Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in an interview with VPM posted online on Wednesday that “no one single person should hold up the budget and potentially risk the entire economic stability of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
She doesn’t seem to get that, maybe, she’s that “one single person.”
We’re inside of two weeks of June 30, the deadline to have a new budget in place for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, and still nowhere closer to a budget, with the State Senate holding firm behind Louise Lucas on the push to eliminate billions of dollars in tax breaks for the developers of massive data centers, and Spanberger and House Speaker Don Scott wanting to kick the can down the road with the creation of a data center study commission.
ICYMI
- Data center tax break impasse at the heart of a Virginia Democrat civil war
- Spanberger defends kicking the can down the road on data centers in TV interview
- Clean Virginia putting pressure on Spanberger, House Dems over data center tax breaks
- 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
Polls show more than two-thirds of Virginians are on the side of Lucas and the State Senate on the issue, which is what is complicating things for the first-year governor.
Hard as it is to believe, Spanberger was elected just seven months ago by a landslide margin, but since, she has seen her job approval dip below 50 percent – and the most recent polling that I can find is from April, before whatever upset feelings folks have been having over her flood of vetoes of long-term Democrat priorities, and now this bit over putting her political future on the line to protect the interests of multibillion-dollar companies.
“Virginians are rightfully angry. The data center industry is polluting our air, driving up our electric bills and being a bad neighbor, and yet we are no closer today to solutions than we were in January. Virginia politicians are failing their voters,” said Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, which, per a press release issued on Wednesday, “is joining with a coalition of partners in calling for a statewide pause on any data center approvals until such time that strong environmental standards and reforms are in place.”
“People are sick and tired of watching big corporations and the billionaires and trillionaires who run them get ahead at their expense,” Town said. “Without standards in place, the data center industry will continue to harm communities, pollute our air and water, and make it harder to secure our clean energy future. No more data center projects should be allowed to move forward until lawmakers pass the comprehensive solutions that Virginians deserve and demand.”
The State Senate budget proposal does offer us something there – an “impact” fee for data centers that use diesel or gas-powered backup generators.
That, and getting rid of the tax breaks that have us taxpayers footing part of the bill of the development of new data centers and the continued operations of existing data centers, that’s a start.
Another coalition of environmental groups – the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Voices – is pushing for legislation establishing safeguards on data centers.
Their proposal calls on data centers to:
- Power their facilities with clean energy on their own dime.
- Be prohibited from building dirty power sources on-site that burden Virginia communities with harmful air pollution.
- Cut harmful impacts of backup diesel generators by maintaining at least two hours of non-polluting backup power at all times.
- Fully offset their water consumption in water-scarce areas by using recycled water for cooling.
“Virginia’s data center boom is moving faster than the law,” said Jay Ford, the Virginia policy manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. This year, lawmakers must enact strong regulations for data centers that protect our air and water. Unless Virginia acts now, we’ll pay for the rapid expansion of data centers in the Commonwealth with our drinking water, clean air, and thriving waterways.”
One last item from the environmental side: an open letter initiated by the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance calling on Spanberger and the House to end the data center tax breaks has garnered 54 signatures in the past few days, with signatories including the Coalition to Protect Prince William County and Protect Hanover County, which in recent weeks halted data center proposals in their respective localities, and Clean Virginia, which was a major – to the tune of $1.2 million – contributor to the 2025 Spanberger campaign.
But to Spanberger, it’s “one person” causing all this.
“In my conversations with the senator,” Spanberger told VPM, not even able to allow herself to breathe the name Louise Lucas, much less say it, “my question had been, what is the goal? Is the goal an x amount of money? Is the goal changing the landscape in Virginia? Like what is the goal? You have to have a defined goal.”
She knows what the goal is.
The rest of us aren’t sure what her goal is.
It sure ain’t having a political career after her four years as a failed governor.
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Chris Graham
