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This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
The final bill related to the data center industry precipitated by the controversial PW Digital Gateway project has died in the General Assembly.
A subcommittee of the House Rules Committee voted 3-2 to kill Senate Joint Resolution 240 on Monday.
The legislation, introduced by Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax County, would have directed the Virginia Department of Energy to study the impacts of data center development on the state’s environment, economy, energy resources and carbon-reduction goals.
“It’s an enormous impact on our energy grid,” Petersen told the committee. “If we would freeze where we are today, we’d already have a huge impact but we’re growing almost exponentially with data centers.”
The bill was the last of five bills filed by Petersen and Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, this year related to the burgeoning data center industry. The other four died in their respective chambers.
Three of the duo’s bills sought to specifically block the controversial PW Digital Gateway, a proposed 27.6 million square feet of data centers on 2,139 acres along Pageland Lane in western Prince William.
The Prince William Board of Supervisors approved the guidelines for the project on Nov. 2 after a more than nine-hour public hearing and a roughly 14-hour meeting. The guidelines for the overall development, an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan, do not deal with specific construction plans.
QTS Realty Trust Inc. and Compass Datacenters are seeking rezonings to develop the area.
Roem and Petersen had identical bills to study the industry. Petersen’s version cleared a Senate committee and the full chamber before heading to the House of Delegates. The subcommittee that killed it on Monday was the same that killed Roem’s version of the legislation.
The vote also went the same way, with Dels. Tony Wilt, R-Rockingham; Christopher Head, R-Roanoke; and Kathy Byron, R-Bedford, voting against the legislation.
Dels. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, and D.L. Scott, D-Portsmouth, supported the bill while committee Chair Robert Orrock, R-Spotsylvania, abstained.
