Eggs aren’t the only thing getting more expensive. The estimated cost to build Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project has increased from $9.8 billion to 10.7 billion, a 9% jump.
Over the life of the project, the expected average impact to the monthly bill of a residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month is 43 cents, the Richmond-based Fortune 500 utility stated in a project update distributed Monday afternoon.
The 2.6-gigawatt project, which is expected to provide enough energy to power 660,000 homes, is now 50% finished and remains on track for expected completion in 2026. It’s located 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach.
Dominion attributed the cost estimate increase to a revised estimate of network upgrade costs assigned by PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for a region that runs from New Jersey to North Carolina, and from Illinois to Washington D.C., and on higher onshore electrical interconnection costs.
Dominion noted this is the only increase in the project’s budget since it was submitted to the Virginia State Corporation Commission in November 2021.
Also in Monday’s update, Dominion announced that CVOW’s first 16 transition pieces, which serve as the junction between the foundation and tower for each of the 176 wind turbines, have been installed.
The first of three 4,300-ton offshore substations was delivered to the Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Virginia Beach at the end of January.
Wind turbine tower and blade fabrication is underway and nacelle fabrication — making containers for turbine working parts — will begin later this quarter, according to Dominion.
Spanish-German wind engineering company Siemens Gamesa, the project’s wind turbine supplier, is manufacturing the same turbine model for CVOW that operates at the Moray West offshore wind project, which is located off the coast of Scotland.
Charybdis, the first U.S.-built wind turbine installation vessel, is now 96% completed and has launched sea trials in Texas.
At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that temporarily ceases all federal wind leases under consideration and called for an “immediate review” of the policies before resuming. On Jan. 20, 2024, Dominion issued a statement that it is “confident CVOW will be completed on time, and that Virginia’s clean energy transition will continue with bipartisan support for many years to come.”
Dominion provides regulated electricity service to 3.6 million homes and businesses in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as well as regulated natural gas service to 500,000 customers in South Carolina.
In 2023, Montague was named president and COO of Columbia Gas, after serving as parent company NiSource’s senior vice president and chief customer officer. Her time in the energy industry goes back decades, having previously worked at BP and Commonwealth Edison. Montague also serves on boards for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, UNCF Richmond and the American Association of Blacks in Energy.
WHY I CHOSE MY PROFESSION: While at Stanford, I was an engineering intern at Amoco but didn’t love it. I told my mom and my mentor I wanted to drop engineering, focus on feminist studies and work in a bookstore. They suggested alternatives, and I double-majored in quantitative economics and feminist studies. My first job was sales of plastic chemicals, and I’ve been in energy ever since.
MOST MEANINGFUL AWARD:While vice president of communications and external affairs at our sister company, I won an Emmy for our renewable energy outreach campaign focusing on NIPSCO’s transition from coal to add wind, solar and storage. We faced obstacles: pressure about climate-related messaging and a lack of campaign diversity. I challenged the agency to include diverse voices, and I’m proud.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED: It’s important to get a mentor but also a sponsor. A mentor is someone you talk to and gives you advice, but a sponsor is someone who speaks on your behalf when you’re not in the room.
HOBBIES: Singing. I sing soprano in my church choir at First Baptist Church in Petersburg (the oldest African American church in the country). I sang in my church choir when I lived in London and when I lived in Chicago. It gives me such joy!
Even as political winds shift in Washington, D.C., a long-delayed onshore wind farm in Botetourt County might finally be sailing to completion.
Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy announced in December 2024 that it has reached a deal for Google to purchase the full capacity of Rocky Forge Wind, a wind farm the Charlottesville company has been working to develop in Botetourt since 2015. Google aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.
Virginia’s first wind farm being developed on land, Rocky Forge calls for 13 turbines, each 643 feet tall, to be erected atop North Mountain outside the rural town of Eagle Rock. Collectively, the turbines will generate about 79 megawatts of power, which Google will use to support its data centers in Virginia, according to Apex.
The new Trump administration, which is not expected to be friendly toward wind energy, is not expected to affect development of the Rocky Forge project.
“On the administration side of things, no federal policy change would impact this project,” Brian O’Shea, director of public engagement for Apex Clean Energy, said in November 2024.
