Data center moratorium bills stack up ahead of Virginia legislative session in January

Good morning from The Mercury.

By Shannon Heckt

Come January, state lawmakers will debate a slate of bills that would halt data center development, including one by Sen. Russett Perry, D-Loudoun, which recommends a three -year moratorium on building the high-powered digital warehouses.

Perry has filed Senate Bill 843 alongside Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William. It would block localities, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the State Corporation Commission (SCC) from approving any data center building permits statewide from July 2027 until July 2030. 

The bill would also prevent the advance of distribution lines, on-site power, or related projects that  solely serve data centers during the same timeframe. 

By Charlotte Rene Woods

Children’s hospitals in Virginia have kept transgender services for patients younger than 19 on hold for more than a year following President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order. 

They include the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, Norfolk-based Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters and Charlottesville-based UVA Health Children’s Hospital. 

Trump’s order said that the U.S. will “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support” what he labeled “destructive” procedures. 

By Ivy Main

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s energy plan, released October 1, is a marvel of earnestness and hard work. Anyone plowing through its 180 pages of text and appendices can’t help but be impressed with the level of detail and the thoroughness of its coverage.

And yet.

If the plan’s central purpose is to demonstrate that Virginia doesn’t need to tamp down the growth of data centers to preserve energy affordability for residents and achieve the decarbonization goals of the VCEA, it fails.

By Ariana Figueroa

President Donald Trump Thursday announced that the execution of a man convicted of the Fort Hood shooting will not be livestreamed, a reversal after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would be public. 

“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.”

By Tim Henderson

Inflation grew to a 3.7% annual rate in September, according to an Oct. 14 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.4% in August. 

In the last consumer price inflation report before midterm elections, with voters already fed up with higher prices, September’s number was the highest since May, when it was 4.2%.

“Inflation has wiped out wage gains for 6 months now,” Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal, wrote in a social media post. “It’s a financial squeeze. Americans are trying to work more hours to make up for it, but many are still falling behind.”

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