Virginia governor curbs state NDAs, creates data center task force
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Virginia Governor Spanberger's Executive Order 22 creates an AI task force, bans state NDAs and lets local communities slow data center approvals in the world's data center capital.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger issued Executive Order 22, barring executive branch officials from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center developers and establishing a task force intended to give local communities greater influence over siting and approval decisions. Virginia is the largest data center market in the United States, and the order targets the state that hosts the highest concentration of hyperscale capacity nationally. The order is a governance and process change rather than a new binding regulatory code, and it does not itself block or approve any specific project.
rss · The Verge - AI · Sep 18, 18:29
Virginia’s outsized role in data center capacity
Northern Virginia, particularly Loudoun County, is widely regarded as the largest concentration of data center capacity in the world, having grown for years under permissive local zoning and limited state-level oversight of siting, power procurement, and land-use negotiations. Developers have often used nondisclosure agreements with local and state officials during site negotiations, which critics say has limited public scrutiny of tax incentives, water use, and grid impacts. Executive Order 22, issued by Governor Abigail Spanberger, marks a shift toward greater state involvement in a process that has largely been driven by local governments competing for investment.
What an operator should do
Developers and hyperscale operators siting facilities in Virginia should expect longer, more transparent, and more locally contested approval timelines, since NDAs previously used to shield project details from public and local scrutiny during state-level negotiations are now off-limits for executive branch officials. Site selection, real estate, and government affairs teams should build additional schedule contingency into interconnection and permitting plans for Virginia projects, and should prepare for earlier, more substantive engagement with localities rather than relying on state-brokered confidentiality. Utilities and transmission operators serving Northern Virginia’s data center corridor should reassess load forecast assumptions tied to pipeline projects that may now face slower or renegotiated local approvals.
Constraints
The order changes state executive branch practice and creates an advisory task force; it does not amend local zoning law or create new statutory approval requirements, so its practical effect on any given project depends on how localities and future legislation use the added leverage.
References
Tags: #data center siting, #state regulation, #Virginia, #AI infrastructure policy, #interconnection/approval process