EnviroPolitics Blog

Virginia is for lovers (and haters) of data centers

A Vantage Data Center is seen in Sterling, Virginia. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

By ADAM ATON, Politico

A budget fight in Virginia is testing whether Democrats can win at data center politics.

Some Democrats say ending the tax breaks, which have made northern Virginia into the densest concentration of data centers in the world, is a commonsense way to raise over a billion dollars for other state spending.

But other Democrats have balked, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who warns that reversing the tax breaks could drive away an industry that’s brought in billions of dollars for local and state coffers.

The fight in the industry’s heartland shows just how difficult data center politics have become as voters increasingly blame artificial intelligence for rising electricity bills, even as states compete to attract tech company investments.

The backlash

Maine last week became the first state to pass a moratorium on new data centers, which now awaits action from Democratic Gov. Janet Mills. Washington Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson this month also signed legislation to wind down his state’s data center subsidies.

The backlash against data centers has been even greater in local elections, including a Missouri town that ousted half its city council this month after officials approved a $6 billion data center.

But elsewhere, that black-and-white picture looks a lot more gray.

Read the full story

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Two Dead in ‘Chemical Emergency’ at a West Virginia Plant

As many as 30 others were treated at a hospital and at the scene after a “chemical release” of hydrogen sulfide at a plant in Nitro, W.Va.

Listen · 2:51 min

*A “chemical release” of hydrogen sulfide in Nitro, W.Va., left at least two people dead, officials said. Photo Credit…John Raby/Associated Press*

By Christine Hauser and Mark Walker, The New York Times, April 22, 2026

Two people are dead and more than 30 needed medical treatment after a chemical emergency on Wednesday at a refinery in West Virginia, the authorities said.

Emergency responders were called to Catalyst Refiners, a silver recovery business in Nitro, about 9:30 a.m. after a “chemical release,” the authorities in Kanawha County said in a statement.

The Ames Goldsmith Corporation, which operates the plant, said that the deaths included two “colleagues,” and that a third person was being treated at a hospital.

Other employees were being evaluated at a hospital as a precaution, the company added.

The company said the casualties were the result of an industrial incident that “appears to have resulted in the creation of chemical fumes” at the refinery.

Read the full story here

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A MAJOR PRINCETON SHRED FEST COLLECTION

Here are the totals from the SHRED Fest collection:

943 reusable bags collected (this set a record!)
880 cubic feet of block Styrofoam
450 pounds of batteries, small electronics, and printer cartridges

and about 450 cars!

While we’re delighted to see these items not end up in landfills, we hope to see more producers taking back their items for recycling. Learn more about Extended Producer Responsibility.

EnviroPolitics covers political, environmental, and energy news, legislation, and regulation in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware. Check out our EnviroPolitics Blog at: https://enviropoliticsblog.blogspot.com/ 30-day free trial to our daily EnviroPolitics Newsletter: https://enviropolitics.com/home/

Opinion: Bringing low-cost solar-energy benefits to South Jersey

By Tyrese Gould Jacinto, April 22, 2026

With the skyrocketing cost of gas, utilities, and groceries, families across New Jersey are struggling to make ends meet.

I’m the founder and executive director of the Native American Advancement Corporation in Cumberland and Salem counties, with programs that represent the lower five counties. We run a nature center and reserve, as well as weatherization and lead remediation programs for local residents in Atlantic and Cape May. As a community development organization, we aim to preserve the past and protect the future for the next seven generations through energy conservation.

Anything that can help save residents money while preserving the environment is a win-win in my book. Recently, our nonprofit has found a promising solution to the affordability crisis through our Eversolar Community Solar Program.

Community solar is helping us bring the power of renewable energy to New Jersey’s underserved communities, allowing more residents to enjoy energy savings from solar without an expensive price tag.

Through community solar, renters and other local residents can subscribe to small-scale solar projects housed on warehouse rooftops. There’s no upfront cost to sign up, and subscribers save a guaranteed 20% to 45% on their monthly Atlantic City Electricity bill.

I’ve helped lead our subscriber enrollment campaign in the lower five counties of New Jersey, where NAAC’s staff has reached more than 200 residents and signed up 80 so far, saving local households throughout Cumberland and Salem more than $1.8 million in energy costs over the next 20 years. The majority of these households are low to moderate-income families, often struggling under the weight of skyrocketing utility prices.

When NAAC hosts community events, I hand out flyers for our Eversolar Community Solar Program and give a speech explaining what community solar is. Many of the people I talk to have never heard of community solar.

I tell them that they don’t need a roof to participate, and that they reap the benefits of solar power by buying into the program at no cost to them while reducing their own carbon footprint. I explain that these panels go on an industrial-sized building, and all they need to sign up is an Atlantic City Electric bill. That’s the hardest concept for people to understand.

People also don’t believe that there’s no sign-up cost, no early termination fees, and no other obligation period. Just guaranteed savings that will make it easier for them to keep the lights on and to cool their homes.

