
- Virginia League of Conservation Voters
“Big Tech companies, monopoly utilities, and corporate polluters are reaping the rewards of this industry while Virginia families are paying the price through rising costs and escalating health and environmental impacts. Before Virginia commits to decades of data center development, we must hit pause and put meaningful, enforceable protections in place for the communities who bear the burden,” Gilmore said.
Northern Virginia is the data center capital of the world, and developers are now looking outside the urban crescent to Rural Virginia, where the land is plentiful, and the politics not as sophisticated.
The #1 thing that people write me about is to ask if I could look into the latest rumor about a data center going up in their locality.
We don’t want ‘em, but we’re paying through the nose for them – the state offers billions in tax breaks to the industry, and Spanberger actually fought Democrats who wanted to zero out the tax breaks from the state budget earlier this year, and won.
Unbelievable, right?
More information on the Pause to Protect platform is available here.
Share
Chris Graham
