Video: Gov. Abigail Spanberger Says “no one single person should hold up the budget and potentially risk the entire economic stability of…Virginia”

Interesting interview by VPM with Gov. Abigail Spanberger “on the looming state budget deadline,” data center tax breaks, etc. See below for video and what Gov. Spanberger had to say (bolding added by me for emphasis).

• “Right now, we are in the middle of June and we have to have a budget pass through the House of Delegates and the State Senate and to my desk before the end of the month. Right now, what we have is the text of a proposed conference report from the House of Delegates. That is, I think, the clear base document for any additional negotiations that might occur in this very short time frame. We need the the General Assembly to move forward very very quickly.”
• [Q: “So there’s an impass that we have right now, right? So the House of Delegates and you would like to preserve a data center tax exemption. The State Senate is hoping to end that early and in the process get $2 billion extra according to estimates.”] “I would classify it slightly differently. I think that your assessment of the Senate’s position is correct. I think that certainly my position, but as reflected in the House budget, is a desire to actually make a very thoughtful long-term decision as it relates to the sales and use tax exemptions that data centers do or don’t get. In the House of Delegates proposed budget language, it’s comprehensive in terms of understanding the revenue, the jobs, the impact, positive, negative, environmental, communitywide, that data centers have had so far. and also makes clear recommendations on what can be done, what should be done, and how Virginia can be in a leader, a position of leadership across the country in terms of what requirements we may put on data centers. In addition to what changes, reassessments or revisions we may choose to make into the future on the sales and use tax incentive program. So from my perspective, anything is on the table. But I do think that it needs to be well considered and based on a full understanding of what would be the benefits, what would be the impacts and make sure that there are no unintended consequences.”
• [Q: “Is there a point at which it becomes too expensive for Virginia to have this tax exemption?”] “I think, importantly, it is a question of what what does the exemption do. And you know across the board Virginia has 82 different sales and use tax exemptions across industries whether it’s data centers, agriculture, railroads, airlines, manufacturing, because the basic premise is we as a Commonwealth – and other states do the same – have certain incentives that we put in place in order to attract business and the investment that comes with them. It is the state’s choice to forego collecting one particular type of tax while those same data centers pay local sales tax and local property tax. And so that equates to billions upon billions of dollars that flow to local communities. And so it becomes a question of are we going to summarily break contracts, which does open the state to legal exposure, or are we going to make a plan into the future about what it is that h what direction we want to take any type of incentives.”
• [Q: “Can I ask you about those contracts? So there’s a memorandum of understanding that Virginia Economic Development Partnership has data centers sign and in that it has a clause or language that talks about how the data center tax exemption could be subject to change. So can you talk about how that kind of squares with this idea that we would be breaking our commitments if there’s sort of an agreement between the state and these companies that the data center tax exemption could change?”] “Certainly. But let me make two two points. One, it’s the middle of June. we need a budget, right? These are conversations that should have happened quite some time ago, right? And and notably, I wasn’t in the General Assembly voting for these incentives time and time and time again, as recently as three years ago. And so it’s been a consistent position of the General Assembly and Virginia more broadly to continue offering incentives. Importantly, in my conversations with uh the AG’s office, they said, ‘well, there should be money in the budget for more attorneys because while there are provisions that the state always has the ability potentially to break contracts, we should expect to be sued. We should expect that to impact our reputation and certainly the willingness of other companies to come invest in Virginia if we’re so willing to break contracts. But importantly, looking forward, I think everything is on the table. And that I think it it isn’t, again… a binary choice between we rip up agreements that exist or we do nothing.”
• [Q: “Senator Lucas put out a sort of a document on social media that was talking about a tiered system of fees….Is this just sort of working around the data center tax exemption if there is just something else that’s making up for that…potential revenue, and is that in basic concept this tiered system something that you’re open to?”] “I’m open to anything. And in my conversations with the senator [Louise Lucas], my question had been, what is the goal? Is the goal an x amount of money? Is the goal changing the landscape in Virginia? Like what is the goal? You have to have a defined goal. You know, for me, certainly a core part of this discussion is ensuring that data centers are paying their fair share as it relates to energy consumption. I brought up the idea of a consumption tax. Again, this was months ago when there would have been plenty of time and runway to create thoughtful potential policy in this space. In terms of the couple page document that was released on on Twitter, that isn’t a plan. If there’s a plan behind it, if there’s a proposal behind it, like I said, I am willing and open to pursuing and considering any plan that is actually sort of detailed and and available for consideration. And I haven’t seen that yet. And what I have seen is the House’s proposal, which is comprehensive, detailed and wants to look at a holistic view of the data center industry. We have benefited in terms of additional jobs. Certainly, the local revenue in the form of both property tax and sales-and-use tax at the local level. Those are dollars that localities are now using to keep life affordable.“
• [Q: “Your bill review process for regular legislation was seemingly quite extensive. We’re looking at something like a week for you to make amendments or or changes…So presuming that the legislature does get this done by the 22nd, you have about a week to consider that. Is that enough time? Like how are you going to deal with that short of a timeline?”]  “Well, I think importantly the budget is very different than individual pieces of legislation. I’m of the opinion that no one single issue and no one single person should hold up the budget and potentially risk the entire economic stability of the Commonwealth of Virginia. And in these circumstances, certainly my goal is to recognize the completeness of a budget. I think that the budget that the House put forward last week is complete. If I were writing the budget, soup to nuts, myself, I might have done, you know, this differently or dotted that i differently. But that’s not what the budget is. The budget is a giant document that enables the state to function. And certainly that is an important piece. I’m endeavoring to stay really apprised of everything that is in it. And hopefully we’ll see some outcomes to this week’s negotiations between the House and Senate conferees.”