Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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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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Combative CEO of Ballad Health Blames His Own Doctors for Hospital Quality Issues
Ballad Johnson City TN Medical Center
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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…
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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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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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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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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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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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Dominion Wind Partnership Deal Drawing No Opposition at SCC
By Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposal to sell a half-interest in its first offshore wind farm to a hedge fund is drawing no opposition at the State Corporation Commission, which will hold a hearing on the issue August 27. The only analysis of the impact of the transaction has come from the SCC’s own…
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Virginia Risks Running Out of Other People’s Power
By Steve Haner An electricity drought is looming, not only for Virginia but also for much of the United States, if the political hostility toward the most reliable forms of electricity generation is not reversed. Warnings that wind and solar power alone will not be sufficient resonated like a drumbeat from the podium of a…
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Venture Global: Virginia’s Unknown Energy Giant
by James A. Bacon An Arlington-based company that most Virginians have never heard of could well alter the global energy balance of power — if the Biden administration doesn’t get in the way. In 2023 and 2024 alone Venture Global LNG., Inc., has announced long-term deals to supply 3 million tons of LNG to the…
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Mountain Valley Pipeline To Start Moving Gas
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the full operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Gas from West Virginia will now flow. Environmentalist heads are exploding, but this is the best news for Western Virginia’s economy in a long while, and an encouraging sign of hope for energy sanity. A decade ago both this 303-mile,…
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An Alternative Interpretation of the EV Statute
by Dick Hall-Sizemore This is a follow-up to Steve Haner’s article on Gov. Youngkin’s announcement that Virginia will not be bound by California regulations on electric vehicles after this year. The Governor’s announcement is a lawyer’s dream. There are different ways to interpret the laws and regulations involved and, so, off to court we go.…