Author: Steve Haner
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Voting to Impose Big Solar on Other Legislator’s Voters
by Steve Haner Virginia’s legislators are expected to look at more bills in January to provide ways to override local objections to major renewable energy projects, especially the large solar fields that can cover hundreds of acres. A regional media outlet with a focus on rural Virginia just pointed out an inconvenient truth. The legislators likely…
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RGGI is Back. Prepare to Pay.
By Steve Haner Grapevines sequester carbon dioxide, so Virginia’s climate alarmism activists are pulling corks without guilt today, after learning that a Virginia circuit court judge will order Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). During the three years Virginia was part of the multi-state cap and tax compact, Virginia collected $827 million…
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Dominion Models More Future Scenarios and Still Needs Gas
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia has run additional projections on its future energy demand and how to meet it, and the answer keeps coming back that Virginians will need more – not less – natural gas-fired electricity in the next 15 years. The supplemental data was filed with the State Corporation Commission Friday and added…
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Trump Energy Policies Face Hurdles in Virginia
By Steve Haner Once inaugurated, President-elect Donald Trump is expected to immediately mount a major effort to roll back the anti-hydrocarbon fuel agenda of the Biden-Harris years. The positive impact on Virginians will be limited because of our own similar anti-hydrocarbon laws at the state level. The centerpiece of Trump’s multiple energy campaign promises is…
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Dominion Wants Customers to Pay $145M More for Capacity Costs
By Steve Haner The surprise explosion in the capacity auction prices within the PJM electricity collective is expected to cost Dominion Energy Virginia $145 million next year. The company just proposed to the State Corporation Commission that it eventually collect some or all of that directly from its customers, but not until its rates are reviewed…
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Ballot Includes a Constitutional Question Adding a Tax Exemption
Most early voters are probably surprised to find that they also have a proposed constitutional amendment to consider on the Virginia 2024 ballot. As happens often in Virginia, the proposal has received no serious attention from the (dying) news media, and the state itself makes no real effort to inform people about it. It is…
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Want Energy Both “Green” and Reliable? Send Natural Gas and Money
By Steve Haner With the release of its latest 15-year plan to expand energy generation in the Commonwealth, Dominion Energy Virginia has increased the projected cost of residential electricity in 2035 to almost $216 per 1,000 kilowatt hours, a 24% increase over the same projection in its 2023 planning document. If the $216 comes to…
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New School Accountability System Needs New Funding Approach
By Chris Braunlich When the Virginia State Board of Education approved a new state accountability system, it predictably drew attacks from the usual sources. The new system places greater emphasis on student mastery of subject information (50-65%) over student growth (20-25%). But while growth is critical and should be recognized, under the process approved during the…
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Spanberger Bill Brings Looming Social Security Shortfall Closer
By Andrew Biggs Over 300 members of Congress from both parties, including Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Abigail Spanberger, are pushing for legislation that would grant a nearly $200 billion Social Security benefits windfall to a group that neither paid for these benefits nor truly needs them. (She advocated it in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this…
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The Local Car Tax: Still Hated, Still a Target for Repeal
By Kimberly Pinter and Callahan Burton Governor Gilmore was right. His “No Car Tax” slogan resonated with all Virginia vehicle owners and catapulted him to the Virginia Governor’s mansion in 1997 with 56% of the vote. The tax is universally hated and perceived as unfair. You pay good money for a car (plus sales tax!), more…
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No, RTD, Hurricane Helene Not Proof of “Climate Change”
By Steve Haner The Richmond Times-Dispatch no longer has a climate alarmist on staff, so today it fell to one of its liberal political columnists (it still has two of those; they will be the last employees out the door) to blame Hurricane Helene on “climate change.” It was a terrible storm, no question. But…
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A Transparent Effort to Prevent SCC Approval of Hydrocarbons
By Steve Haner Any doubt that some members of the Virginia General Assembly’s reconstituted electricity regulation commission intend on taking full control of our energy economy was dispelled at its second meeting Wednesday. With that control, the goal is to then impose a full anti-hydrocarbon energy agenda. Three proposed legislative initiatives were floated. None…
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Anti-Hydrocarbon Advocates Want It Both Ways on Local Control
By Steve Haner The top 2025 legislative goal of Virginia’s Climate Catastrophe Democrats will be to override local zoning controls on wind, solar and energy storage projects. But for now, they are begging Chesterfield County residents to fight a proposed natural gas plant by appealing to that same local control. What’s a little hypocrisy when you…
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AG Miyares Joins Effort to Prevent California EV Truck Mandate
By Steve Haner Fifteen years ago I took my aging father on a sentimental journey to places in Southern California where we used to live, and just north of Edwards Air Force Base on the Mojave Desert we shared the highway for a time with an Old Dominion Freight Line 18-wheeler. The Richmond firm was…
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Virginia Federal COVID Bucks Still Flowing, With $2B More to Go
By Steve Haner Virginia still has $1.7 billion in federal COVID “free money” to spend and two years in which to spend it, from just one of the multiple grant programs President Joe Biden and Congress authorized and paid for with federal debt. That first and largest program is for general government expenditures (State and…