Author: Steve Haner
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Check the Mirror, Senator Hashmi
By Chris Braunlich State Senator Ghazala Hashmi (D-Powhatan) has written a Richmond Times-Dispatch commentary proclaiming Governor Glenn Youngkin responsible for Virginia’s education declines, a commentary astonishing for the breadth of its amnestic qualities. Senator Hashmi, who seeks the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor, correctly notes “Virginia’s fourth-grade math scores have plummeted, dropping us from fifth…
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Time to Come Clean on Clean Economy Act Costs to Customers
By Steve Haner Until October of last year, customers of Dominion Energy Virginia could see at least some of the higher costs created by the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) detailed on their electric bills. Look at the recent bill and all that transparency is gone and the VCEA costs are now hidden. Compliance with the…
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Data Centers Escape Assembly Session Unscathed
By Steve Haner Despite great public angst and political theater, the data center industry has emerged from the 2025 General Assembly unscathed. Virginians will continue to compete with Internet and cloud customers from all over the country and the world for electricity, as the data centers continue to proliferate here. One bill dealing with the…
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Key Energy Issues of Customer Cost, Reliability Often Ignored
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly has approved a long list of bills to reinforce its previous commitment to ending the use of hydrocarbon fuel in Virginia. It ignored warnings that natural gas is essential for energy security from the regional electricity marketplace, the Virginian who now chairs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and…
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A Conscious Veto of the Unconsious Bias Bill
By Derrick Max, Senator Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) and the Progressives in the General Assembly have again sent a bill to Governor Youngkin’s desk requiring doctors in Virginia to complete training in “unconscious bias and cultural competency.” Last year, when Governor Youngkin vetoed a similar bill, Sen. Locke took to X (formerly Twitter) to smear the Governor: “It…
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Monopoly Beer and Electric Vehicles
By Brett A. Vassey, Spoiler alert! This is not an article about a new board game, but about a game in which the Virginia General Assembly writes the rules and picks the winners. House Bill 2087 was introduced by Delegate Irene Shin, D-Fairfax. It cleared the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a narrow 7-6…
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Interesting Poll on School Choice, But Timing Off
Artillery is of limited use after the battle is over. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed state subsidy program for low-income students opting for a private school is dead, but a poll has just been released showing public support for the idea. The Virginia General Assembly’s 2025 session may be just days away from ending, but the end…
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Biting the Steady Hand That Lights Your House
By Steve Haner Three western Virginia politicians have penned a press release masquerading as a serious proposal. They seek to decertify a major monopoly electric utility which serves 540,000 Virginia accounts, the Appalachian Power Company, a division of American Electric Power. The letter was sent to the State Corporation Commission and then released, with…
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Battery Bills Still Charging Toward Passage
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly is still poised to pass a vastly expanded mandate for future utility battery storage systems, but the bills are no longer passing unanimously. At least some discussion of the ratepayer cost impact has come up in committee and floor discussions since being raised by Bacon’s Rebellion. Most Republicans…
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Trump’s Interior Dept. Asked to Stop Dominion Wind Construction
By Steve Haner Citizens and groups who opposed the push to develop offshore wind under former President Joe Biden have now asked President Donald Trump to rescind even the wind projects already under construction. Dominion Energy Virginia’s $10.7 billion project off Virginia Beach is among those they want to pause and possibly cancel. The…
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“Hottest Year Evah!” Must Be Over
You may be starting to pine for a return to the hottest year evah! A recent data dump from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that January 2025 was in the running for one of the coldest Virginia January average temperatures in more than a century. The graph above captured on their tracking website…
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Why Did Tax Bill Die? It’s a Governor’s Bill!
By Steve Haner Virginia will remain out of step with the rest of the United States on how it taxes service-providing businesses after General Assembly Democrats voted in lockstep to once again kill a logical income tax reform. There was absolutely no partisan angle to the policy debate, yet party line votes killed it.…
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CVOW One of Four Wind Projects Not Frozen By Trump. Yet.
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia’s current offshore wind construction project is one of only four still in the process of building towers and turbines in the wake of an executive order from President Donald Trump. It is also the largest of the survivors, with more planned power output than the other three combined. Coastal…
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A $29 Billion Virginia Battery Bonanza, Unanimous in VA Senate
By Steve Haner Based on current pricing for the present-day energy storage projects, legislation pending at the Virginia General Assembly could cost ratepayers of the two largest electric utilities between $18 billion and $29 billion over the next 20 years. That capital cost, based on the current $300,000 to $500,000 price per megawatt hour for…