The project has faced stiff headwinds since it was first unveiled. Legal challenges, permitting problems, design changes and the impacts of the pandemic have all combined to delay construction of the turbines.
In 2019, Dominion Energy struck a deal to purchase Rocky Forge’s power and resell it to Virginia state government to help meet its goal of sourcing at least 30% of electricity for state agencies from renewable energy sources. However, that contract expired and wasn’t renewed.
The project regained momentum in September 2024 when the Virginia Court of Appeals rejected a legal challenge by upholding a circuit court ruling that had approved the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s permit for Apex. Two other lawsuits against the project were dismissed by a circuit court judge in early 2024.
Construction on the project is now set to start in 2025, with electricity expected to begin generating by late 2026, according to O’Shea. Rocky Forge is the second partnership for Apex and Google. In 2023, the two companies announced a power purchase agreement for the energy generated by Apex’s Timbermill Wind project in Chowan County, North Carolina.
Rocky Forge is slated to create up to 250 jobs during construction and should deliver about $30 million in state and local tax revenue over the wind farm’s lifetime, according to Apex.
President Donald Trump started his second term Monday with a flurry of executive orders, including one that temporarily ceases all federal wind leases under consideration and calls for an “immediate review” of the policies before resuming.
So, what does that mean for Virginia and Dominion Power, which is midway through constructing its $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach and has purchased two other wind farm leases in the Atlantic Ocean?
The Richmond-based Fortune 500 utility said in a statement Tuesday that it is “confident CVOW will be completed on time, and that Virginia’s clean energy transition will continue with bipartisan support for many years to come.”
Dominion noted that the state’s renewable energy transition — part of 2020’s Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires Dominion to deliver 100% of electricity by renewable power sources by 2045 — has been underway “for several years under multiple state and federal administrations and with bipartisan support from policymakers at every level.”
Dominion spokesperson Jeremy Slayton added that any plans for the utility’s other two ocean leases — the 40,000-acre CVOW-South plot off eastern North Carolina and the 176,505-acre lease adjacent to CVOW purchased last year — are well in the future. “At this time, we do not have an estimated timeline or cost for development of either CVOW South or the new leasehold,” he said. “Based on our most recent long-term planning document, if we pursued these projects, they are planned for the 2030s.”
Dominion completed CVOW’s federal approval process during the Biden administration, which was much friendlier to renewable energy and particularly wind energy than Trump’s White House is expected to be. The 2.6-gigawatt project, which is expected to provide enough energy to power 660,000 homes, is scheduled to be completed in 2026. As of November 2024, half of the monopile foundations for the 174 turbines had been installed.
The utility also sold some assets, including the $2.6 billion sale of a 50% noncontrolling stake of CVOW to investor Stonepeak, in 2024, reducing Dominion’s debt by approximately $21 billion and lowering risks during the wind farm’s construction.
So many Pittsylvania County residents turned out to voice their — predominantly opposed — opinions regarding a proposed $8.8 billion-plus data center campus and natural gas power plant that a county planning commission meeting ran about five hours Tuesday, ending around 11:40 p.m.
As the meeting neared its end, Steven Gould, the attorney representing Balico, the Herndon development company behind the project, implored the commission’s members to hold off a month before making a decision on whether to recommend that the Pittsylvania Board of Supervisors approve or deny the developer’s rezoning request. “There is no harm in receiving more information,” Gould said. “There is no harm in additional consideration.”
Instead, Colette Henderson, vice chair of the planning commission, made a motion to recommend denying the project, a move supported unanimously by the commission members. “The reason is because I feel there has been a lack of transparency,” she said.
Balico, a development firm with seven employees, pulled an initial rezoning application for the data center campus and power plant on 2,233 acres in Pittsylvania’s Chalk Level area in November after facing vocal opposition from residents at public meetings as well as a statement by a county supervisor that the project didn’t have enough local political support to get the rezoning passed.
The initial application for the project would have included up to 84 data center buildings and a 3,500-megawatt natural gas power plant in a rural area. That development would have created 700 jobs, according to Balico founder and CEO Irfan Ali.
The scaled-back project reviewed Tuesday would be built on less than 750 acres in the same area and would include 12 spec data center buildings, each two stories tall and 396,000 square feet.
As with the initial application, the project would include building a 3,500-megawatt natural gas power plant, which would be owned and operated by Balico. About 40% of the acreage would be open space.
Gould, president and CEO of PLDR Law, which has offices in Danville and Lynchburg, said the Chalk Level site is the best suited parcel in Pittsylvania for the project because it allows for tapping into Mountain Valley Pipeline for gas. While the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill has available gas, he said, “it is not nearly what is available at this site.”
The cost of building the data center campus would ultimately be $8.85 billion, according to Gould. The cost to create the mobile turbines, which would serve the site prior to permanent turbines being constructed, would be $360 million. Balico also would pay to build a new fire station that would serve the site and eventually be turned over to the county.
The proposed power station would create 150 jobs with an average salary of $90,000, while the data centers would create about 240 jobs with an average salary of $105,000, according to the Balico presentation.
Gould acknowledged Balico would ultimately “still like to pursue a project” of the size in the application submitted last year, but noted that would require the company to return to Pittsylvania County for additional rezoning.
Data centers require water for cooling servers. Ali said in November that he hoped to tap into a source of nonpotable water in Chatham, and that he’s talking with officials in Hurt about building a pipeline to carry water about 19 miles from Staunton River to the data center campus.
The pipeline, Ali said, would be able to deliver up to 18 million gallons of water a day. The data center campus would only require 2 million gallons a day, he noted, so the remaining water could be used by homes in that area that rely on individual wells.
Opponents of the project expressed concerns about noise, traffic and the project destroying the area’s rural character.
Chatham Mayor Alisa B. Davis, the first member of the public to speak about the project at Tuesday’s meeting, noted that in November the town council approved a resolution stating opposition to the project. She also said no one from Balico had spoken with Chatham’s staff or council about using its water.
Lisa Shorter, a veterinarian and founder of Chatham Animal Clinic, asked the commission members to keep the county’s agricultural areas zoned agricultural. “We have already had enough land destroyed by solar and continue to do so,” she said.
Shorter went on to quote “Gone With the Wind,” stating “Land is the only thing in this world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.”
On Feb. 18, the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors will consider the commission’s recommendation and deliver the final say on whether the project can be built in the county.
Reston-headquartered consulting and tech services provider ICF has acquired New York-based tech and advisory services company Applied Energy Group from Ameresco, it announced Tuesday.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Massachusetts-based energy efficiency and renewable energy company Ameresco acquired Applied Energy Group in 2011.
“This transaction aligns with our strategy to extend our capabilities in ICF’s growth areas, with specific emphasis on our energy markets advisory and technology-enabled services,” ICF Chair and CEO John Wasson said in a statement.
AEG has more than 100 utility management and demand-side energy experts, according to a news release. The company has a cloud-based energy tech platform that centralizes various demand-side management programs like energy efficiency and demand response.
AEG also provides advisory services including market assessments, potential energy studies, program planning, design, and implementation and evaluation services. It serves electric and gas utilities, state and local governments and state energy offices.
“We have successfully partnered with ICF on dozens of utility management projects and have a proven track record of delivering positive results for our clients,” Ingrid Rohmund, president and general manager of AEG, said in a statement. “As one team, I am confident we can significantly expand our revenue and reach.”
ICF projects AEG will generate approximately $30 million in annual revenue in 2024 at margins comparable to ICF’s overall commercial energy business, according to a news release. The company’s revenues are expected to increase by at least a mid-teens rate in 2025.
Founded in 1969, ICF has approximately 9,000 employees. During the past two decades, ICF has doubled in size every five years on average. It reported fiscal 2023 revenue of $1.96 billion, up 10% from the previous year.
In anticipation of a new president taking office, BridgeTower Media spoke with experts across several industries — agriculture, banking and finance, energy, health care and manufacturing — to explore how the incoming Trump administration might affect those industries.
The stories in this feature provide expert insights into what organizations can expect as a new administration takes office, with the obvious caveat that campaign talking points do not always translate into legislative action.
Between a sour economy, stubborn inflation, mayhem at the border, war around the world, and countless other political issues in this election cycle, there was little time to outline platforms in detail.
