Bacon's Rebellion

  • Big Batteries Lose Big Energy Every Charging Cycle

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    Steve Haner

    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 both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates, a national energy laboratory was cited as reporting the batteries lose about 15 percent of stored energy on one “round trip”, a charge-discharge cycle. For every 100 megawatt hours stored, they can later discharge 85 megawatt hours.

    A local energy engineer then contacted Bacon’s Rebellion to argue that the efficiency figure is worse than that. He came armed with actual performance data on North Carolina and Virginia utility scale batteries from 2020 to 2024, culled directly from U.S. Energy Information Agency public data. 

    Of the 36 battery installations tracked, 33 were in North Carolina, which is ahead of Virginia in using both solar power and related battery backup facilities. The utilities report to EIA how much power the batteries took off the grid over the year, and how much they put back in when called upon. 

    (more…)

  • “The facility staff failed …”

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    sherlockj

    “The facility staff failed …”

    by James C. Sherlock

    Either the title of this article or “the facility failed” is stock language used in every summary of a citation for a nursing home’s violation of federal regulation. It is the truth, but not the whole truth.

    Inspectors come to a nursing home in Virginia once every couple of years. The staff of each chain-owned nursing home is instructed on what to do and how to do it and is closely monitored year-round by the chain’s regional operations and nursing representatives.

    So, a change in the language seems appropriate.

    Perhaps write “the management and staff of chain xxx, and the staff of the facility failed …” for each citation. That is the full truth and would enable both the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and state oversight authorities to track chain performance through a new metric.

    The author, with a high tolerance for boredom, reads journalist reports and academic and government studies on the effects of ownership structures on the quality of care in nursing homes. Many make a great deal out of small differences. He decided to examine that topic in Virginia.

    The differences here are stunning in their scale and consistency.  

    Consider some of the facts.

    Ownership Structures

    Virginia has 289 nursing home operating companies certified for Medicare and Medicaid, for Medicare alone or Medicaid alone. Of those, an assessment of ownership records reveals:

    • 171 facilities owned by private equity;
    • 60 by 501(c)(3)s;
    • 23 by corporations;
    • 14 by individuals;
    • 12 by partnerships; and
    • 9 by state or local governments.

    CMS provides a Survey Summary database as a baseline to assess compliance with federal nursing home regulations. To that is added for this discussion:

    • the names of the chains. Chains control all of the private equity facilities.
    • The current staffing ratings and occupancy rates offer context for chain business models.

    The chart below shows the chains with the highest average number of health violations per facility in the current inspection cycle.

    (more…)

  • A Delinquent Water Bill Dashboard?

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    James A. Bacon

    by Jon Baliles

    The City of Richmond put out a release last week touting the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) “Back on Track” program that offers any customer with an outstanding balance to sign up for a payment plan before March 31st. Both residential and commercial customers with delinquent balances can set up an interest-free payment plan without any convenience fees for up to 24 months to avoid service disruption. Those customers with already existing payment plans will also be able to renegotiate outstanding balances. Residential customers may enroll with a 10% down payment of their delinquent balance and commercial customers may enroll with a 20% down payment, and plans can run up to 24 months, depending on the account balance.

    DPU Director Scott Morris said, “Back on Track is an important campaign to help maintain and strengthen DPU’s financial health and long-term stability, both key factors in ensuring our ability to meet the needs of our customers and keep rates affordable. This campaign strikes a balance between fiscal responsibility and compassion for our community by offering customers a meaningful opportunity to resolve past-due utility balances.

    It’s good the city is facing the delinquent billing issue and trying to be helpful with payment plans and terms. But what’s missing from the public view (again, there’s that lack of transparency thing) is the question, how will the city and the public track this program and measure if it is a success?

    Even before Covid, DPU was facing an acute delinquent billing problem; since 2020 it is has been downright massive. Last fall when Mayor Danny Avula kicked off his MAP (Mayoral Action Plan), he talked about using dashboards to measure progress for all kinds of things, and this payment plan initiative is one of those things that’s perfect for measuring progress and using a dashboard to show it.

