The Virginia Senate chambers on Monday, June 22, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood) 

Barring anything unexpected, Virginia will keep its billion-dollar tax break for data centers in place and roll out a new annual tax on their energy consumption. 

You can read more about what I heard from lawmakers in the General Assembly at the link below. But for the purposes of this space I want to share the comments I got today from a labor leader and a Loudoun County resident who lives near data centers. 

Don Slaiman with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26, told me, “I don’t think it’s right to punish an industry for success.” 

Slaiman said despite all the attention on the billion-dollar tax break, data centers contribute significant sums to state and local tax coffers, not to mention create good-paying jobs. 

“We are creating great opportunities for these communities to get into the upper-middle-class, and you know, I wish folks would care more about unemployment,” Slaiman said. 

I asked Slaiman how he felt about the complaints that have come up about data centers’ water use and noise. He noted that those things are getting addressed in the budget proposal, but he also suggested that was a question for state leaders to answer. 

“I’m more concerned about the future of work and how workers are treated,” Slaiman said. “And I leave it up to politicians to address the environmental and water and noise concerns. I have faith in the politicians on that, and I just think that folks should really be concerned about what kind of jobs we’re creating.” 

Jessica Grove, who lives in Gainesville near data centers, had a different view of the agreement.

She called it “a mediocre compromise” and criticized big tech companies for opposing reforms to state tax policy. Grove, whom I met at last week’s data center town hall in Prince William County, also took issue with the cap on the new data center tax. 

“This tax is a start, but the data center industry is causing way too much harm to all Virginians to let them off the hook,” she texted me. “They need to be fully taxed—no discounts, no rebates, no freebies.”

• Dennis Floyd, the business manager of IBEW Local 80, published an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch touting the economic benefits of Virginia’s data center industry and arguing against getting rid of the state tax break. 

• Caroline Haskins at Wired reports on how some union electricians have mixed feelings about working on data centers. 

• A BBC podcast looks at how power has shifted away from workers as more people stay at their jobs in what’s being called The Great Hunkering Down. 

Demonstrators at a protest in Richmond on May 21, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

While unions representing workers benefiting from Virginia’s data center construction boom have come out in defense of the industry, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) took a more critical view of the compromise passed on Monday. 

“Powerful corporations and the ultra-rich continue to benefit from unfair breaks,” said Carol Bauer, VEA president, in a statement. “It is outrageous that some of the most profitable tech companies on the planet continue to receive lucrative tax advantages while our highest-poverty students lose out on investments that could change their lives.”

The VEA also criticized the budget for doing nothing to get the ball rolling on the expansion of  public-sector collective bargaining that Spanberger says she supports despite her veto of legislation to do so last month.

“Without beginning the infrastructure work now, Virginia will need to move at a much faster pace in future years if school employees are going to have access to collective bargaining during this governorship,” the VEA wrote. “The lack of progress on collective bargaining infrastructure is especially troubling at a time when state leaders have spoken so often about the importance of advancing worker rights.”

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