Virginia's House Bill 1515 — the state-level data center moratorium — died in committee in February without a floor vote. This week, according to clerk filings in three counties, its language began reappearing on local zoning agendas: Prince William, Loudoun, and Fauquier boards have all placed draft ordinances using HB1515 text on their May calendars, citing Maine as the precedent. [1] The Piedmont Environmental Council and the Virginia Conservation Network circulated template language to county clerks within forty-eight hours of Governor Mills's signature. [2]

Northern Virginia carries an estimated 70 percent of the world's internet traffic, concentrated in a corridor the industry calls Data Center Alley. [3] The paper's April 17 account of Maine's first-in-nation moratorium framed the signing as a template for the eleven other states with pending bills. It took three days for the template to go local, and it went first to the counties whose tax base is the industry the bill would restrict.

The federalism cascade is the news. When a state bill dies, the usual fallback is the federal bill; the Sanders–Ocasio-Cortez moratorium is still waiting on committee. Virginia has skipped that step. Loudoun's draft would impose an eighteen-month pause on new data center zoning applications above 500,000 square feet; Prince William's is shorter but stricter; Fauquier's is a full moratorium on applications pending a study. [4] Each of the three was introduced by a supervisor who had voted for data centers a year ago.

Richmond refused the statute. The counties are drafting one anyway. The industry's concentration, which was supposed to be political insurance, has become political mass.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington