Confirmed in a primary source 18 Sept 2026 Policy

Virginia signed an order making large data centres harder to build there, and set up a state group to deal with AI.

On September 18 Governor Abigail Spanberger signed Executive Order 22, which sets up a Virginia Data Center Accountability Framework and an AI task force. It bans state executive-branch agencies from signing nondisclosure agreements that hide material information about data centre projects, shuts projects with 25 megawatts or more of expected peak demand out of the state's site-readiness and fast-track permitting programmes, and puts deadlines of 120, 180 and 240 days on new rules covering noise, backup diesel generators, cooling water in scarce areas and where these buildings may sensibly go.

The caveat that matters is what an executive order can and cannot do. The hardest asks, ending the automatic right to build, tightening environmental law and removing the tax exemption the industry has had since 2010, need the General Assembly, and this order cannot deliver them.

Until now

Data centre siting fights in the United States were local, fought county by county over zoning, with the state on the industry's side of the table.

Now

Treat the state as a party to data centre siting rather than a promoter of it, with 25 megawatts as the line where help stops and disclosure starts.

Virginia is not a state with data centres in it. Loudoun County alone had about 233 data centre buildings built or under construction in March, the densest concentration on the planet, and for fifteen years the Commonwealth's role was to make that easier: a sales tax exemption dating from 2010, site-readiness programmes, expedited permitting, and state agencies willing to sign nondisclosure agreements about projects in their own jurisdictions. Executive Order 22 turns each of those levers the other way. Projects drawing 25 megawatts or more are out of the site-readiness programme and out of fast-track permitting. Agencies may no longer sign nondisclosure agreements that hide material information. Regulators get 180 days to come back with timelines on noise, on diesel backup generators, and on cooling water in places that do not have enough of it. None of that bans anything. All of it withdraws help and adds friction, which is the only thing a governor can do alone.

The second half of the order is the part nobody asked for. It creates an AI task force under the Chief Transformation Officer, the Governor's Counsel and the Secretary of Administration, with a new policy unit behind it, standing until the governor ends it, aimed at workforce displacement, data privacy and cybersecurity. And it instructs that task force to coordinate with all relevant frontier developers, naming Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft in the text of a state executive order. That is a subnational government writing the names of six companies into law-adjacent paper and proposing to deal with them directly, on the workforce question, without Washington in the room. The House of Representatives passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 417 to 3 on September 16 and then left for seven weeks; Virginia signed this two days later. Treat the state as a party to data centre siting rather than a promoter of it, with 25 megawatts as the line where help stops and disclosure starts.

How it got here

2010
Virginia creates the data centre sales and use tax exemption that has underwritten the industry's concentration there since.
Mar 2026
Loudoun County reports roughly 233 data centre buildings built or under construction, the highest concentration anywhere.
Sep 16
The US House passes the Ratepayer Protection Act 417 to 3, making data centres pay for the power lines built to serve them, then adjourns for seven weeks. Carded in Edition 024.
Sep 18
Spanberger signs Executive Order 22, excluding 25 megawatt projects from state site-readiness and expedited permitting, banning agency nondisclosure agreements, and creating an AI task force that names six frontier developers.
Who has to react
Dominion Energy and the PJM market, which plan around Virginia load growth; Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google and Meta, whose Northern Virginia campuses are the concentration in question; Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier counties, which have been fighting these applications alone; the Virginia General Assembly, which holds the three items the order cannot deliver; the Data Center Coalition and its members; every other governor with a siting fight and no template; and the six companies named in the order's own text, which have just been invited to negotiate with a state about workforce displacement.

The evidence

ObservedFriday September 18, 2026. Governor Abigail Spanberger signed Executive Order 22, titled Establishing New Nation-Leading Standards and Initiatives to Implement the Virginia Data Center Accountability Framework and Responding to Unprecedented Risk from Artificial Intelligence, effective on signing.

