Local Advocacy in the Data Center Capital: An Interview with Julie Bolthouse

Julie Bolthouse is the Director of Land Use at the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC). She works locally in Virginia’s nine-county region from Loudoun County to Albemarle County, advocating for more sustainability in planning processes and local land use decisions. She also co-organizes the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition, which brings together around 40 concerned community partners to better understand the impacts of rapid hyperscale data center development in Virginia, the “data center capital of the world.” In response to this issue, the PEC has built and shared various resources, including a web map of existing and proposed data centers, as well as a framework to encourage legislative action, “Four Pillars of Data Center Reform.” In this interview with Policy & Communications Fellow Sean Wang, she talks about these projects and how they’ve empowered communities and legislators to tackle the growing issue of data centers.