Abigail Spanberger to immediately issue an Executive Order establishing a moratorium on data center approvals throughout Virginia." The malfunction caused several data centers to temporarily disconnect from the grid, a move that flickered lights all the way to Chicago. Loudoun County Virginia is a hotbed of data center activity due to a large amount of unused fiber-optic cable and the 2010 Data Center Sales and Use Tax exemption that was recently amended. "Governor Spanberger points to Virginia's new electricity consumption tax on data centers as proof the commonwealth is addressing the problem," said Sturtevant. "A data center operator is subject to the ECT regardless of when the data center was opened or a lease to occupy the data center was executed."