Friends Joins Data Center Reform Coalition

Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains has joined The Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition. The coalition is made up of more than 25 environmental, conservation, historic preservation, and climate advocacy groups, as well as representatives of communities and neighborhoods across the state of Virginia.

Together, the member organizations are urging state lawmakers to study the cumulative effects of data center development on Virginia’s electrical grid, water resources, air quality, and land conservation efforts, and to institute several common-sense regulatory and rate-making reforms for the industry.

The coalition will ask the state government to step in and require more transparency on the part of data center developers and require them to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of the industry by shifting the cost of new transmission lines and power generation onto the industry players, rather than on the backs of Virginia’s ratepayers.