Fairfax County residents watching their energy bills climb will have to wait until January for Virginia lawmakers to take up legislation that could pause data center development statewide.

The General Assembly cancelled an Oct. 26 special session because of scheduling conflicts, according to a Patch report carrying Virginia Mercury reporting. The cancellation means multiple moratorium bills backed by Fairfax-area legislators will not get a hearing until the regular session opens Jan. 13, 2027.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Fairfax Democrat, told the Mercury the session was expected to last at least three days and that many lawmakers could not plan around it.

"Members were planning on all kinds of travel plans and family plans and all kinds of stuff," Surovell said. "Scheduling special sessions is difficult outside of the regular session."

The session's main purpose was electing judges to the Court of Appeals of Virginia. A backlog of judicial appointments had built up after disagreements over taxing data centers delayed the state budget until June, which pushed back funding for the positions and slowed the vetting process, Surovell said.

Moratorium effort on hold

Sen. Glen Sturtevant, a Chesterfield Republican, had planned to use the session to push a data center moratorium bill for debate. That effort is now sidelined.

Even if the session had gone forward, a procedural resolution the House adopted earlier this year would have blocked the introduction of new legislation. Surovell also said the tight schedule left no room for committee hearings, which any moratorium bill would require.

Sturtevant said in a statement that he wanted to lower power bills and make data centers pay their own way. He has been among the most vocal lawmakers calling for a pause on data center development while the state puts new regulations in place.

At least three moratorium bills filed

The push has bipartisan support. Sen. Russett Perry, a Loudoun Democrat, filed Senate Bill 843 with Sen. Danica Roem, a Prince William Democrat, according to the Virginia Mercury. That bill would block localities, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the State Corporation Commission (SCC) from approving any data center building permits statewide from July 2027 until July 2030. It would also halt distribution lines and on-site power projects that solely serve data centers during the same period.

Closer to home, Del. Irene Shin, a Fairfax Democrat, has a separate bill carried over from the 2026 session. It would block localities from approving zoning and permitting requests until all pending data center interconnection requests are fulfilled or July 2028, whichever comes first.

Virginia is home to nearly 400 data centers in operation, with over 280 planned and more proposed each year, according to Pew Research Center. Dominion Energy, which serves Fairfax County ratepayers, has about 25,000 megawatts of power assigned to projects with energized dates and an additional 75,000 megawatts going to projects still waiting. The utility says customers in the queue face a roughly seven-year wait for power.

Sturtevant plans to file his own moratorium bill for the January session.