THE COMMONWEALTH TODAY

Wednesday, June 24, 2026 | Virginia This Week

STATEWIDE

Virginia's $205 Billion Budget Heads to Spanberger With a First-in-the-Nation Data Center Tax

The General Assembly approved a bipartisan two-year budget (HB 30) on Monday — the 23-16, the House 71–22 — and sent it to Gov. Abigail Spanberger with a July 1 shutdown clock ticking. Its centerpiece is a nationally unprecedented tax on data centers: $0.011 per kilowatt hour on monthly electricity use, projected to raise up to $600 million a year for the General Fund, with anything over the cap refunded to the industry. The deal preserves the existing sales-tax exemption that House lawmakers defended by citing 74,000 jobs, includes 4% teacher raises and 3.5% state-employee pay bumps, stands up a retail cannabis marketplace, and ties $153 million in WMATA aid to Metro producing a 20-year capital plan. Spanberger has seven days to sign, amend, or veto — making June 30 the live deadline, and the June 29 reconvene the moment everyone watches to see whether the compromise survives intact.

Dominion Energy's $67 Billion Sale to NextEra Collides With Virginia's New Power Tax

Dominion Energy has agreed to be sold to Florida's NextEra Energy in a $67 billion all-stock deal that would create the world's largest regulated electric utility — and it lands the same week Virginia enacted its data center power tax. Dominion serves 3.6 million homes and businesses across three states; NextEra is dangling $2.25 billion in bill credits for customers in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina over two years after closing. The merger needs federal approval and now runs straight through Virginia's State Corporation Commission, which must weigh the ownership change against a grid that PJM forecasts will see its biggest summer-demand jump in the Dominion zone through 2030, almost entirely on data-center load. The signal to watch: whether the SCC moves on the ownership review or the rate questions first — because the order determines who absorbs the cost of Data Center Alley's appetite.

Virginia's Assault Firearms Ban Takes Effect July 1 After Judge Refuses to Block It

A Spotsylvania County circuit court judge on June 18 denied a preliminary injunction sought to halt enforcement of SB 749, Virginia's new assault firearms ban, clearing it to take effect July 1. Signed by Spanberger on May 14, the law prohibits importing, selling, manufacturing, buying, or transferring defined "assault firearms," including many AR-15-style rifles and magazines over 15 rounds. At least four lawsuits remain active, meaning the courtroom fight is far from over even as the statute becomes enforceable next week. What to watch: how commonwealth's attorneys signal they'll prosecute violations — the law's real boundaries get drawn in prosecutors' inboxes long before any of those four suits reaches a verdict.

Brian White Takes Over as Virginia Tech's Athletic Director

Virginia Tech announced Monday that Brian White will become its vice president and director of athletics, with an introduction at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg. White arrives from Florida Atlantic with a mandate to steer the Hokies through the revenue-sharing era of college sports. President Tim Sands framed the hire around financial acumen and competing among the nation's elite; White's first roster and budget moves will show whether that's aspiration or plan.

Northern Virginia's Transit Agencies May Get Merged to Cut Costs

State lawmakers are examining whether to consolidate Northern Virginia's transit agencies in search of cost savings and better service, Virginia Mercury reported Tuesday. The timing is pointed: the new budget attaches $153 million in additional Metro operating aid to a requirement that WMATA produce a 20-year capital plan, and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission meets in early July. For the hundreds of thousands of federal workers, contractors, and residents who ride into the Pentagon and federal agencies, consolidation could reshape routes, fares, and accountability lines. The July NVTC meeting is the first venue where this stops being a study and starts being a fight over who controls the region's buses and rail.

The Budget Quietly Rewrites Virginia's Hemp Rules

Tucked inside the same budget that creates a retail cannabis marketplace is a rewrite of Virginia's hemp law that redefines lawful hemp products as those containing no more than 2 mg of THC per package. Hemp industry advocates warn the change would sharply restrict products now sold across the Commonwealth and create an abrupt regulatory cliff for retailers operating under Virginia's current framework. The reported effective date is August 15, ahead of the scheduled federal hemp-definition change in November. Watch whether retailers organize a legal or legislative challenge before that date, because for a lot of small Virginia storefronts the window closes fast.

What Most People Missed

• Richmond approves its 2026 budget the same night as a multi-victim shooting: City leaders signed off on the 2026 budget the same evening Richmond Police and Fire responded to reports of multiple people shot around 11:24 p.m. The budget's police, fire, and emergency-response lines now sit under fresh scrutiny.
• Spanberger announces Department of Corrections "Community Safety" reforms: The governor and the Virginia Department of Corrections rolled out a reform package aimed at reentry, supervision, and internal oversight. It signals changes beyond what the budget funds.
• A federal contracting overhaul could reshape work for thousands of Virginia firms: The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council opened public comment on a "Revolutionary" FAR overhaul touching award announcements and transparency for contracts over $5.5 million. It directly hits contracting hubs in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and around Quantico and Langley.
• Hampton Roads holds a hazard-mitigation hearing tonight: The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission meets 6–8 p.m. Wednesday on the regional plan that decides which projects get FEMA mitigation and state resilience dollars. It's where drainage upgrades and floodwalls get prioritized — or don't.

WORTH DOING / WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Virginia is not only budget deadlines this week. A few practical ways to get out or plug in:

• Northern Virginia: Lake Fairfax 250th Independence Day Celebration. Saturday-Sunday, June 27-28, 12:00 PM - 10:00 PM; Lake Fairfax Park, Reston. Fairfax County is marking the nation’s 250th anniversary with two days of activities at Lake Fairfax, ending in a drone show.
• Fredericksburg: Refugee Career Readiness Mentor for Self Sufficiency. Volunteer in Manassas to mentor a refugee working toward self-sufficiency through career readiness support.
• Hampton Roads: Pride at the Beach. Sunday, June 28, 2:00 PM to 11:00 PM; Neptune's Park, Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Pride at the Beach wraps up the weekend with a beach-style finale in Hampton Roads.

The regional pages carry the longer calendars; this is the daily shortlist.

What to Watch

• If Spanberger amends or line-item vetoes the $0.011/kWh data center tax at the June 29 reconvene, the two-year fight over the industry's "fair share" reopens instead of closing.
• If the SCC takes up Dominion's rate questions before the NextEra ownership review, Virginia ratepayers could find themselves footing data-center grid costs while the question of who even owns the utility is unsettled.
• If hemp retailers file suit before August 15, the budget's quiet 2 mg THC rewrite becomes the first courtroom test of whether a spending bill can erase an entire product category overnight.
• If commonwealth's attorneys publicly signal lenient or aggressive enforcement of SB 749, the assault-firearms ban's real reach gets defined a week before July 1 — not by the four pending lawsuits.
• If the early-July NVTC meeting endorses consolidation, the $153 million Metro carrot suddenly looks like leverage for a much bigger governance overhaul.

A penny-per-kilowatt-hour tax aimed at Ashburn's humming server farms, an AR-15 ban a judge just refused to pause, and 1,500 hemp shops staring down an August deadline buried on page who-knows of a 205-billion-dollar budget. Virginia spent the week inventing a tax for the world's largest utility-to-be while quietly outlawing most of the gummies sold down the street — the kind of two-handed governing that only a shutdown clock can produce. That's the Commonwealth today.

Forward this to the friend who still doesn't know their CBD store has until August 15.