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Virginia
Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Northern Virginia leaders plead for state’s help amid federal job cuts

Northern Virginia leaders urged lawmakers on Tuesday to enact emergency legislation to help stabilize their local economy as the White House cuts federal jobs, which they said has sharply impacted the dense cluster of government employees and contractors based in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.

Fairfax County weighs up options for Lorton landfill construction

The proposed location of a municipal waste processing facility in the I-95 landfill at Lorton, via Fairfax County

As power demand surges, Va. lawmakers seem ready to add more energy storage to the grid at HUGE costs to citizens

Virginia lawmakers want to more than triple the amount of energy storage capacity Virginia’s two public utility companies — Dominion and Appalachian Power (ApCo) — must procure under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA).

Fairfax County Casino Bill to be heard by The House Appropriations Committee

The powerful House Committee on Appropriations has taken up the discussion of legislation allowing a vote on a Tysons Casino.

Speaker (D-88) directed House Committee on Local Government members yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), to forward the bill without action to the chamber’s Appropriations Committee.

At that meeting there was no public testimony on the legislation, but Del. , who represents Vienna and Tysons in D-12, was able to voice her .

She said, “The constituents of my district… did not ask for this casino nor do they want one.”

The Appropriations Committee meets every Wednesday and Friday. According to the committee’s website, today’s meeting has been cancelled.

The bill was sponsored by Senate Majority Scott Surovell, (D-34) and passed the Senate in a vote of 24-16 on February 4, 2019. The bill, if passed into law would allow casino in Virginia to be expanded to Fairfax County.

The bill allows, but does not mandate, that the hold a referendum. The proposal would only move forward if the measure was passed by voters.

Comstock Companies aims to place the casino on a parcel along Pike (Route 7) that it controls as part of a larger entertainment-focused development envisioned for the site.

Surovell’s bill does not specify which parcel would be used for a casino, nor who the operator would be. The bill gives general guidelines on population and geography that limit the location largely to Tysons, along Metro’s Silver Line.

Surovell pointed out that the vacant parking lot at Tysons Galleria, owned by Lerner Enterprises, would also meet the criteria when his bill was presented to the Senate last week. The parcel of land at 8025 Galleria Drive , formerly known as Lerner Town Square , has been approved to be developed, but it has been primarily used in recent years for Circuses, and other Special Events.

Tysons will replace in the state’s law, where voters rejected two casino referendums. Virginia’s capital was removed last year from the list eligible localities after the second refusal in the general election of 2023.

A similar bill last year sponsored by Sen. Dave Marsden’s (D-35), was deferred in the General Assembly session of 2024 and later .

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