Author: Steve Haner
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Right to Choose Natural Gas Law Proposed Again at Assembly
By Steve Haner Virginia’s General Assembly is being asked again to protect the use of natural gas and prohibit local government efforts to restrict or ban it in homes and businesses. A Senate bill pending at the 2025 session is backed by a large coalition which includes the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and…
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Black Caucus Wants Fines on 30 Years of Hydrocarbon Use
By Steve Haner Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus has endorsed legislation that demands oil, natural gas or coal companies that operated in Virginia at any time since 1995 pay a fine (to be determined) for presumed damage to the climate and for extreme weather. Before dismissing this out of hand, know that the State of…
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Is Dominion Facing Fines Over Green Energy Goals?
By Steve Haner The enforcement mechanism for the Virginia Clean Economy Act is a cash fine imposed on the electric utility if it fails to utilize the mandated percentage of wind, solar or battery power. The statute calls it a “deficiency payment” and has set the penalty at $45 per megawatt-hour. The first of such penalty…
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Choosing Politics over Educational Progress
By Derrick Max, Senator Ghazala Hashmi, chair of the Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee, is introducing a bill that has no chance of becoming law — apparently trying to carry water on behalf of the Virginia Education Association (VEA) in hopes of gaining support for her campaign for Lieutenant Governor. Hashmi’s bill would require…
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No Psychic Needed To Predict Tax Issue Gridlock
By Steve Haner The largest item among Governor Glenn Youngkin’s many proposed changes to the Virginia state budget is his idea to set aside $1.1 billion from last year’s surplus revenue to cover three years of future car tax rebates. You don’t need to call the California Psychics who run ads on Richmond’s conservative radio…
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Big Solar’s Proposed Zoning Override Bill Still Opposed
By Steve Haner The 2025 General Assembly is expected to consider another proposal to create a state-level approval process for certain large renewable energy projects, overriding local zoning authority. Based on recent public debates about the proposal, it is facing severe headwinds. Similar bills were proposed and failed in 2024. The legislative Commission on…
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Maybe Another Subsidy Will Finally Boost EVs?
By Steve Haner Yet another effort will be made in 2025 to get Virginia’s two major electric utilities deeper into the business of building and maintaining charging stations for electric vehicles, with their ratepayers – even those who have no interest in such vehicles – having to pay the tab. Given they are supposed to be…
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Poll: School Accountability System Supported
By Derrick A. Max While Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly appear unanimous in their opposition to the Governor’s new School Performance and Support Framework, there is near unanimous support among registered voters for enhanced educational standards that measure both growth and accountability by student subgroups according to a new poll. In a survey conducted…
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Poll Shows Partisan Divide on Natural Gas, Solar Site Approvals
By Steve Haner Virginia registered voters are strongly in favor of allowing utilities to build new natural gas generation plants, a key issue facing Virginia because current state law mandates the complete elimination of that fuel source for electricity generation in 15 years. On another key energy issue likely to face the 2025 General…
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Gov. Youngkin’s Priorities Shared by Jefferson Institute
By Derrick Max Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) presented his budget amendments to the the legislature’s money committees yesterday. The speech was filled with budget amendments to reduce taxes and fund new or existing programs. These tax cuts and additional spending proposals were made possible by Secretary of Finance Stephen E. Cummings’ report that the Commonwealth was…
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Outside Study Confirms Natural Gas Must Remain for Data Centers
By Steve Haner Another analysis of the energy dilemma facing Virginia, this one commissioned by a Democrat-controlled legislative panel, has concluded that the use of natural gas to make electricity is going to have to grow over coming decades, not shrink. Virginia’s anti-hydrocarbon energy laws are doomed to fail because of the data center industry. …
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Still Crucial to Shine Light on Educational Disparity
By Chris Braunlich, More than 70 years ago, black and white students in Virginia received separate and very unequal educations. In They Closed Their Schools, author Bob Smith writes that in Farmville, a city not unlike the rest of Virginia, the white public school built after a 1939 fire “had a gymnasium, cafeteria, locker rooms,…
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Index Taxes for Inflation Before Raising Legislator Pay for Inflation
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly is maneuvering to raise its own pay to adjust for decades of inflation. To do so without showing similar consideration for the impact of inflation on Virginia taxpayers should be cause for a voter revolt. No tax code indexing, no pay raise. To its credit, the staff at the…
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Mandatory Vehicle Inspections Expensive, Burdensome, Unproven
By Joshua Devamithran Virginia’s mandatory vehicle safety inspection program is less than a decade away from its centennial anniversary. Established in 1932, Virginia’s inspection program is the oldest continuous program in the country. In 1975, thirty-one states and the District of Columbia had mandatory safety inspection programs. Today, Virginia is one of just fifteen states…
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RGGI Carbon Tax Decreases in Latest Regional Auction
The final 2024 auction for Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon allowances, held December 4, broke the recent pattern and produced a noticeably lower clearing price. The price of $20.05 per ton of emitted carbon dioxide is still higher than was ever charged to Virginia electricity producers during Virginia’s three years in the program. The December 2024…