    (more…)

  • Governor Youngkin’s Fiscal Legacy

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    James A. Bacon

    Jim Bacon chats with former Finance Secretary Cummings about former Governor Glenn Youngkin’s budgetary achievements, Virginia’s economic development track record, and how well positioned the commonwealth is to survive a federal financial meltdown.


     

    Lightly edited transcript

    Jim Bacon: Hello, everyone. I’m Jim Bacon, and this is the Oinkonomics podcast.

    Whatever your feelings about Glenn Youngkin’s performance as governor, it’s hard to deny that he left Virginia in sound financial condition. Many states are struggling with current-year budget deficits, and even more with year-ahead and long-term deficits. Virginia consistently ran budget surpluses during Youngkin’s term and built up its financial reserves, even while giving back $9 billion to taxpayers and tax cuts and rebates while funding a 7% inflation-adjusted growth in general fund spending. Here with us today to talk about Governor Youngkin’s fiscal legacy, we have his former Secretary of Finance, Steve Cummings. Greetings, Steve.

    Steve Cummings: Hi, Jim. Thanks for having me.

    Bacon: Why don’t we start off with you describing how Governor Youngkin chose you to be Secretary of Finance and how he thought of your job as a chief financial officer?

    Cummings: I will be honest, when I got the first call on this, I was mystified — I asked first, did you have the right number? — because my professional life has been in the private sector in all different forms of banking over the course of 40 some years. After we got through that, I talked about my background and how it I felt like I wasn’t sure how it fit. The Governor basically said, Steve, those are exactly the reasons I want you. I want to bring private sector orientation, how we provide transparency around what we’re doing, how we provide real truth in numbers, and through that create more accountability and ownership throughout our team, and just make sure we’re running this the best possible way we can on behalf of the citizens of Virginia.

    (more…)

  • Mandated Public-Sector Unions Will Drive Up Property Taxes

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    James A. Bacon

    A man in a blue suit is feeding three large, hungry bird chicks in a nest, with a bucket of food in his hand.
    Image credit: Chat GPT

    by the Liberty Unyielding staff

    In Virginia, the Democratic state legislature is likely to adopt legislation that requires local governments to engage in collective bargaining with public-employee unions. If the local government and the union can’t agree on a big wage hike, an arbitrator will still be able to order the big wage hike if the arbitrator thinks it is a good idea. That means huge costs for local governments, which will likely result in property tax increases.

    Democratic legislators don’t mind imposing those big costs on local governments. But local governments do — even some controlled by Democrats. The Democratic head of the Prince William County School Board called the bill “The single largest tax increase in Virginia history.”

    WJLA reports:

    The Prince William County School Board Chair is slamming a bill, supported by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, that would expand collective bargaining for public sector employees.

    “This new bill wants to mandate collective bargaining and mandate what’s called binding arbitration, which forces districts to pay a salary based on some unelected person who’s an arbitrator who tells us what we have to do,” School Board Chairman Babur Lateef told me. “And we don’t agree with that. We don’t believe that should be done for any school division in the state or any locality. We believe local governments should have the right to choose whether they want to collectively bargain or not, and it shouldn’t be mandated. The current bill, as it stands, doesn’t fund the mandate, so the state wants to mandate it, but they don’t want to pay for it. If this bill passes, it will be the single largest tax increase in Virginia history, because all of the responsibility for these payments and salaries will be on the localities, local taxpayers, property taxes, and everyone in communities, and it will bankrupt local governments and bankrupt school divisions.”

    (more…)

  • Gutting Two Constitutions To Rig Future Elections

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    Steve Haner

    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 Northern Virginia control over five Virginia congressional districts, three more than it should have based upon its population. 

