Author: Steve Haner
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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…
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A Month in Your Wallet
I have no idea who started that circulating around the Capitol, but boy that is effective. Showed up in my inbox yesterday. That bill officially has a fever. — SDH
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Jefferson Institute Expands
***** Sponsored Content ***** The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy announced the following two appointments today: Ali Ahmad, Senior Visiting Fellow A lifelong Virginian and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Ali is a Senior Managing Director at PLUS Communications, located in Richmond, Virginia. He brings more than 20 years of experience in…
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Fern Versus Abigail, Storm Crushes Governor’s Energy Promises
by Steve Haner Governor Abigail Spanberger’s major campaign pledges to lower electricity bills have already been crushed by the harsh reality of last week’s Winter Storm Fern. Virginians everywhere are about to see their highest energy bills ever, and the energy sources Spanberger wants us to adopt were all but useless during the crisis. …
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Dominion Wind Price Jumps to $11.5B, Trump Blamed
Dominion Energy Virginia now expects its offshore wind facility, which has returned to full construction activity off the coast of Virginia Beach, will cost $11.5 billion. That is up about $365 million from the last report. It really wasn’t that long ago that Bacon’s Rebellion was aghast that the price had reached $8 billion. Oh,…
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A Chance to Lower Electric Bills the General Assembly is Ignoring
by Steve Haner Ignore what they say. Watch what they do. The Virginia General Assembly could cut the bills of Dominion Energy customers a bit, but instead will give the company another ten years to take your money and spend it on someone else (after skimming off its healthy profit). A ten-year program using money…
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Pending Paid Leave Bill Among Most Generous in U.S.
by Derrick A. Max Governor Abigail Spanberger campaigned on a promise to sign “paid family and medical leave” when it reaches her desk. But popular vote-getting concepts often ignore the damaging impact such policies have once they are implemented. Virginia’s paid family and medical leave program (Senate Bill 2/House Bill 1207) is a case study in…
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How Much Power Do We Really Produce? None of Your Business!
A General Assembly subcommittee Tuesday derailed a simple energy transparency bill calling for an annual report on how well utility generation units perform. “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” sneered an environmental lobbyist just before the vote to table House Bill 766. It is solar “juice” that isn’t worth the squeeze, and the bill would have…
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SCC Staff Offers Grim Predictions on Virginia Clean Energy Law
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy is likely to miss its Virginia Clean Economy Act targets, and in a decade, the financial penalties of that law will begin to pile up on the company’s ratepayers, a State Corporation Commission (SCC) staff assessment has concluded. “…despite building 17.5 gigawatts (“GW”) of solar and 3.4 GW of wind,…
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Revenue Hungry Democrats Fill a Buffet Table of Tax Bills
by Steve Haner Governor Abigail Spanberger so far is no more clear on her tax and spending priorities than Candidate Spanberger was, but her fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are laying out a smorgasbord of tax increase options for her. Would she like a major “tax the rich” approach? Start with Delegate Vivian…
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No, Fools, We Really Need the Gas
Today demonstrates once again that thermal generation sources – natural gas, nuclear, coal and oil – provide the electricity that keeps us alive when the cold gets to deadly levels (no, it isn’t the heat we need to worry most about). At 11 a.m., according to a PJM Interconnection tracking website, about 90 percent of…
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Keep RGGI Tax Off Customers? Good Luck With That
by Steve Haner Virginia Democrats are so eager to reinstate a carbon tax on Virginia’s electricity producers that there are now three pathways active to accomplish the goal: a bill, a budget amendment and a motion filed with the Virginia Court of Appeals. There is also discussion in the most recent Inside Climate News report…
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Touching the Third Rail: A Legislative Pay Raise to $45K
An amendment to the introduced state budget, proposed by Senator Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, adds $2.1 million to the Legislative Department plan for the second year (fiscal year 2028). Explanation? This amendment provides $2.1 million GF the second year to increase the salary of the members of the General Assembly to $45,000 a year…
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“Free” Heat Pumps the Rest of Us Will Pay For
by Steve Haner A free heat pump for thousands of Virginians who are now using oil or propane to heat their homes, paid for by Virginia’s general population of electricity ratepayers. That is the goal of legislation that passed its first hurdle in a House of Delegate subcommittee Tuesday on a bipartisan vote. House Bill 2 is the…
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Alternate Estimates of Battery Bill Cost Still Tens of Billions of Dollars
by Steve Haner A federal renewable energy laboratory’s public website on the cost of building utility battery storage indicates the cost now being paid by Virginia’s two major utilities is well above the average. Predicting future costs is always iffy, but the National Laboratory of the Rockies website does that, too. In earlier posts, Bacon’s…