So when it came to energy policy, President-elect Donald Trump would simply say “drill, baby, drill” and rally crowds would go wild.
It’s a simple phrase, but they knew the code. To them, “drill, baby, drill” meant hope for cheaper gasoline, lower heating and cooling bills, and perhaps groceries and services would be more affordable too.
Meanwhile, those closer to the energy industry call the phrase an oversimplification of a complex world market buffeted by a variety of man-made and natural forces. But they know the code too, and to them, there is little doubt that political winds have shifted in favor of U.S. oil and natural gas.
Does that mean gasoline prices will be cheaper and heating costs will be lower? Perhaps, but only time will tell. And while consumers wait to see, energy industries from oil and gas to power companies and alternative energy producers are anticipating how the new administration’s policies will influence their paths forward.
Judging from rhetoric coming out of the Trump campaign, the oil and gas industry is poised for the most dramatic opportunities for growth and even resurgence on the world stage. Questions remain for power producers and alternative energy constituencies such as wind and solar.
The details will eventually shake out, market watchers say, and in the end, they expect to see greater market efficiency and a soaring U.S. economy.
Phil Flynn
“This is going to be transformational,” said Phil Flynn, an energy market analyst with Chicago-based Price Futures Group.
“I think we’re going to see a boom,” said Flynn, who’s been watching the undulations of U.S. energy for more than three decades. “It will be a boom of pipeline building, a boom of infrastructure building and that’s what we really need. Everybody always focuses on how many barrels we’re producing, but it also is important to get those barrels of oil and those billions of cubic feet of gas to where they need to go.”
People undervalue the importance of transportation, Flynn said. Under the Trump administration, he expects to see easier regulatory approval of pipelines and terminals for shipping liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe and other parts of the world. That can really bring energy prices down, he said, not just for the short term, but for a new generation of Americans that are going to need a lot of energy.
In the early hours of his administration, President Joe Biden killed the embattled Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, but Flynn says Canadian producers are just itching to get back to normalcy with other pipeline projects.
“Let’s face it, those pipelines through North America make the world a more efficient place. They can get oil and gas to where it’s needed in the Gulf of Mexico, so it can get out to the rest of the world.”
Flynn says Trump could bring energy costs down with his famous mantra, but he doesn’t expect a dramatic difference.
“It’s not just drill baby drill,” he said. “It’s also a better relationship with our traditional allies, such as OPEC and Saudi Arabia. It’s clamping down on Iran while allowing Saudi Arabia to raise production to make up for it. It’s also about looking out for our other allies to make sure they have the energy they need.”
Cutting prices in half may sound good, but if prices fall too much, smaller producers may struggle to stay in business, he said.
Larry Nichols
Larry Nichols, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy, says predicting future oil and gas prices is above his pay grade.
“That depends upon whether or not we have wars in foreign countries,” said Nichols, whose $25 billion company is among the nation’s leading independent oil and gas producers. “It depends upon supply in foreign countries. It depends on the weather. It depends on the worldwide economy.”
While influencing oil and gas prices may be difficult for the incoming administration to accomplish, Nichols says Trump could make the greatest impact through deregulation. And that will impact the whole U.S. economy, not just energy.
“Every single business in the country has been plagued by excessive delays in getting anything done,” he said. “It’s just incredibly difficult to build a new factory, to build a new road, to build a new mine or to do anything without an incredible delay.”
Mike Moncla
Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, said the last four years under the Biden administration have been a setback for the offshore oil and gas industry.
While offshore production still accounts for 15% of the nation’s oil and gas production, the industry has made little progress in acquiring new leases to sustain future supplies.
This was the first time in 42 years that the industry did not have a lease sale for offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Biden administration only had three lease sales scheduled over the next five years, he said.
It takes years to undergo the expensive process of establishing oil and gas production from federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and few new concessions have been added to the pipeline under Biden, he said.
“We are depleting our resources, so if you don’t have the next one ahead as the wells deplete, you don’t have anything to replace it with,” Moncla said. “Just taking the noose off of our necks and letting people go back to work.”
