Virginia Congressman Suhas Subramanyam is taking the debate over data center growth beyond local planning fights and into national infrastructure policy. The Democrat, who represents Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, has introduced a package of bills designed to address how the US locates, powers, measures and secures data center infrastructure. His approach reflects a growing tension between the rapid expansion of computing capacity and the physical systems required to support it. Subramanyam argues that the current piecemeal approach to data center development requires a more national strategy because the effects are reaching communities across the country. His proposal therefore treats data center development not simply as a real estate or technology issue, but as a broader infrastructure planning question. The Sept. 8 announcement brought the proposals together as a broader national package, although individual measures had already been introduced earlier in the year. 

Virginia’s Data Center Pressure Becomes a National Argument

Subramanyam has positioned Virginia as a direct example of what he sees as the consequences of concentrated data center development. His district includes Ashburn, a major concentration of digital infrastructure, giving the congressman a personal connection to the community effects he describes. The office said Virginia’s 10th Congressional District has more than 300 data centers, underscoring the concentration of digital infrastructure in the region. Subramanyam says that concentration has also intensified pressure on surrounding communities, electrical infrastructure and household costs. “We need to do something about this. We need to make sure that we understand the real impact of data centers,” said Subramanyam, who represents Virginia’s 10th congressional district. His legislative package seeks to turn that concern into a national framework rather than leaving individual communities to address the consequences independently.

The political argument is also rooted in how data centers interact with infrastructure that residents already depend on. Subramanyam says the current development pattern can place facilities close to homes while new transmission infrastructure crosses communities and schools. “Right now, we’re putting them next to homes and communities. We’re building power lines through communities and schools, and it’s hurting people, communities and their homes and schools. It’s really hurting our community in a way that people are starting to understand and get upset about,” said Subramanyam. “I live in Ashburn, in the center of the data center alley. And so, I feel it personally myself. So, we are trying to get a better understanding of the impact of data centers, as well as try to make sure, they’re paying for their own power, and they are not hurting our community long term.”

Responsible Data Center Siting Act Targets Development Decisions

The first major component of the package would create a federal framework for evaluating where data centers should be located. The Responsible Data Center Siting Act would direct the Secretary of Energy to develop a method for data center siting that considers energy availability and impacts on utility, water and electricity use. The proposal would make energy availability and the potential effects on utility, water and electricity use part of the data center siting process. Several Democratic lawmakers from other states have co-sponsored the legislation, giving the proposal a broader geographic base beyond Northern Virginia. The significance extends beyond permitting because a standardized federal approach could influence how developers, utilities and communities assess potential locations before major commitments occur. It also reflects a shift toward treating physical resource constraints as strategic considerations in the placement of computing infrastructure.

That shift could become more important as demand for AI infrastructure changes the economics of data center development. A facility can have access to land and connectivity while still facing constraints in power delivery, water availability or local infrastructure capacity. Subramanyam’s proposal would place those considerations within the same siting discussion rather than allowing them to remain separate technical or regulatory questions. “For instance, their impact on power and water is apparently not measured in an accurate way. We also need to make sure we are siting these data centers in a way that makes sense right now,” said Subramanyam. The statement points to Subramanyam’s concern that policymakers need more accurate information about the power and water impacts of large computing facilities when making siting decisions. Ultimately, the proposed framework seeks to make infrastructure suitability a prerequisite for development rather than an afterthought.

Data Center Fair Share Act Puts Grid Costs Under Scrutiny

The second proposal addresses a different part of the same problem: who should pay when data center demand requires new generation or grid infrastructure. The Data Center Fair Share Act would require data centers to pay the full cost of grid and generation upgrades needed to serve them. Subramanyam argues that Northern Virginia residents are facing rising utility bills as the region accommodates the electricity demands of hundreds of data centers. That approach would instead assign the full cost of grid and generation upgrades needed to serve data centers to the facilities driving those requirements. The legislation would instead establish a direct connection between the infrastructure required for data center growth and the entities driving that requirement. For policymakers, that raises a fundamental question about how rapidly expanding digital loads should participate in the cost of physical infrastructure.

The issue becomes particularly consequential where data center clusters develop faster than transmission, generation or distribution systems can adapt. Large facilities require dependable electricity, but the infrastructure needed to provide that reliability can extend well beyond an individual property boundary. A cost-allocation model therefore has consequences for utilities, ratepayers, developers and communities simultaneously. Subramanyam’s proposal attempts to make that allocation more explicit by placing the costs associated with necessary upgrades on the data centers that require them. Meanwhile, the political debate is likely to turn on how regulators distinguish ordinary system investment from infrastructure expansion directly attributable to concentrated computing demand. The proposal therefore links data center development more directly to the grid and generation infrastructure required to serve those facilities.

Measuring Water and Energy Becomes a Legislative Priority

Another element of the package would focus on measurement, an issue that sits beneath many of the current disputes surrounding data center development. The legislation would call for technical standards that measure how much water and energy data centers use. The proposal responds to the lack of standardized information about how data centers consume energy and water, which Subramanyam says limits communities’ ability to make fully informed decisions about siting and regulation. Water and electricity use can vary with facility design, operating conditions, cooling architecture and workload requirements, making standardized technical definitions increasingly important to public policy. Better measurement could also give communities a clearer basis for evaluating proposed facilities and their infrastructure requirements. Subramanyam’s comments suggest that the objective is not simply to collect information, but to improve the quality of decisions made from that information.

