Reconvened session Apr 22 (vote count finalized through Apr 29): General Assembly bucked Spanberger on the Dominion-backed energy / data center package. Her three proposed weakeners — SCC sole discretion over undergrounding, halved spending cap, opt-out threshold raised from 200 to 10,000 employees — were all rejected. The bills now sit on her desk; she has 30 days. SCC analysis: cost-shift saves a typical residential customer $5.52/month while raising data center bills by 15%.
Primary source · Inside Climate News ↗
Why it matters
Direct update to virginia-data-center-legislation-2026.md (your Tier 1 watch on HB 507 / HB 1393 disposition). The legislature just removed Spanberger's middle-ground option — she now has to choose 'sign as-passed' or 'veto and own the consumer-bill increase.' For Cliff: the 15% data center bill increase is the per-MW number to put in firm-equivalent-mw-underwrite.md alongside the Texas $50K/MW interconnection fee. Same signal — VA and TX are converging on cost-causation pricing, just via different mechanisms.
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