Meanwhile, Moncla hopes the Trump administration removes the moratorium on new construction of LNG terminals, citing projects in Louisiana that are stalled amid the uncertainty.
LNG exportation is an enormous economic opportunity for the U.S. and an equally important source of energy for the world, he said.
If Trump comes in and gives some certainty and stability, those projects will come to fruition, Monca said. Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale is perfectly situated near the Gulf Coast with pipeline infrastructure in place to carry gas to current and future shipping facilities.
“We like to say Louisiana helped save Europe two years ago from freezing to death,” he said.
Uncertainty around power industry regulation is likely to continue in Washington amid a quagmire of litigation that is not likely to change under the Trump administration, according to the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.
Meanwhile, the wind industry has reason for optimism, according to public comments offered by Minneapolis-based Mortenson, one of the industry’s leading service providers.
While they are watching the new administration take shape, the company says the wind industry is pushing forward, capitalizing on current opportunities. But Mortenson’s optimistic outlook is tempered with caution regarding future tax policy, a major driver in the industry’s success.
Chip Minty is a freelance writer for The Journal Record (Oklahoma City).
The General Assembly enters the fourth year in the gubernatorial cycle with even more gridlock than usual.
Democrats hold narrow majorities in both the House of Delegates and Senate, but are vulnerable to vetoes by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who begins the final year of his constitutionally mandated single term.
Hopes for bipartisan compromise were dealt an additional blow by last year’s spat between Youngkin and Democrats in which the legislature killed the governor’s plan to build a $2 billion arena in Alexandria for the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals — mockingly dismissed by Democratic Sen. Louise Lucas as the “Glenn Dome.” Youngkin retaliated by vetoing legislation to establish a state- regulated marketplace for marijuana and to raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage.
In November 2024. Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that battery separator maker Microporous will build a $1.35 billion factory in Pittsylvania County. Photo courtesy Office of Gov. Glenn Youngkin
Additionally, every seat in the House of Delegates is up for election this November. Those factors lessen the chance the General Assembly will pass significant legislation in a short, six-week session that’s considered the least productive of the four-year cycle.
“What can be put off will be put off,” says political scientist Stephen Farnsworth of the University of Mary Washington. “Expect a session where not much changes. Everybody’s looking ahead to the next election, so they’re not really interested in doing anything that’s going to make their path to another term more difficult.”
This year marks the final chance for Youngkin to notch a signature legislative win. He begins the session with some momentum coming off Virginia’s return to the top of CNBC’s Top States for Business rankings.
Then in November 2024, Youngkin announced that Tennessee-based Microporous would build a $1.35 billion factory to make battery separators at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, creating 2,015 jobs.
“The momentum that Virginia has isn’t happening by chance,” Youngkin says. “It’s happening because we have systematically moved on the most important levers to drive job growth, to reduce regulations and create a business-friendly environment, to raise expectations of excellence in schools, to bring crime down and to make Virginia’s government run more efficiently. … My priorities heading into the General Assembly session [are] to do more.”
Those priorities, however, can be blocked when they clash with those of the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly.
“Virginia is the best state for business because we’ve made smart, long-term investments in education, infrastructure and workforce development,” says Lucas. “Now, we must build on that foundation by fully funding K-12 education, expanding access to affordable child care and strengthening workforce programs to prepare our people for a changing economy.”
Experts say to expect partisan gridlock to continue this year ahead of the 2025 elections.
“We’re looking at an environment where the session will be about scoring points for the gubernatorial election to come,” says Farnsworth. “Democrats will have very little interest in reaching agreement with the governor and vice versa. Both Democrats and Republicans benefit from demonstrating how horrible the other side is, so one can expect a session that includes a lot of heat but not a lot of legislating.”
Trump card
The General Assembly also might be faced with fallout from Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential race. Trump promised to shake up the federal government, shifting numerous agencies and departments away from Washington, D.C., and replacing longtime employees with administration loyalists. Such moves could have a disproportionate effect on Virginia and its more than 140,000 federal workers.
Youngkin says the state’s job growth should be sufficient to accommodate federal workers fired by the Trump administration.