“For instance, their impact on power and water is apparently not measured in an accurate way. We also need to make sure we are siting these data centers in a way that makes sense right now,” said Subramanyam. The statement connects measurement directly to siting, indicating that policymakers cannot treat the two questions independently. If facilities use different methods to measure energy and water requirements, policymakers may struggle to determine whether one location creates a more sustainable infrastructure burden than another. A national technical standard could therefore influence planning decisions well before a facility begins operations. It could also create a common language for utilities, regulators, communities and operators as they evaluate resource requirements. The broader strategic issue is whether the US can continue adding computing infrastructure without establishing equally mature systems for measuring its physical consequences.

Data Infrastructure Risk Reduction Act Adds Security Dimension

The final bill broadens the package beyond resource management and into national infrastructure security. The Data Infrastructure Risk Reduction Act would require development of a strategy to protect communities living around data centers and data infrastructure from adversaries. The proposal recognizes that digital infrastructure has become intertwined with physical infrastructure, creating security considerations that extend beyond the facilities themselves. Data centers depend on power systems, telecommunications networks, cooling infrastructure and other interconnected assets that can create wider exposure when concentrated geographically. Protecting those systems therefore involves more than securing servers or networks inside a building. The bill introduces a national-security dimension into a policy discussion that has often centered on economic development, electricity and environmental impact.

Subramanyam has framed the broader problem as a limitation in how data centers are evaluated today. “Right now, we only judge data centers by their efficiency, not by the actual impact they have. It’s like judging a football team by the number of players they have or how big they are, rather than the actual score of the game,” said the Virginia congressman. The analogy captures the distinction between measuring a facility’s internal performance and assessing its wider consequences. Efficiency remains important, but a highly efficient facility can still create difficult questions around power infrastructure, water use, transmission construction, community disruption or security exposure. The proposed legislation would therefore widen the policy lens from facility performance to system-level impact. That represents one of the package’s more significant implications for how future data center projects could be evaluated.

Congress Faces Pressure to Replace a Piecemeal Approach

Communities across the country are confronting questions about electricity, water, infrastructure investment and local development as data center construction expands. He describes the existing policy environment as fragmented, with individual jurisdictions addressing issues according to their own rules and circumstances. “And the approach by the industry has been ad hoc at best. And so, if we work together with all the stakeholders, communities, even industry, to put together a plan on how we’re going to deploy data centers and what the conditions will be to deploy them, we will have a much better outcome. We did this with power infrastructure when we rolled out the energy grid across the country over the past 100 years. We did this with internet infrastructure,” said Subramanyam. His comparison links the proposed data center planning approach to the coordinated development of the national energy grid and internet infrastructure.

The argument also reflects the changing role of data centers in the US economy. Computing facilities once appeared primarily as specialized technology infrastructure, but AI workloads have pushed them closer to the center of industrial policy, energy planning and digital competitiveness. As that role expands, decisions about where infrastructure is built can affect utility planning, transmission investment, community development and national resilience. A national framework could create greater consistency, although it would also introduce new questions about federal authority, state jurisdiction and the appropriate role of local communities. Therefore, the legislation represents more than an attempt to regulate individual facilities because it challenges the assumption that data center expansion can continue through disconnected project-by-project decisions. Its success will depend on whether Congress can reconcile national infrastructure priorities with the local consequences that have driven much of the political backlash.

Ashburn Demonstrates the Stakes of Concentrated Growth

Subramanyam chose Discovery Elementary School in Ashburn as the location for his Sept. 8 press conference announcing the package. The setting reinforced his argument that data center development can affect surrounding communities and infrastructure. He said the school sits next to Data Center Alley, placing a major concentration of digital infrastructure directly alongside an established residential and educational environment. He also said residents in the neighborhood around the school have started a petition seeking to disband the entire community. According to Subramanyam, some residents are considering selling their homes to data centers because they are frustrated with what has happened in the area. The episode illustrates why siting has become a political question as much as a technical one.

The Northern Virginia experience also demonstrates why national data center policy could face competing interpretations. For technology companies and infrastructure developers, established data center clusters can provide access to existing digital and power infrastructure. For residents, the same concentration can translate into construction activity, new transmission requirements, changes in land use and concerns about household costs. Subramanyam’s legislation attempts to place those competing interests inside a more formal decision-making structure. It does not frame data center development as inherently incompatible with communities, but it argues that expansion should occur under clearer conditions. The distinction will matter as other regions assess whether they want to attract large computing projects and how they should distribute their infrastructure costs. The central policy question is increasingly shifting from whether the US needs more data centers to where those facilities should be built and who should bear the consequences.

Virginia Moratorium Debate Signals a Broader Policy Shift

Subramanyam has also taken a position on whether Virginia should temporarily halt additional data center development. “When it comes to a number of data centers, we put too many data centers here. And so, if we had one or two data centers here and that was it. I would say moratorium doesn’t make sense. There’s probably more communities where it makes sense to build data centers,” said Subramanyam. He then connected the issue to rising energy costs and the volume of planned development that has yet to be completed. “But now we’re at a point where our energy costs will continue to skyrocket. And we haven’t built all of the data centers planned. So, yes, I would support a state moratorium because it doesn’t make sense to be building all of the data centers in one place.”