State Sen. Russet Perry on Tuesday released draft legislation that would halt approvals for new data centers across Virginia for three years, escalating the political fight over the industry's growth in the world's largest data center market. Senate Bill 843 would
Editorial image depicting data center infrastructure and transmission buildout in Loudoun County, Virginia. take effect July 1, 2027 and expire July 1, 2030, according to Loudoun Now, which first reported the draft text.
What the bill would freeze
The draft would bar Virginia localities from approving any data center application that requires a rezoning, special exception, special use permit, or site plan. It reaches further on the state side, prohibiting agencies from issuing any permit, certificate, registration, license, or other approval tied to the development or siting of a data center, and from authorizing construction of facilities that would deliver electric distribution, interconnection, or on-site generation for one. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that language pulls in the State Corporation Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality, the two agencies at the center of Virginia's grid cost and groundwater fights.
Perry, a Democrat whose district covers part of Loudoun County's Data Center Alley, said the pause buys time to write comprehensive rules. "We cannot keep rubber-stamping new data centers when we can't even manage the ones already built," she said in a statement.
A bipartisan push
The bill lands after months of escalation from both parties. In July, Republican Sen. Glen Sturtevant of Chesterfield County asked Gov. Abigail Spanberger to declare an immediate moratorium by executive order, arguing the question is no longer how to regulate data centers but whether Virginia can accommodate them at all, NBC4 Washington reported. Senate President Pro Tem Louise Lucas, a Democrat, answered that the status quo cannot continue and called a statewide moratorium a serious proposal. Perry and Republican Sen. Richard Stuart later jointly urged Spanberger to call a special session on groundwater, after state regulators warned that data center water use is straining supplies.
The governor's alternative
Spanberger has stopped short of endorsing a halt. She dismissed the moratorium idea in August, Cardinal News reported, then signed Executive Order 22 in September, a data center accountability framework that bans non-disclosure agreements on new projects, ends by-right approvals, and would require local approval for any facility above 25 MW. A legislative subcommittee studying the industry is scheduled to deliver recommendations in December, giving the 2027 session a policy menu short of a freeze.
Industry response
The Data Center Coalition, the industry's trade group, is opposed. "Legislation like this would deny other counties in Virginia the same opportunities that have so greatly benefited Loudoun," Nicole Riley, the group's director of Virginia government affairs, told the Times-Dispatch. The coalition has long argued that moratoriums tell investors a state is closed for business.
The market at stake
Baxtel tracks 805 data center facilities in Virginia operated by 117 providers. Northern Virginia accounts for 621 of them and is ranked the largest data center market in the United States, with 93 more facilities under construction. Development has pushed south along the I-95 corridor toward the Richmond metro, where Baxtel counts 99 facilities and 11 under construction, the migration Sturtevant invoked when he said he does not want central Virginia to become the next Data Center Alley. The state's largest single site, CloudHQ's LC4 in Ashburn, carries 180 MW.
Local governments were already tightening. Loudoun County's board voted to pause new data center applications in September, days before Prince William County ended by-right data center development and shrank its overlay district from about 9,700 acres to roughly 3,641. Elsewhere, Memphis is weighing a year-long moratorium, and New York, Oregon, and Texas have statewide pause efforts in motion, DCD reports.
Why it matters
SB843 turns Virginia's moratorium debate from talk into text, with an effective date, a sunset, and a reach that covers local zoning, state permits, and grid connections alike. It still faces long odds: the governor prefers her accountability framework, and the industry will fight hard in Richmond. But with Democrats like Lucas and Republicans like Sturtevant converging, every Virginia project without locked entitlements now carries a new political risk premium, and developers weighing 2028 delivery have one more reason to look at Texas, where Baxtel tracking shows capacity already pulling ahead.
The commonwealth built its lead by saying yes faster than anyone. The 2027 session decides how, and whether, it says no.
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