The whole observation, as recorded

It rescinds Executive Order 30 of January 18, 2024 and Executive Directive 5 of September 20, 2023. Implementation lead: the Office of the Chief Energy Officer. Community engagement: a Data Center Planning and Community Engagement Toolkit within 120 days; a ban on nondisclosure agreements that prevent public disclosure of material information; VA-LEAD designation criteria and an implementation plan by the end of calendar year 2027; and exclusion from the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program and expedited permitting for any project with 25 megawatts or more of anticipated peak demand. Environment: a timeline proposal for data centre noise regulations within 180 days; a cumulative impact analysis of backup generation within 180 days; a timeline proposal for cooling water rules in scarcity areas within 180 days; and a responsible siting and regional opportunity evaluation at 180 and 240 days. Affordability: engagement on how the cost of energy infrastructure is allocated, and identification of affordable community energy programmes. Grid: curtailment procedures under an Interim Resource Adequacy Service, an evaluation of grid reliability operational practice, and methane emissions reduction recommendations within 180 days. Workforce: quality-job best practices, workforce reporting criteria within 180 days, and local and sustainable procurement practices. Agencies named include the Office of the Chief Energy Officer, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Virginia Energy, the Department of Environmental Quality, the State Corporation Commission, the Department of Health, the Department of Education, the Virginia Community College System, Virginia Works, the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Forestry, the Department of Labor and Industry and the Office of the Chief Transformation Officer. The AI task force is co-led by the Chief Transformation Officer, Counsel to the Governor and the Secretary of Administration, supported by a new AI Policy Planning Unit, reporting continuously until terminated, and it is directed to coordinate with all relevant artificial intelligence frontier developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, by name. Context: Loudoun County reported roughly 233 data centre buildings built or under construction as of March 2026, the highest concentration anywhere; Virginia's data centre sales tax exemption dates from 2010 and this year's budget fight ended not in repeal but in an electricity tax projected to raise about 600 million dollars a year. Spanberger said Virginians are rightfully concerned about the impact data centers are having on our energy bills. Delegate Irene Shin welcomed the framework for holding facilities to the transmission costs they cause; Delegate Rip Sullivan called the change from the previous administration refreshing. Legislative action is still required to limit by-right approval, to enforce environmental protections and to end the tax exemption.

Established

Governor Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 on September 18, 2026, effective on signing, rescinding Executive Order 30 of January 2024 and Executive Directive 5 of September 2023.
Projects with 25 megawatts or more of anticipated peak demand are excluded from the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program and from expedited permitting programmes.
State executive-branch agencies are barred from nondisclosure agreements that prevent public disclosure of material information about these projects.
The order sets dated deliverables at 120, 180 and 240 days and by the end of calendar year 2027, and creates a standing AI task force directed to coordinate with Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft by name.

Not established

That any data centre will be stopped. The order withdraws state assistance and starts rulemaking; it does not deny a permit, and local by-right approval is untouched.
That electricity bills will fall. Cost allocation is named as a subject for engagement, and the body that sets rates is the State Corporation Commission, not the governor.
That the legislature will follow. Ending by-right approval, tightening environmental enforcement and repealing the 2010 tax exemption all require the General Assembly, which this year chose an electricity tax over repeal.
That the six named companies will engage. Being named in an executive order creates no obligation on any of them.

Why it weighs this much

Signal strength

CostModerate

CommitmentMedium

ReversibilityEasy

PersistenceYears

Cost is moderate: a governor of the state most dependent on this industry has told it, in writing, that state help stops at 25 megawatts, which is political spending against the largest employer-adjacent lobby in the Commonwealth. It is not high because no project is blocked and no tax is touched. Commitment is medium and rests on the dated deliverables rather than the rhetoric: 120, 180 and 240 day deadlines attached to named agencies are things that either arrive or visibly do not. Reversibility is easy. This order rescinds two predecessors from the previous administration, which is precisely the demonstration that the next governor can rescind it. Persistence is years anyway, because the regulations these deadlines start, on noise, backup generation and cooling water, outlive the order that commissioned them once they are written into the administrative code.

What to watch

strengthens The Virginia General Assembly passes a bill limiting by-right approval for data centres above 25 megawatts, or repealing or narrowing the 2010 sales tax exemption, in the session ending by March 31, 2027.
weakens The 120 day toolkit or two or more of the 180 day deliverables are not published by their deadlines, or Executive Order 22 is rescinded or materially narrowed, by June 30, 2027.

The words

Executive order: A direction a governor gives the agencies they control. It can set deadlines and withdraw state help, but it cannot change a law or a tax, which is why the biggest items here still need the legislature.
By-right approval: The right to build without a discretionary hearing if the zoning already allows it. Ending it for large data centres is the industry's single biggest exposure, and it is not in this order.
Peak demand: The most electricity a facility is expected to draw at once, measured in megawatts. Twenty-five megawatts is roughly the draw of a small town, and it is the threshold this order uses.
Cost allocation: Deciding who pays for new power lines and substations: the customer that caused the need, or everyone on the bill. It is the same question the US House voted on 417 to 3 on September 16.

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