We hope you’re enjoying Season 2 as much as we are, and for the third day in a row, we’ve recorded today’s pod in a different location — let us know which audio you like best!

On today’s pod, we revisit a topic we explored last year when we interviewed Sen. Russet Perry and Del. Josh Thomas: data centers. Increasingly, data centers are driving up electric bills, taking our water, harming both the environment and the health of people around them — especially those near schools — and sucking up billions of dollars of taxpayer money in Virginia. There have been scores of data center bills in Virginia this session, and we hope this is one issue where legislators and the Governor continue to show courage in holding this industry accountable. Among several bills that have survived post-crossover, some really good ones include Sen. Lucas and Del. LeVere Bolling’s bills to shift more costs of energy capacity and infrastructure onto data centers, and Del. Sullivan’s bill to reform the data center sales tax exemption so that the data centers have to promote better practices for affordability, health, and the environment if they want to qualify. We hope these bills get signed into law!