See also: “If state requires studies on data center sites, it should require studies on solar sites, too.”
Data centers are presenting a huge challenge for Virginia. To be sure, these large buildings and the computer servers with which they are filled provide significant value in our digital economy by enabling things like streaming services, telehealth visits and artificial intelligence. But they also use a tremendous amount of energy, can consume enormous volumes of water, and due to their noise and land use impacts, have turned residents’ quality of life upside-down in many areas where they are being built.
Making the situation even more challenging, the only governmental bodies that have a real say on whether and where a data center gets built are our locally elected government officials — the members of our local boards of supervisors and city councils. Most of these public servants occupy these roles on only a part-time basis and with little pay. And yet they are being asked to determine the impacts of, and make decisions on, very complex proposals from some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet. These companies have no limit to the lobbying pressure they can apply on local government officials, and we’ve seen numerous examples of data center applicants fighting tooth and nail against disclosing information about the water and energy they will consume in the communities where they are asking to build. Further, localities stand to receive significant tax revenues from data centers. It can be extremely hard for local officials to look past those dollar figures to the long-term community and environmental damage that those tax revenues will cost their residents.
The General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) spent much of 2024 studying the impacts of data centers and then offering recommendations to the General Assembly for how it might address them. JLARC published its report in December, and its recommendations included two aimed at clarifying the existing authority localities have to require certain information from data centers before they approve them. Getting that information in front of local officials is crucial to their ability to make informed decisions that protect the communities they represent and the environmental resources those communities depend on.
House Bill 1601 from Delegate Josh Thomas, D-Prince William County, is a commonsense effort to do just that. First, to help localities assess potential noise impacts, the bill would require applicants seeking a rezoning or other discretionary land use approval for a “high energy use facility” to submit to the locality a site assessment that examines how noise from the facility would impact any residences and schools located nearby. Notably, this provision is consistent with a recommendation from the JLARC report to amend Virginia law to clarify local government authority to require sound modeling studies from data center developers and to consider the results in their land use decisions.
Second, House Bill 1601 would make clear that localities may require these site assessments to also include information on how the proposal would impact water sources, agricultural resources, parks, historic sites and forestland. This provision draws from another recommendation in the JLARC report, which noted that localities have authority to consider water resources in their land use planning but that some local officials are uncertain whether they may require and consider water use estimates when evaluating data center projects. The JLARC report further explained that data center developers can be reluctant to share this information with localities in the first place. It therefore recommended amending state law to clarify local authority to require and consider water usage estimates when making rezoning and other discretionary decisions related to data center development.
Additionally, House Bill 1601 would clarify that local zoning authority extends to obtaining and considering information about impacts that high energy use facilities would have on farms, parks, historic sites and forests. SELC believes localities already have such authority under their general zoning authority — not just with respect to data centers and other high energy use facilities, but for all manner of uses seeking zoning and related approvals. However, we are not opposed to including these land-based resources in the bill, especially with the inclusion of a provision making clear that the bill should not be interpreted to limit existing local zoning authority.
Finally, House Bill 1601 would direct localities to require an electric utility to describe any new electric generating units, any new or existing electric substations and the transmission voltage needed to serve a high energy use facility before the locality may approve a rezoning or special use permit for such a proposal. This provision would help ensure that localities have some idea of the additional energy infrastructure that would need to be built and which could impact their residents before they approve a proposal that would require a large amount of energy.
Senator Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, is the patron of a similar piece of legislation, Senate Bill 1449. It includes the same provisions as House Bill 1601 from Delegate Thomas, with the exception of the requirement for electricity infrastructure and transmission information. Both bills passed their respective houses with bipartisan support.
Finally, it’s worth reiterating that both bills would apply to a “high energy use facility,” defined as a project requiring 100 megawatts or more of power from an electric utility. This definition would not capture every data center, but rather would focus on larger, “hyperscale” data centers that use the most energy and therefore have the potential to generate the most noise, consume the most water and require the most new electricity infrastructure. To avoid concerns that they unfairly single out data centers, both bills would apply to any high energy use facility. In other words, these two bills do not favor or disfavor any particular industry; they apply equally to any use that requires 100 megawatts or more of electrical power.Â
Simply put, these two bills embody the more informed and transparent local decision-making that Virginia residents desperately need. Our local officials want and need to be sure they have clear authority to require crucial information about impacts when they are asked to make decisions on data centers and other high energy uses. SELC strongly agrees.
Morgan Butler is a senior attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Virginia office, where he spends most of his time working on transportation and land use issues. He helps lead data centers work in Virginia and co-leads the organization’s resilience team.
