Jan 3, 2025, 08:53
by
Hannah Jane Costilow
Welcome to FIVE FOR FRIDAY: A weekly roundup of public policy issues and headlines from around the Northern Virginia Region, the Commonwealth, and Capitol Hill.
by Danielle Finley, Associate Director of Political Engagement
Welcome to FIVE FOR FRIDAY: A weekly roundup of Public Policy Issues and Headlines. In this Issue: 1. Defense, intel veterans reject Tysons casino as acute health and national security risk 2. George Mason opens $254M hub as Virginia aims to draw in more tech 3. What to expect from the 2025 Virginia General Assembly 4. State Leaders Grapple with Infrastructure, Generation Costs of Data Centers 5. Virginia Republicans’ questions on solar siting bill preview 2025 legislative fight
By DAN ROSENZWEIG-ZIFF, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Anuj Pokhrel came to George Mason University to study off-road robotics. But as the Virginia school experienced rapid growth in enrollment in recent years, the lab he worked in became increasingly crammed. No longer. This month, the fourth-year PhD student was in a new two-story open space that could accommodate more students — as well as drones, wheeled robots navigating staged rocky terrain and even doglike machines that easily pushed open and walked through a door.
By MASON ADAMS, Virginia Business
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.
State Leaders Grapple with Infrastructure, Generation Costs of Data Centers
By HANNA PAMPALONI, Loudoun Now
Just a week after a state study panel released a comprehensive report on data centers and their impacts within the commonwealth, the State Corporation Commission convened for an all-day technical conference to tackle the same issue and learn what role the panel should have in the industry’s future within Virginia. The General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission released its report Dec. 9. While documenting the important role data centers play in local and state economies, the reported raised concerns that unconstrained growth of the industry would result in a massive need for additional power infrastructure, imports and generation.
Virginia Republicans’ questions on solar siting bill preview 2025 legislative fight
By BRAD KUTNER, WVTF-FM
The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) says 100% of Virginia’s electricity must come from carbon-free sources by 2050, but local pushback on projects like solar farms has slowed that success. Democrats in the House and Senate have tried to push bills that would revoke some local authority to deny such projects. But they were met with bitterness from even those in their own ranks. At a recent meeting of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, or CEUR, Republicans offered their own feedback on a new version of the bill.