    All Virginians will have their votes for President diluted and marginalized, and voters in many of Virginia’s cities and counties outside Northern Virginia will have their choices for Congress decided by a handful of precincts far away.  The brilliant Electoral College devised by the Founders two centuries ago and the Virginia Constitution’s brand-new amendment to prevent this kind of gerrymander will both be forgotten.  

    With both chambers of the General Assembly voting along party lines to enroll the Commonwealth in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), Virginia has agreed to award all of its presidential electors to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, even if that candidate was rejected by a majority of Virginia voters (imagine the irony: Donald Trump would have won Virginia’s electors in 2024 under this proposal). 

    While this compact will not go into effect until enough states have joined to account for 270 electoral votes, Virginia brings the total to 222.       

    (more…)

  • Several Senate GOP Bills Seek to Amend or Repeal Clean Economy Act

    Posted on

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    Steve Haner

    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.

    Senator Bill DeSteph

    The various bills, all with Republican sponsors, are set to be discussed in the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.  So far, that panel has been taking up various bills to expand or add complexity to the 2020 legislation’s various mandates.

    Now come the efforts to kill it.  In 2022, following Governor Glenn Youngkin’s election, the House of Delegates with its refreshed GOP majority passed a VCEA repeal bill.  It could not clear the Senate, still controlled by the Democrats, and frankly that first repeal effort got no support from Youngkin or his team.

    This year, the strong push to get Virginia out of this self-imposed energy straight jacket is coming from the Senate, and House Republicans didn’t mount a serious charge.

    Adding a touch of drama, today is also the day the Trump Administration is going to repeal the 2009 Environmental Protection Agency ruling that carbon dioxide is a pollutant subject to air pollution regulations.  That “endangerment finding” is the justification for the state-level VCEA just as much as it is for all the federal efforts to ban coal and natural gas electricity. 

    (more…)

  • Just Askin’

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    Does anyone think this story would be huge news if Glenn Youngkin were still governor?

  • A Recent Graduate’sTake on VMI

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Because I have no personal contact or knowledge of VMI, I have been loath to weigh in on the debates that have been raging on this blog. However, last week, I had the opportunity to have an extended conversation with a recent VMI graduate, which I found enlightening.

    Here is some background about the graduate in order to provide some context for his remarks:

    • He is white.
    • He and his family are moderate Democrats, very critical of Donald Trump.
    • Although his parents supported him, VMI would not have been their choice of a college for him.
    • He did not choose to enter the active military after graduation.
    • He is on a path for a successful career.

    He was dismissive of the proposed actions of the General Assembly and took issue with the charge that there is racism at VMI. He felt the core of the problems lay with athletes who were recruited by the school. They agreed to come to VMI because they wanted to play for a Division I school, not because they were attracted by the culture of VMI. On the contrary, they disliked being at the school. He pointed out that every cadet gets a copy of the “blue book”, which sets out the rules that cadets must follow. Every cadet, even athletes, is expected to follow those rules. Many of the athletes did not like being at the school and certainly did not like being bound by the strict rules. As a result, they often did not follow them. Consequently, they were disciplined and they complained.

    In response to my question about Confederate heritage, the recent graduate replied that he did not see any emphasis on it at all.

    He lavished praise on the academics of VMI. Each class has about 15 students. The classes are all taught by faculty members, not teaching assistants. The faculty members are well versed in their fields, but prefer a small college, teaching environment rather than a larger, research institution. Faculty members are readily available for consultation with their students. He related how one of his teachers had been especially helpful in helping him decide on his career path.

    In summary, he recognized that the VMI experience was not suitable for everyone, but “it was good for me.”

  • Quote of the Day — Jim Murray and Meredith Woo

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    From their column in the Washington Post, “U.S. universities have lost sight of their core task“:

    America’s elite universities have superb engineering, computer science and medical programs that produce talented graduates. Yet even at the finest flagship schools, and certainly at the hundreds of other schools, too many of our most promising undergraduates remain in a cocoon of expensive dormitories, fluff curriculums, fraternity parties, overly solicitous faculty and isolation from the rigors of global competition. …

    The question before the country is simple: Will American universities continue to prioritize institutional prestige over national purpose, or will they recognize that the nation’s future may depend on their willingness to collaborate?

