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Amy Bacigalupo, Communications Manager
June 22, 2026
Clean Virginia Applauds New Revenue Gains but Warns that Lawmakers Missed a Major Opportunity to Deliver on Data Center Fair Share
Richmond, Va. – Clean Virginia today responded to the release of the 2026-28 budget conference report, commending the Virginia Senate leadership’s historic effort to negotiate an additional $1.2 billion for Virginia families while urging the Governor and House leadership to support future efforts to ensure data centers begin paying their fair share.
The conference report includes a new electricity consumption tax on data centers, projected to generate $600 million per year – $1.2 billion over the biennium. Five months ago, from the starting point of the House budget proposal, that number was zero. Clean Virginia commends Senate Finance and Appropriations Chair Louise Lucas, Senator Danica Roem, whose original bill ending the exemption catalyzed negotiations, and their colleagues for their extraordinary leadership throughout this process.
“Senator Lucas, Senator Roem, and their Senate colleagues deserve enormous credit for what they accomplished,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia. “They fought hard for Virginia families against enormous industry pressure and moved the needle in a way that seemed impossible when this session began. Virginia has $1.2 billion more to invest in its communities because of their leadership.”
However, the data center electricity consumption tax will not affect monthly electric bills, and it falls far short of ensuring that data centers pay their “fair share.”
Virginia’s data center sales and use tax exemption now costs taxpayers nearly $2 billion every year, and the cost will continue to climb. The consumption tax included in this budget, capped at $600 million annually and set to expire after just two years, does not come close to closing that gap. Data centers will continue receiving one of the largest corporate tax giveaways in the country, while Virginia families continue paying the price.
“The data center industry still received the better end of this deal,” said Gilmore. “A two-year, capped consumption tax does not come close to offsetting a nearly $2 billion annual tax giveaway with no end in sight. Governors in Ohio, Texas, Illinois, and Washington have already moved further and faster than Virginia on this issue. Virginia’s elected leaders have more work to do.”
Critically, an electricity consumption tax also fails to solve the underlying issue of rising bills driven by the data center industry. Right now, every Virginian who turns on a light and pays their monthly electric bill is subsidizing the energy infrastructure that powers some of the most profitable corporations on the planet.
The standard is simple: data center costs should not be subsidized through customers’ electric bills, and billion-dollar industries should not receive billions in tax breaks from the Commonwealth.
“A consumption tax and a fair electric bill are two separate issues,” said Gilmore. “No Virginia family should be subsidizing Big Tech on their monthly electric bill. That problem is not solved by this budget.”
Clean Virginia looks forward to continuing to work with legislative leadership and the Spanberger administration to deliver on the promise to ensure data centers pay their fair share.
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Clean Virginia is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to removing corporate money from Virginia politics and reforming utility regulation to put customers first. Learn more at cleanvirginia.org.