Author: Steve Haner
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Cost of Undergrounding Program is Mostly Profit to Lenders, Stockholders
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia’s ongoing program to place selected neighborhood service lines underground, spreading the bill for the upgrades onto all its 2.7 million customers, will cost another $3.8 billion if the General Assembly blesses its extension for another ten years. Of that, about $1.6 billion is the cost of the construction work…
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The Data Center Scapegoat Led to Two Different Sacrificial Altars
by Steve Haner Virginia’s world-leading data center industry, once a source of economic pride to our Commonwealth, has become the scapegoat of the 2026 General Assembly. The State Senate and House of Delegates have built different altars for its sacrifice. The Senate is about to vote to strip away the major sales and use tax…
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The General Assembly’s 22.5% “Labor Tax” Gamble
by Derrick A. Max As the Virginia General Assembly enters the final weeks of its 2026 session, a wave of new labor mandates is about to reach the Governor’s desk, two of which she has promised to sign, and one she seems inclined to support as well. House Bill 5 (Paid Sick Leave), Senate Bill 2 (Paid Family…
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Neither House nor Senate Budget Raises General Taxes
But the Senate Strips the Data Center Tax Break Next Year by Steve Haner The Senate and House of Delegates financial committees met on Sunday to approve competing sets of amendments to the next Virginia budget, neither proposing any general tax increases. The Senate version included modest tax reform: a small taxpayer rebate for this…
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Tariff Ruling Correct, Good for Virginia
by Derrick A. Max The Supreme Court’s decision in Learning Resources v. Trump is a landmark reaffirmation of one of the Constitution’s most fundamental principles: the power to tax belongs to Congress alone. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution explicitly vests in the legislative branch the authority “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” Tariffs…
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No, RTD, That Bill Does Not Cut Future Electric Rates
by Steve Haner The nonsense that the General Assembly is passing a bill to shift huge energy costs onto data centers and off all the other utility customers is going to be a bipartisan meme. A bill that merely punts that issue to the regulatory State Corporation Commission passed on a unanimous State Senate vote. …
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They Think Your Electric Bill is Just a Piggy Bank to Raid
by Steve Haner Key energy legislation poised to pass the 2026 General Assembly will increase your future electricity bills, not lower them. The bills will worsen price increases already caused by the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which passed the last time Virginia was under one-party control. As the Assembly crosses its first deadline, with…
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Don’t Mess With Texas Natural Gas
Natural gas kept the lights on in Texas during the coldest days of this past January, just the way it did in Virginia.The popular Democratic nonsense narrative that Texas is achieving energy nirvana with all its solar and wind and battery assets should just be disregarded. You can see above what was working during the…
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SCC Rejects Effort to Reverse Its Gas Plant Approval
by Steve Haner The Virginia State Corporation Commission has rejected a petition for reconsideration pushed by opponents of Dominion Energy’s planned Chesterfield natural gas generators. The environmental activist groups could now appeal the SCC’s approval of the plant to the Virginia Supreme Court. The SCC is a court, after all, so its decisions can be…
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Big Batteries Lose Big Energy Every Charging Cycle
by Steve Haner An inconvenient truth of utility-scale battery operations is that they take in more power than they later put out. From an energy grid operations point of view they are considered “net load” and certainly not a generation asset. In a previous post about the battery mandate legislation now poised for passage in…
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Gutting Two Constitutions To Rig Future Elections
by Derrick A. Max In a dizzying display of power, the Democrats in the General Assembly voted this week to assign Virginia’s electoral college votes to the Presidential candidate who wins voter-dense urban and suburban areas in other states nationwide. They also voted to approve a gerrymandered congressional map that will give progressive and populous…
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Several Senate GOP Bills Seek to Amend or Repeal Clean Economy Act
By Steve Haner, Several legislative attempts to either repeal outright or reduce the cost impact of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) will have their fifteen seconds in the sun later today. Their chances of surviving until sundown are slim. The various bills, all with Republican sponsors, are set to be discussed in the Virginia…
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Assembly, Dominion Seek to Bill Data Centers for Rising Energy Costs
by Steve Haner Virginia’s major data centers could pay more for electricity and other customers less under a surprise legislative substitute that appeared in email inboxes Sunday and was rapidly approved Monday by a major Virginia Senate committee. The proposal is politically attractive, already being touted a major consumer rate cut, but the detailed accounting…
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Dominion Opposes Battery Mandate on Fire Safety Concerns
by Steve Haner Today a Senate committee is scheduled to take up the bill directing Virginia’s two investor-owned utilities to propose huge battery installations which will cover square miles of ground, cost ratepayers billions of dollars and which will produce zero energy to power our homes and businesses. The bill has Governor Abigail Spanberger’s endorsement. So far, legislators have been in a “see, hear and…
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Say Socialized Cost, Not That Other S Word
by Steve Haner A House of Delegates committee has approved expanding a state-managed program to subsidize electric bills for some lower-income Virginians, hoping to reach more people and offer them more assistance. It also approved a new plan to grant lower-income homes lower water rates. The utility companies involved will not absorb the cost of…