Virginia Governor Abigail D. Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 (2026) on 18 September 2026. An executive order of this kind takes effect on signature and binds Virginia executive branch agencies; it is not a bill before the General Assembly or a proposed regulation open for comment. Executive Order 22 rescinds Executive Order No. 30 of 18 January 2024 and Executive Directive No. 5 of 20 September 2023.
Executive Order 22 operates through the Governor's authority over executive branch agencies rather than by creating new statutory duties on private parties. Its data centre conditions run in five parts: transparent community engagement supported by a published planning and engagement toolkit; a bar on executive branch agencies enforcing non-disclosure agreements that prevent disclosure of material information concerning a proposed commercial data centre; a VA-LEAD designation programme modelled on LEED and EnergyStar criteria; exclusion of data centres with peak demand of 25 megawatts or more from assistance under the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program and from expedited reviews; and environmental directions to the Department of Environmental Quality. A separate part of the order creates a rapid-response artificial intelligence task force.
Data centre developers and the operators behind them lose two things they have relied on in Virginia: agency-backed confidentiality during site selection, and access to Business Ready Sites assistance and expedited review once a project reaches 25 megawatts of peak demand. Utilities and their large load customers face a state that will press for cost allocation shielding households from data centre infrastructure expense. Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are named in the order as AI developers the task force is to coordinate with, which gives those firms a direct channel into, and direct exposure to, the executive and legislative action the task force recommends on workforce displacement and data privacy.
The Office of the Chief Energy Officer has 120 days to publish a data centre planning and community engagement toolkit containing model questions and disclosure templates. The Department of Environmental Quality has 180 days to develop noise regulations, to analyse the cumulative impacts of backup generators, and to designate cooling water scarcity areas. The Secretary of Labor has 180 days to develop quality job best practices. VA-LEAD criteria are due by the end of 2027. The task force is co-led by the Chief Transformation Officer, the Counsel to the Governor and the Secretary of Administration, supported by an AI Policy Planning Unit, and reports to the Governor on a continuing basis.
Licentium advises data centre developers, energy offtakers and artificial intelligence companies on state-level conditions attaching to siting, incentives and model deployment in the United States. Work we undertake includes reviewing site and incentive agreements against executive order conditions, assessing whether a project crosses the 25 megawatt exclusion from state assistance, and preparing responses to state artificial intelligence task force processes.