RESTON, Va.—Virginia’s state government is leaning into its use of artificial intelligence for workforce development and regulation cuts. It’s an energy-intensive move further perpetuating the need for data centers and worsening climate change.
On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced a partnership with Google through which the search giant will donate 10,000 scholarships for work credential certifications, including those needed to process artificial intelligence data. The effort comes after the term-limited governor and Trump ally announced last week an executive order to use AI to cut Virginia’s regulations beyond a 25 percent reduction already achieved across Virginia’s agencies, including those governing stormwater management.
The efforts appear to be the first of their kind in the U.S., with a state government endorsing AI-assisted computer processing to carry out functions of job training and regulatory reviews. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, governors in over 10 states have issued executive orders to look at how AI can be used in government functions.
At the federal level, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday awards of up to $200 million each to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI, “to accelerate Department of Defense (DoD) adoption of advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges.”
Youngkin, speaking at a news conference at Google’s Virginia offices, said he thought almost all of the job opportunities available through the state’s website virginiahasjobs.com would have an AI component to them. “Whether that is the marketing challenge, where we’re actually using AI capabilities to customize marketing messaging as quickly as we can,” he said.
“Or if it’s in a customer service relationship, where all of a sudden a lot of the easy customer service stuff is taken by AI, and the hard stuff comes to the people that know how to be empathetic and to interact with folks who really need help.”
Virginia had been CNBC’s number one state to do business in because of its workforce talent pipeline, but lost that ranking last week with a new scoring system incorporating the impact of federal workforce changes. The state has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s wholesale federal layoffs, with many government employees living and working in the state. Youngkin has touted the job website with private company job listings as his way to help with what he has called “job dislocation.” A page on that site is where Google provides access to the certification courses, and offerings with Virginia universities.
Mike Wooten, vice chairman of the State Board of Directors that oversees Virginia’s community college system, supported the idea at the announcement, saying that as AI use and credential programs proliferate, ”the universities, the schools, are not the sole fountain of knowledge anymore.”
Lauren Bacon Smith, chief people officer at Enabled Intelligence, said at the announcement her Virginia-based company hires people to create the training data AI relies upon to be accurate, with a focus on employing people who are neurodivergent, including people on the autism spectrum or who have ADHD and can focus with pattern and spatial recognition skills. The company is competing for a Project Maven contract with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to incorporate AI into defense operations, which would allow her company to expand from 30 employees to 120.
“That’s just that one contract,” Bacon Smith told Inside Climate News. “There’s other government contracts as well, as we’re looking into expanding into the commercial sector. There’s definitely a significant amount of opportunity for us.”
Bronagh Friel, head of partnerships at Grow with Google, said the company has “long recognized that Virginia is a leading force in this quickly evolving tech economy.” Google “has tried to call Virginia home for over 15 years, with our offices here in Reston and data centers” in Loudoun and Prince William counties, Friel said.
Google made an investment in Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is proposing a nuclear fusion power plant in Virginia to provide reliable, carbon-free electricity with less fuel and waste concerns than traditional or small modular nuclear reactors. But those Google data centers Friel mentioned are among the over 390 million square feet of data centers proposed, built or under construction in the state, according to the Sierra Club’s latest report on “unconstrained” data center development in Virginia raising concerns over environmental harms.
In Fairfax County, just outside of the nation’s capital, the report said, 55 percent of the facilities are within 200 feet of homes and 70 percent are within 500 feet of homes. One large data center, the report said, “can consume 5 million gallons of water per day, enough to supply 50,000 people.”
“Some of the largest data center companies in Virginia have recently admitted that the impact of AI is undermining their emissions reductions goals, creating a ‘real risk’ that tech company climate commitments will take a back seat to their AI aspirations,” the report said.
Youngkin, who has been a staunch proponent of data center development in the state, did not make himself available for questions after the announcement. Nicole Overley, commissioner at Virginia Works, the state’s workforce development agency, told Inside Climate News that environmental protections for data centers were “not my expertise.” A Google spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
This use of AI for workforce development comes after Youngkin announced that Virginia reduced regulations across the board by 25 percent in response to an executive order he issued soon after entering office. On Friday, Youngkin announced the AI effort with the intent to cut 10 percent more.
The initial regulation cut, announced at an 84 Lumber warehouse with support from the Home Builders Association of Virginia, came after a months-long process that included discussion of reducing certification requirements for wetland delineators. Those professionals identify where swamp grounds are in periods of dampness or drought to avoid building homes where structures become wet and moldy.
There were also discussions of reductions to certifications for geologists and a consolidation of guidance handbooks and regulations for stormwater protections to reduce harm to drinking water and wildlife habitat sources.
The regulatory reduction started under Andrew Wheeler, who was a former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during President Donald Trump’s first term and almost became Virginia’s secretary of natural and historic resources before legislative Democrats blocked his appointment. Youngkin then appointed him to head up the four-person Office of Regulatory Management. Wheeler left the Youngkin administration to join a law and lobbying firm in Washington D.C., but resurfaced for the culmination of Youngkin’s regulation cuts.
“We’re lucky to have a governor here in Virginia that made sure that we were getting the best regulations that made sense, that were cost-effective and did not stifle business and allowed people to grow, work and build their families here in Virginia,” Wheeler said.
Michael Rolband, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, who oversaw the reduction of stormwater regulations, has pushed for greater transparency in permitting and enforcement penalties.
And while the handbook does include Chesapeake Bay Program include approved best management practices to cut off pollution, like planting buffers along streams, t concern exists among some environmentalists over the inclusion of other best management practices. One practice of concern is a regenerative stormwater provision that could be improved, according to researchers at North Carolina State University, and involves going into a channel to restore it after the damage is already done.
Though the handbook has been referenced for use in the regulations before, environmentalists also raise a question whether guidance changes in the handbook skirt regulatory processes, and local officials wonder if cutting specificity in the regulations and relying on the handbook is unclear.
“I understand the goal of the Handbook is to update the standards and Specifications more frequently, however, the unintended consequence is that this state of perpetual flux will create confusion, uncertainty and ambiguity for the life of the [best management practices], and no permanent, archived documentation of the prior standards,” wrote Jerry Stonefield, a land development services staffer with Fairfax County.
In response, Rolband told Inside Climate News the consolidation of multiple, decades-old handbooks on stormwater guidance was separate from the effort to reduce regulations that were redundant and came by way of a legislative mandate in 2016. Both efforts, he said, came with stakeholder committees made up of engineers, developers and environmental groups.
“We have a standing committee that meets,” Rolband said of the handbook changes. “If anyone has comments or issues, basically, it’s online and you just give your comments and thoughts and proposals, and then the committee looks at it.”
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Charles Paullin is a Richmond, Virginia-based reporter focusing on energy and environment issues. He’s won several awards for his previous work covering state policy with the Virginia Mercury and local news with the Northern Virginia Daily in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. His first reporting gig was with the New Britain Herald in Connecticut, a couple years after attending the University of Hartford, where he first studied sports journalism.
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