    James B. Murray Jr. is a former rector of the boards of the University of Virginia and William & Mary. Meredith Woo, former dean of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia and former president of Sweet Briar College, is on the faculty at Arizona State University.

  • Small Business Suffers More from Bad Policies

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A humorous illustration of four cartoon fish of varying sizes, from small to large, with exaggerated open mouths, set against a blue background. A tiny octopus is also depicted beside the smallest fish.

    by Chris Saxman

    Small business costs and Virginia’s competitiveness in CNBC’s Top States for Business

    Small businesses are central to Virginia’s economic dynamism, job creation, and regional resilience. However, higher taxes, expanding labor mandates, regulatory complexity, and litigation exposure impose disproportionate costs on small firms compared to large employers.

    These pressures directly affect Virginia’s performance in CNBC’s Top States for Business rankings, particularly in categories measuring Business Friendliness, Cost of Doing Business, Workforce, and Economic Growth.

    Why small businesses absorb costs differently

    • Small firms lack scale to spread fixed costs such as compliance, legal counsel, and human resources.
    • Owners personally absorb administrative and regulatory burdens, diverting time from growth and sales.
    • Large firms amortize costs across thousands of employees; small firms experience them per hire.
    • Increased risk exposure leads small businesses to delay hiring or cap headcount.
    (more…)

  • Gerrymandering in Virginia is a Strategic Blunder for Democrats

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    Democrats are asking voters to protect democracy by abandoning America’s most sacred of democratic principles: that voters get to choose their politicians, and that elections mean something.

    Two individuals standing side by side, one wearing a blue suit and the other a colorful patterned coat. They are in an indoor setting with a blurred background featuring abstract art.
    House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, and Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, outline their redistricting proposal, which they said is necessary due to Republican gerrymandering in other states, at the state Capitol Feb. 5, 2026. (Photo by Shannon Heckt/Virginia Mercury)

    by Alex Keena

    Last year, President Donald Trump started a new “redistricting war” when he pressured Republicans in Texas to redraw their state’s congressional district map to help the party win five additional seats. In response, Democrats in California advanced a congressional map that stacks the deck in favor of Democrats, while several other states (both red and blue) have followed suit.

    The latest battle of this redistricting war is now playing out in Virginia, where Democrats have advanced a measure that would temporarily undo the anti-gerrymandering reforms approved by voters in 2020 and replace the unbiased map with an extreme Democratic gerrymander. Although the measure is currently held up in court, the new maps are expected to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage.

    As an expert on redistricting who has co-authored two academic books on gerrymandering, I see this as a colossal mistake for Democrats that could backfire in unexpected ways.

    (more…)

  • The Most Aggressive Gerrymander of Any State

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A colorful collection of cartoon-style fantasy creatures, including a dragon, a blue monster, various playful beasts, and a dinosaur. Each creature is numbered and features vibrant colors like green, pink, purple, and yellow.
    Virginia’s fantastical congressional creatures. Image credit: Chat GPT

    by Scott Dreyer

    In what Cardinal News columnist Dwayne Yancey labels “sheer ugliness,” Virginia Democrats on Feb. 5 finally released their proposed new maps to carve up the Old Dominion into 11 new Congressional districts. According to the US Constitution, House seats are apportioned by population, so since Virginia has somewhat over 8 million residents, we have 11 members in the House of Representatives.

    Of those current 11 seats, six are occupied by Democrats and five by Republicans. Many see this as reasonable since the Old Dominion is largely a “purple” state. For example, just one month ago, all three statewide offices were held by Republicans. Trump lost Virginia in 2024, but still carried 46.6% of the vote to Harris’ 51.8%.