Many of the people NAAC works with are in crisis mode, yet we still focus on long-term sustainability. Every decision we make now will affect future generations. Fortunately, community solar offers benefits both now and in the future: it provides cost savings and reduces our carbon footprint.

Even the warehouse roofs that host community solar panels must be returned to their original condition after the lease period ends. The panels themselves are also recycled once they’ve reached the end of their useful lives.

Too many decisions people — and especially politicians — make these days are short-sighted. They’re thinking of their immediate needs or comfort. While I understand that inclination, more people should be thinking over the longer term. With community solar, we don’t have to choose: we can take action that benefits both the present and the future.

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Tyrese Gould Jacinto leads the Native American Advancement Corporation, or NAAC, in Bridgeton, NJ

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The costly downside of New Jersey’s Nuclear Revival

The longtime anti-nuclear advocate warns that subsidies, unresolved waste storage, and cheaper alternatives undermine the case for new reactors in New Jersey.

The Salem Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. Phoyo by Tim Larsen for the Office of the Governor.

By Jeff Pillets, The Jersey Vindicator

On April 8, Governor Mikie Sherrill signed landmark legislation to officially end a 40-year de facto moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants in New Jersey.

That previous ban reflected a bipartisan view in Trenton that the state should not accept the growing stockpile of dangerous reactor waste without a permanent national disposal plan. No such solution has emerged. New Jersey is now home to an estimated 7 million pounds of radioactive waste, much of it stored in flood-prone coastal areas.

Sherrill and other elected officials from both parties now argue that nuclear power is needed to help meet rising demand for affordable electricity.

The Jersey Vindicator asked Tim Judson, executive director of the Maryland-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, to weigh in on the state’s renewed embrace of nuclear energy. Judson, long one of the nation’s leading anti-nuclear voices, explains why he believes the shift could prove costly.

Q: Nuclear power supporters portray public subsidies as a temporary measure. They say new reactors will prove to be cost-effective in the long run. Are they wrong?

A: In short, yes. The costs of nuclear power plants have always gotten more expensive. They have required taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies at every stage, from construction to operation to decommissioning, and to storing their waste. New Jersey is a typical example. The Salem 1 and 2 reactors cost nearly $2 billion to build in the 1970s. The Hope Creek reactor cost more than double that amount in the mid-1980s. And even though ratepayers paid off those costs through huge rate hikes, PSEG and Constellation still demanded $300 million per year in ratepayer subsidies to keep running them.

Q: New Jersey ratepayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up aging nuclear plants at Salem and Hope Creek. Can we expect so-called small nuclear reactors, or SMRs, to require similar public support as they age?

A: What they call SMRs don’t really exist, but the fundamentals are similar enough that, if PSEG were to operate SMRs for 40 to 60 years, there’s no reason to think it would be different. Some concepts for what are being marketed as microreactors would supposedly be used for only a few years at a time, and then be replaced. But the costs for those are likely to be very high, so instead of requiring subsidies as they age, you might just end up paying high costs all the time. And when there are much more affordable sources of energy, like solar and wind, paying high costs for a power plant is really just a subsidy.

Read the full interview here

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Opinion: NJ plans to roll back key flood protections on Earth Day

Utility workers work among debris from flood damage caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida in Manville, N.J., Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021. Flood-stricken families and business owners across the Northeast are hauling waterlogged belongings to the curb and scraping away noxious mud as cleanup from Ida moves into high gear. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

By Jeff Tittel in the Jersey Vindicator

Only in New Jersey does the Senate Environment Committee hold a hearing on Earth Day about pulling down an environmental rule. We have really gone from protecting the environment to siding with polluters and developers.

In the past, on Earth Day, we held hearings on how we could further protect our environment. The hearings focused on new protections for clean water, the Highlands, climate change, and renewable energy. We have now gone full Orwell. Even though we are facing a flooding crisis, we are not only doing nothing — the Legislature wants to pull down the only rule in years that tries to strengthen protections. New Jersey is one of the most flood-prone states in the nation. We have experienced flood after flood.

Flooding is not bad luck or an unavoidable act of God. It is the direct result of decades of reckless land-use decisions that put development before safety, politics before science, and profits before people. Even when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection proposes changes, even small steps, special interests rush in.

New Jersey Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari, seeks to overturn the REAL Flood Rule. A Senate Concurrent Resolution serves as a legislative veto of an agency rule. To take effect, it must be approved by both the Senate and the Assembly on the grounds that the rule does not meet legislative intent. The Department of Environmental Protection would then have 30 days to withdraw the rule. If it does not, the Legislature votes again, and the rule is repealed. The governor cannot veto a Senate Concurrent Resolution.

The only time in New Jersey that a Senate Concurrent Resolution passed both houses and overturned a rule was in 2017, when the Legislature blocked Christie’s Highlands Septic Density rule. That rule would have weakened Highlands protections and allowed more development, more septic systems, and more pollution in drinking water supplies. At that time, the Senate used an SCR to stop a rule viewed as harmful and protect the environment. Now, critics say the same process is being used to block environmental protections and increase the risk of flooding and pollution.