“The federal government is bloated, and there’s tremendous opportunities to save taxpayers money by running the federal government much more efficiently,” Youngkin says. “For folks that live in Virginia, while there might be some impact in that, there’s tremendous opportunities in Virginia. We have nearly 300,000 jobs currently posted in Virginia that are unfilled.”
However, in a November 2024 interview, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner told Virginia Business that massive federal job cuts or relocations would be a “disaster for Virginia’s economy,” particularly in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. “We would get hit worse than any other state,” Virginia’s senior senator said.
Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, applauds after the Senate passed its version of the state budget during the budget session at the Capitol on May 13, 2024. Photo by Associatte Press/Steve Helber
Virginia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Barry DuVal says while he’s optimistic about some of the new Trump administration’s potential economic policies, he is concerned about the possible workforce impact on the commonwealth. “If we had any concerns in terms of economic profile,” says DuVal, “it would be around some of the uncertainty with regard to the location and potential relocation of federal workers.”
Other major sectors of Virginia’s economy that could be impacted by Trump’s return to the presidency include the energy industry. Trump promised to kill offshore wind development on day one of his second term, but state leaders don’t seem too concerned about the implications for Dominion Energy’s ongoing construction of its 2.6-gigawatt, $9.8 billion wind farm
27 miles off Virginia Beach.
“What the president has consistently said is that industries need to stand on their own two feet,” Youngkin says. “That project, which I monitor very closely, is currently on time, on budget. It will remain that way, and if not, then Dominion will bear the substantial penalty of any overruns.”
Energy state
Beyond the offshore wind farm, state lawmakers likely will debate lots of legislation related to energy, driven by increasing power demands and the state’s Clean Economy Act of 2020, which requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to produce 100% of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2050.
“It’s a short session, and energy issues are taking up a lot of the energy right now,” says Democratic Sen. Creigh Deeds of Charlottesville. “We’re trying to figure out how to build the system to get us where we need to go in the Clean Economy Act and do it in such a way to produce renewable energy without consuming large amounts of farmland. It’s a challenge the whole way through.”
Despite Virginia’s clean energy goals, Dominion — like other utilities throughout the Southeast — has proposed building new gas-fired power plants to meet growing demand that the utility projects to double by 2039 in Virginia.
Most of that demand comes from the voracious appetite of Virginia’s exploding data center sector. The rapid expansion of data centers has Dominion planning new transmission lines and revising grid infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Amazon and Google both announced deals in November 2024 to pursue development of small modular nuclear reactors, and Appalachian Power identified a potential site in Campbell County to also build a small reactor.
Expect legislation to address spikes in power demand and consumer electric bills. Legislatures in other states have debated whether to restrict or better regulate data center development, and Virginia lawmakers may follow suit, although many back data centers for their financial contribution to local and state tax revenues.
“We’ll see dozens of bills about data centers,” says Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell of Fairfax County, although in December 2024 many lawmakers were still holding off filing bills in anticipation of a state legislative study on the topic.
Likewise, the General Assembly likely will hear a slate of bills to support or restrict various ways of generating power. Last year, lawmakers debated a measure to restrict localities that have increasingly blocked solar development, especially on farmland. That legislation likely will return, along with bills aimed at nuclear, natural gas, wind and other energy sources.
“Local governments have land-use control on some energy projects but not all,” says Deeds, who chairs the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. “We have to be thinking about this thing not just as one locality and another but as a commonwealth and really as a nation. Data centers are a huge challenge, but right now data centers are more than 70% of capital investment in Virginia. As long as we’re dependent on the internet, on smart phones, we’re creating demand for data centers.”
There’s also the open question of Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate carbon market that aims to cap carbon emissions in return for millions of dollars to alleviate flooding and improve energy efficiency. Youngkin tried to withdraw the state from RGGI, but in November 2024 was rebuked by a state judge, who ruled that only the General Assembly has “the authority to repeal the RGGI regulation.”
Affordable housing
Even in gridlocked sessions, the General Assembly tends to pass a large volume of bills with little or no opposition. And lawmakers from both parties have an incentive to work together on measures that reinforce the state’s CNBC ranking as the top state to do business.
In her reelection announcement, House Labor and Commerce Chair Del. Jeion Ward said her priorities include “advancing fair wages, strengthening workplace protections and promoting economic policies that benefit all Virginians.”