    However, the Democrats’ new map is projected to possibly give Democrats a 10-to-1 advantage in Congressional seats from Virginia. This was largely achieved by lumping in most GOP voters in the western third of the state into an oddly-shaped and solidly-Republican 9th District, and then most of the other ten districts were heavily gerrymandered to link Democrat-heavy areas in ways to outweigh GOP voters.

    States usually draw new lines for congressional districts every ten years, after the latest census.

    This year, however, Democrats are angered by the Texas legislature drawing new lines to favor Republicans in the Lone Star State. Thus, Virginia Democrats reason they must now “fight fire with fire” and redraw lines here too to offset possible Republican gains in Texas.

    (more…)

  • Taxing Everything That Moves

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Leaf blowers, guns, dog walking, dry cleaning—full government control means everything gets taxed in Democrats’ Virginia.

    A frantic businessman in a suit with an IRS badge is running down a street, chasing after floating dollar bills labeled 'TAX' with a net. He carries a briefcase filled with money. A dog runs alongside him, and a young man on a bicycle weaves through the scene, also in pursuit of the money.
    Taxing everything that moves. Image credit; Chat GPT

    by Jacob Grandstaff

    It’s a truism that when Democrats gain a trifecta—full control of a state’s executive and legislative branches—they tend to tax every human activity. Virginia Democrats are aiming to exceed the stereotype by taxing animal activity, too.

    Fresh off Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s January inauguration, Democratic lawmakers have flooded Richmond with over 50 new tax proposals. This barrage includes everything from vehicle repairs and gym memberships to dog walking and pet grooming.

    Democrats seldom tell voters exactly how much they intend to tax them while campaigning for their votes. Instead, they launch an full-scale assault on the wallets of unsuspecting residents after getting elected. In Virginia, this is now possible because there’s no Republican governor left to veto any of these proposals.

    Under Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), Virginia enjoyed four years of genuine fiscal restraint. He pulled the commonwealth out of the costly Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), saving families hundreds of millions in electricity bills. He eliminated the grocery tax and doubled the standard deduction, among other tax relief policies. Despite foregoing all that revenue, he still left the commonwealth with a $2.7 billion surplus, negating any need for future tax hikes if the government spends responsibly. These policies strengthened Virginia as a good place to start or relocate a business and raise families.

    With Democrats holding the governorship and majorities in both chambers, however, the guardrails are now gone. Spanberger’s administration has already moved to rejoin RGGI, effectively imposing a backdoor carbon tax that will cost Virginians an extra $500 million per year—that’s $1,100 per household.

    (more…)

  • Redefining Time

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Most people to understand a “day” to constitute a 24-hour period of time. They understand that the term “work days” generally exclude weekends and holidays. Furthermore, for those that follow government and politics, “legislative days” is understood to mean those days in which the legislature is in session. Notwithstanding those commonly accepted definitions, Virginia’s Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to consider the period between Feb. 10 and July 31 as one day.

    Last year, President Trump invoked International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose some of his tariffs last year under the National Emergencies Act. As reported by the New York Times, “that law allows any member of the House to challenge an emergency by introducing a resolution that must receive a vote after 15 days.” A Democrat introduced such a resolution, but the Republican leadership in the House has delayed consideration of it several times by redefining what constitutes a day.

    The last such delay expired on Jan. 31. This week, the leadership included a provision on a rule regarding unrelated legislation, that would count the period between Feb. 10 and July 31 as one legislative day, thereby extending the delay further. Three Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in defeating the measure. No Virginian Republican was included in that dissenting group.

    As a result, Republican Reps. Kiggans, Wittman, McGuire, Cline, and Griffith soon will have to vote on a resolution to end Trump’s tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Some of the Virginians most affected by these tariffs are farmers and small manufacturers in the rural areas represented by these legislators who are highly dependent on fertilizer and other raw materials from Canada.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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