1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

I am a constituent writing to urge you to oppose the proposed Amazon data center development at the former George Washington University campus in Ashburn, and to support stronger legislation protecting Virginia ratepayers and our environment from the unchecked expansion of data centers in our state. As you may know, Amazon Data Services recently purchased GW’s 122-acre Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Loudoun County for $427 million, with plans to build a data or IT center. Loudoun County officials were not consulted and say they were “blindsided.” The site is not currently zoned for data center use, giving the state and county an important opportunity to push back. Here is why this matters to your constituents: Electricity costs: Data center expansion in Virginia drove an 833% spike in regional power capacity auction prices for 2025–2026. Virginia Senate Bill 253 is currently attempting to shift some of these costs off of residential ratepayers, but 78% of Virginia voters already blame data centers for rising electricity bills — and without strong action, those costs will keep climbing. Dominion Energy projects that the average monthly residential bill could rise from roughly $143 today to over $315 by 2039, largely due to data center demand. Environmental impact and lack of transparency: A single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water per day. Loudoun County data centers collectively consumed over 1 billion gallons of water in 2023. Yet most facilities are not required to publicly disclose their water use, energy consumption, or emissions. Loudoun County’s carbon emissions are already up over 50% due to data centers, threatening Virginia’s clean energy goals. The community adjacent to the GW campus — including residential neighborhoods and condominiums directly across from the former nursing school — deserves a full environmental review before construction begins. I urge you to support mandatory environmental and grid impact assessments for this development, back legislation that closes loopholes allowing data center costs to be passed to residential ratepayers, and push to end or reform the data center sales tax exemption that currently costs Virginia $1.6 billion in annual revenue. Thank you for representing our community. I look forward to hearing your position on this issue.