Virginia

Energy/Power is the most stressed domain: Virginia’s political fight is dominated by who pays for grid upgrades, transmission, substations, and rising household bills tied to data-center load growth. Water/Geology is the second pressure point, especially in siting bills and local disputes over cooling-water disclosure and aquifer impacts. Cardinal News Cardinal News

Governor: Abigail Spanberger (D) has signaled support for a statewide strategy and best-practices approach rather than a blanket moratorium, while Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) has not been identified in recent coverage as making data centers a core campaign issue; House and Senate races in Northern Virginia, Prince William, and Loudoun are more likely to feature the issue locally than statewide, but no specific 2026 candidate list beyond Spanberger was clearly identified in the sources reviewed. Cardinal News Politico

No statewide moratorium or ban is enacted as of May 2026. Virginia’s 2026 session advanced siting and water-transparency bills, but the key measures were still in conference committee rather than enacted: SB 94/HB 153 would require 100MW-plus applicants to assess noise and environmental impacts, and SB 553/HB 496 would require water-use disclosure. The legislature also rejected an earlier effort to extend the data-center sales tax exemption from 2035 to 2050. Cardinal News Virginia budget amendment

The most important 2026 ratepayer bill was Sen. Louise Lucas’s SB 253 substitute, which would let the State Corporation Commission decide whether Dominion’s largest electric users, mainly data centers, must pay capacity costs and substation costs; it also targets Dominion’s GS-5 class for customers using at least 25MW. Cardinal News reported that the bill advanced in committee and that SCC analysis suggested typical GS-5 bills could rise about 16% while residential bills could fall 3% to 3.5% if the SCC approved the changes. Separately, the SCC in late 2025 created a new data-center rate class requiring large users to cover substantial shares of transmission, distribution, and generation demand, and 2026 budget politics also centered on whether to end or extend the state’s data-center sales-tax exemption. Cardinal News CBS 6 News Richmond Cardinal News

None identified.

1) PW Digital Gateway, western Prince William County near Manassas Battlefield National Park — QTS/Compass-related campus proposal remains the symbol of Northern Virginia opposition and lawsuits; status contested/partly tied up in litigation and local fights. 2) Balico Pittsylvania County campus, near Chatham — withdrawn in 2025 after resident pushback and later resubmitted in reduced form; status contested/uncertain. 3) Proposed Google project in Botetourt County — site debate has centered on water use and local reaction, with public concern already forming; status contested/proposed. Cardinal News Cardinal News

Piedmont Environmental Council; Clean Virginia; local Prince William County resident coalitions opposing the PW Digital Gateway; Botetourt County resident groups reacting to proposed water-intensive projects; Virginia Conservation Network-aligned environmental advocates pushing stricter siting and tax rules. Cardinal News Cardinal News

Inclusion criteria satisfied: Construction labor. Loudoun and Prince William construction labor politics; Dominion ratepayer-jobs intersection; Northern Virginia building trades council positions. Primary-source verification pending — full content in v1.2. Sub-state and labor-market analysis available in the full RAIL briefing.

Major hub; Reuters reported Virginia is the nation’s data-center hub and projected roughly 35 GW in development, underscoring a very large operational-and-pipeline footprint concentrated in Northern Virginia. Reuters

“Virginia, often dubbed as the nation's data center hub, is set to see an eleven-fold increase in computing capacity,” according to Reuters’ January 2026 state roadmap. Reuters

Cardinal News: Bills on data center siting and water usage, Cardinal News: Lucas proposes data centers pay more, Virginia budget amendment on data-center tax exemption, Reuters: Virginia data-center roadmap, Politico: Data centers used to be a prize, Ballotpedia: Data center-related ballot measures, 2026