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce wants lawmakers to budget at least $50 million annually to the state’s program to prepare business-ready sites (a measure Youngkin has proposed), and $12.5 million to promote out-of-state marketing to attract economic prospects, DuVal says. The chamber also backs more investment in education and workforce development, especially for technical credentialing programs at community colleges.
Another goal for Virginia economic development proponents is to ensure the state’s growing workforce has a place to live. A lack of inventory and reluctance by homeowners to walk away from low-interest mortgages has slowed the housing market. A state study found Virginia has a housing supply for about 3.6 million residential units, but housing demand for 4.1 million units. Meanwhile, there’s a workforce-priced housing shortage of about 41,000 homes.
“We’re supportive of the governor and General Assembly working together to increase the supply and affordability of available housing,” DuVal says. “I had a roundtable with the governor and about 14 business leaders, and their No. 1 issue to help solve the workforce shortage was the governor doing something about affordable housing.”
In November 2024, Youngkin announced a Virginia Housing initiative to invest $75 million over five years to incentivize the construction of more workforce-priced housing. Democrats also want measures to address rental housing. “With nearly half of Virginia’s renters cost-burdened, too many families are struggling to put down roots,” Lucas says.
And some Republicans want to target regulations that add to the cost of a home. “Some localities are far too restrictive with the way they do housing development to allow the free market to fix this problem,” says House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. “If you make it harder for people to keep providing housing, they’ll stop doing it.”
The Virginia Chamber of Commerce also supports state action on child care. It endorses an employee child care assistance program based on Kentucky’s model, which includes both state funding and employer funding to cover the cost of child care for employees.
Similarly, medical leave will likely arise as a business-related issue. In 2024, Democrats passed a paid state family medical leave program, but Youngkin vetoed it. The chamber opposed that particular bill in favor of a private sector model.
Most of the budget work was conducted during the 2024 session, but lawmakers this session must figure out how to fill a roughly $632 million shortfall in Medicaid funding. Youngkin says that with the state’s budget surplus, it shouldn’t be a problem, but lawmakers will need to hammer out details.
Lucas says that’s one of the General Assembly’s most important jobs this session: “We can’t afford partisan games when health care for our most vulnerable is on the line.”
Surovell says much depends on how Youngkin approaches the budget: “To the extent we have a conflict, it’s going to occur if the governor continues to insist on cutting taxes that fund essential services. You cut taxes during a recession, not when the economy’s booming.”
Casino royale
Other issues scramble traditional partisan alliances.
Virginia lawmakers have regularly considered casino legislation in recent years, beginning in 2020 when the General Assembly voted to allow casinos in Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Richmond, pending approvals from local referendums. Richmond voters twice rejected the proposal, and the General Assembly approved an additional casino for Petersburg, where more than 80% of voters endorsed the proposal in November 2024.
Now, advocates are pushing for approval for a casino in Virginia’s most populous locality: Fairfax County. Last year, a Senate committee considered a proposal to allow a casino referendum in Fairfax, but decided to hold the legislation over for a year. Since then, a coalition of worker unions lobbied the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to endorse the idea, while another organization formed to oppose it.
Surovell, who’s carrying a Fairfax County casino bill, says Virginia needs to reclaim some of the revenue it’s losing from state residents visiting the MGM National Harbor Casino & Hotel in Maryland, just across the Potomac River from Alexandria.
“Fairfax County is currently undergoing a commercial real estate value implosion, which has severely undermined its tax revenues,” says Surovell. “A casino would generate at least $500 per household in additional tax revenue to help provide some tax relief to existing county households and businesses.”
Youngkin says the casino is “a very contentious issue in Northern Virginia” that will be a “hotly discussed topic by the General Assembly,” but he declines to take a stance on the question or say whether he would veto a measure to allow another casino in Virginia.
Lawmakers also are likely to revisit the legality of so-called “skill games.” Virginia currently bans electronic betting machines, but the industry has pushed for changes to allow skill games, which are like slot machines but allow players more control. Youngkin and lawmakers continued to discuss the issue even after the 2024 session ended. Georgia skill gaming company Pace-O-Matic has plunged into state politics to advocate for its machines, including a new version that two former Virginia attorneys general argue doesn’t violate the state ban.
