Data Center Reform Protects Virginia – TAKE ACTION NOW! – The Coalition to Protect Prince William County

2023 is continuing with positive momentum!

This past Monday, Martin Luther King Day, 31 Viriginia residents from multiple localities boarded a bus and headed to Richmond for Lobby Day at the General Assembly.

We were organized and motivated! We made the point to legislators that we need data center reform. Or Virginia is going to risk becoming encased in concrete buildings, transmission lines, and substations. There are multiple bills before the General Assembly that we are advocating for (see below).

Our state is too beautiful and our communities too important to risk what makes Virginia our home.

We are the epicenter of Democracy – both its birthplace AND its rebirth after a civil war. We are not willing to go gently into that good night. We will fight for our quality of life, our history, and our clean drinking water.

“In our recent 2023 forecast, we noted the growing political challenges for data center developers, and the potential that the headlines from the heated battle in Prince William could create larger headaches for the fast-growing industry.” – Data Center Frontier

Impacts from data center development know no man-made county line. Natural and cultural resources know no county line. The reliability of our energy knows no county line.

AWS, Amazon Web Services, appears to be trying to bribe our Governor Youngkin! Virginia, Amazon announce $35 billion data center plan | AP News. As if this will make up for all the detrimental impacts to Virginians and our beautiful state.

TAKE ACTION!

We plan have some easy click-to-send emails ready in the next few days so that you can email every legislator on every committee voting on the data center-related bills before them (technical issues are delaying us with this work). We will send out another email to you providing the links to these when they are ready.

In the meantime, you can send your own email. Included below are lists of all committee member email addresses separated by each bill. Please get your email out to them before their votes next week!

You can also participate remotely in the House committee meetings prior to their votes on HJ522, and HB1986. Use this link and follow the directions to sign up to speak or submit comments.

Taking these actions will reinforce your neighbors’ hard work on Lobby Day!

Time is of the essence! At this point we know that Senate bill SB1078 is scheduled for hearing by the Senate Committee on Local Government this coming Monday, January 23 at 9:00 am! And House bills HJ522 and HB1986 are both scheduled on Tuesday, January 25. The other critical data center-related bill proposed for this General Assembly, SJ240, will also be scheduled for committee hearing over the next few days.

Your legislators need to hear from you NOW – telling them that you want them to support these bills: SB1078 (Petersen), SJ240 (Petersen), HJ522 (Roem), and HB1986 (Roem).

Now is the time to reinforce the momentum that is building statewide!

“(Chap) Petersen is a Democrat representing the 34th District in Fairfax County. His Senate Bill 1078 says data centers can only be approved in areas where they “will have a minimal impact on historic, agricultural, and cultural resources and will not be within one mile of a national park or state park or other historically significant site, as designated by the Department of Historic Resources.” It also calls for a site assessment to “examine the effect of the data center on water usage and carbon emissions as well as any impacts on agricultural resources” prior to approval…”

“House Bill 1986, (by Democrat delegate Danica Roem representing the 13th district here in Prince William County,) asks the State Water Control Board to adopt stricter stormwater management for data center projects, including runoff to be filtered before it goes into local waterways.”

“One of the biggest concerns from my constituents about the proposed data centers in the Rural Crescent is how they will affect our water,” said Roem. “When a proposal is unprecedented in size in an environmentally sensitive area, it needs major environmental protections.”

“Both (legislators) also said they would seek to have the bills go into effect immediately if approved to block the PW Digital Gateway before the land is rezoned.” – Virginia State Legislators Target Data Center Development with New Bills | Data Center Frontier

Committee member email addresses:

Senate Local Government Committee (for SB 1078):

district06@senate.virginia.gov; district24@senate.virginia.gov; district20@senate.virginia.gov; district31@senate.virginia.gov; district08@senate.virginia.gov; district12@senate.virginia.gov; district29@senate.virginia.gov; district32@senate.virginia.gov; district05@senate.virginia.gov; district16@senate.virginia.gov; district13@senate.virginia.gov; district10@senate.virginia.gov; district07@senate.virginia.gov; district17@senate.virginia.gov; district38@senate.virginia.gov

Senate Rules Committee (for SJ 240):

House Rules Committee (for HJR 522):

House Commerce and Energy Committee (for HB 1986):

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RECALL – If you haven’t already, or if you submitted your signature prior to Oct. 13, the recall for Chair Ann Wheeler is still progressing! Adding your valid signature now will ensure we reach the number of signatures required to submit this recall to the Circuit Court. We must hold our elected leaders accountable! Find all details here.

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