Category: Consumer Protection
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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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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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A Public Health Crisis in Central Virginia
by James C. Sherlock A terribly injured 33-year-old homeless male schizophrenic recently was found lying hidden in a church in Chesterfield County. He was discovered with multiple displaced fractures in the lower pubic bone, a break on the left side of the sacrum (base of the spine), a large amount of blood in his pelvis,…
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Interest-Rate Cap on Loans: Beware the Unintended Consequences
by James A. Bacon A bill capping financial loans to a maximum of 12% interest passed the state Senate Monday. If enacted into law, Virginia would go from having one of the most permissive caps among the 50 states to perhaps the most stringent. The measure could have a debilitating effect on lending to people…
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Too Many of Virginia’s Skilled Nursing Facilities Present a Public Health Problem
by James C. Sherlock In a recent 12-month period overlapping 2022 and 2023, almost 8,400 Medicare patients alone were admitted to a hospital directly from or within 30 days after discharge from one of Virginia’s 280+ skilled nursing facilities. We simply do not know how many eventually died as a proximate outcome of poor care…
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Surprising No One, Study Finds Skill Games Target Poor
By Steve Haner A Virginia economist has turned up hard data showing which neighborhoods contained the highest concentration of the gaming devices called “skill games” by some and “neighborhood slot machines” by others, when last they were legal. The result will not surprise you. Fletcher Mangum of Mangum Economics in Henrico County was hired by…
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The Real Cost of the RPS Mandate? $609 Million, Money for Nothing
by Steve Haner In a recent debate at the Virginia General Assembly over the growing consumer cost of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a senior Democratic delegate dismissed concerns over the renewable energy requirement as only involving perhaps $2 per month on a residential customer. The actual amount is $4.69, or about $56 per year,…
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The Expensive Triple Whammy If Dominion Wind Dies
By Steve Haner On its face the executive order President Donald Trump signed to bring a halt to future offshore wind turbines on federal ocean leases did not target the Virginia project underway. Dominion Energy Virginia is reporting it has all the federal permits it needs and will continue pushing toward its late 2026 completion date…
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Dominion Sells Solar Power at a Loss Just to Earn the RECs
By Steve Haner To avoid the financial penalties included in the Virginia Clean Economy Act, Dominion Energy Virginia has sometimes sold solar energy at a loss to earn the related renewable energy credit. It has been paying the regional PJM wholesale energy market to accept the electrons, rather than PJM paying it for the power. …
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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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Save Us from Well-Meaning Meddlers
by James A. Bacon When credit card companies, hospitals and other debt collectors try to collect the money they’re owed, they often target the bank accounts “of people who are already in crisis,” Radio IQ informs us. “When a creditor garnishes a bank account, it can really be devastating,” Jay Speer at the Virginia Poverty…
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Is Dominion-Stonepeak Deal a Partnership Flip?
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia insists that its decision to sell a half-interest in the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project “won’t impact ratepayers.” The problem is, perhaps it should. Perhaps Dominion is creating additional value for its shareholders that instead should benefit ratepayers.
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If Assembly Wants SMR Bill, Then Fix It
By Steve Haner This is progress. Only twenty members of the Virginia Senate voted Tuesday to ignore a key tenet of utility ratemaking and put utility stockholders and profits ahead of consumer protection. Usually when the utilities persuade the General Assembly to do that to Virginia consumers, they get a bigger vote margin than 20-16.*…
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Will Dominion Fool Us Again with SMR Cost Bill?
By Steve Haner Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. A utility-backed bill to stick electricity ratepayers with the high-risk costs of developing small (modular) nuclear reactors, approved by a Senate committee Friday, is a “fool me twice” example. Shame on the General Assembly if it falls for it.
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Two Excellent Nominees Emerge for SCC
By Steve Haner The new Democratic majority in the Virginia General Assembly is moving rapidly to fill the two State Corporation Commission vacancies with excellent, qualified choices. One is well known in Virginia and the second is new to our hallowed Capitol, but with a decade of energy law experience on the federal level. Former…