Lawmakers appear likely to again pass legislation to establish a recreational marijuana market in Virginia. The General Assembly legalized recreational marijuana in 2020, allowing residents to grow and possess marijuana but not to sell it. Republican victories in 2021 delayed the passage of a follow-up bill to establish a recreational market, but Democrats reassumed control of the legislature in 2023 and passed such a bill in 2024. However, Youngkin vetoed the 2024 bill and appears likely to do so again, and Democrats don’t have a veto-proof majority in either chamber.
“It’s time to finish the job,” says J.M. Pedini, development director of the National Organ-ization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and executive director of the state branch. “It’s time to take marijuana off the street corner and put it behind an age-verified counter.”
The bottom line? “We have no reason to believe there will be any significant change from 2024,” Pedini says.
That appears to be the case with other issues that break sharply along partisan lines. In many cases, politicos are looking instead to the November elections, which already are taking shape.
In November 2024, Youngkin endorsed Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for governor and Attorney General Jason Miyares for reelection. On the Democratic side, former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger seems to have consolidated party support around her bid for governor. If Sears and Spanberger do emerge as the two parties’ nominees, Virginia will be all but assured of electing its first woman governor.
Meanwhile, multiple Democratic candidates are lining up to run for lieutenant governor, including state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. Conservative radio host John Reid has expressed interest on the Republican side.
Even as political winds shift in Washington, D.C., a long-delayed onshore wind farm in Botetourt County might finally be sailing to completion.
Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy announced Wednesday that it has reached a deal for Google to purchase the full capacity of Rocky Forge Wind, a wind farm the Charlottesville company has been working to develop in Botetourt since 2015.
Virginia’s first and only wind farm being developed on land, Rocky Forge calls for 13 turbines, each 64 stories tall, to be erected atop North Mountain outside the rural town of Eagle Rock. Collectively, the turbines will generate about 79 megawatts of power, which Google will use to support its data centers in Virginia, according to a news release.
The incoming Trump administration, which is not viewed as friendly toward wind energy, is not expected to affect the development of the Rocky Forge wind farm.
“On the administration side of things, no federal policy change would impact this project. I can’t speak for offshore,” said Brian O’Shea, director of public engagement for Apex Clean Energy, in late November.
The Rocky Forge project has faced stiff headwinds since it was first unveiled. Legal challenges, permitting problems, design changes and the impacts of the pandemic have all combined to delay construction of the turbines.
In 2019, Dominion Energy struck a deal to purchase Rocky Forge’s power and resell it to Virginia state government to help meet its goal of sourcing at least 30% of electricity for state agencies from renewable energy sources. More obstacles developed, and that contract expired and wasn’t renewed.
The project regained momentum in September when the Virginia Court of Appeals rejected a legal challenge by upholding a circuit court ruling that had approved the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s permit for Apex. Two other lawsuits against the project were dismissed by a circuit court judge in January.
Construction on the project is now set to start in 2025, with electricity generated by late 2026, according to O’Shea.
Botetourt County still must complete a final site-plan review that includes gaining approval from the Virginia Department of Transportation for improvements to a gravel road that would allow heavy equipment and tractor-trailers access to the remote mountaintop. Local fire and emergency services must also review the road plan, according to Botetourt County spokeswoman Tiffany Bradbury.
Rocky Forge would mark the second partnership for Apex and Google, which aims to achieve net-zero emissions and 24/7 carbon-free energy for its operations by 2030. In August 2023, the two companies announced a power purchase agreement for the energy generated by Apex’s Timbermill Wind project in Chowan County, North Carolina.
“As we continue to progress towards our goal to operate every Google campus on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030, we are always looking for opportunities to accelerate the delivery of new clean power to the grid,” Amanda Peterson Corio, head of data center energy for Google, said in a statement.
Rocky Forge will create up to 250 jobs during construction and will bring about $30 million in state and local tax revenue over the lifetime of the wind farm, according to Apex.
“As far as I can tell, it’s full steam ahead,” said Botetourt County Administrator Gary Larrowe in November.
Or, in this case, full wind ahead.
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