Author: Steve Haner
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Batting Zero on Virginia Energy Policy Reset
by Steve Haner One year later, a series of energy policy goals for Virginia proposed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy remains just as valid and also remain unaccomplished. Gridlock has favored the flawed status quo. Compared to a year ago, more Virginians have awakened to the reality that they will soon be…
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SCC Urged To Focus on Wind Construction Risk
by Steve Haner Advocates made their case Monday for a proposed settlement that offers Virginia consumers some protection from construction cost overruns on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed offshore wind project. Not everybody said it was superior to an earlier proposal that protected consumers from future operational failures, but all saw it as unlikely to kill…
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SCC’s Jagdmann Resigns, Leaves December 31
by Steve Haner The (Very) Honorable Judith Jagdmann has resigned from Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, effective at the end of the year. The 2023 General Assembly now has two seats to fill on that crucial body, having failed through all of 2022 to fill an existing vacancy on the three-judge panel. Jagdmann, who joined the…
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JLARC Agrees: Index Virginia Taxes to Inflation
by Barbara Hollingsworth Inflation is eroding the value of each dollar earned by Virginians, making it harder for them to afford decent housing, put food on the table and educate their children. But what many Virginians don’t know is that they have also been paying more in state income taxes while their real income has…
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East Coast Ocean Wind Projects Faltering
by Steve Haner In recent days several proposed offshore wind projects, which unlike Virginia’s are not guaranteed by captive ratepayers, are showing cracks in their pylons. Multinational developer Avangrid recently told Massachusetts regulators that its proposed 1.2 gigawatt Commonwealth Wind project is no longer economically viable. It seems to be seeking to renegotiate the power…
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Miyares Retreats from Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The big risk with Dominion Energy Virginia’s planned offshore wind extravaganza has always been that either the wind out in the Atlantic blows too little or it blows too much. Too little and the ratepayers are paying an inordinate amount…
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Good Energy Plan But It Needs to Pass
by Steve Haner First published this morning by Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. In his newly released energy plan, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) makes it clear he sees the economic abyss created by the unrealistic and ideological green utopia demanded by his predecessor. Seeing a looming disaster and stopping it are two different things.…
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Legislators MIA on Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner In the ongoing debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed $10 billion offshore wind project, focus should remain on the people truly responsible for undercutting State Corporation Commission authority to protect consumers: the legislators who passed provisions in the code the utility interprets as a rubber stamp for its proposals.
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Coalition Exploring Lawsuit to Challenge CVOW
The following news release has been issued by the Thomas Jefferson Institute along with other coalition partners. A coalition of public interest groups – The Heartland Institute, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP) – announced in late September that it has hired counsel to explore a…
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Dominion is Keeping Whale Data Secret, Too
by David Wojick Secrecy abounds around the monster offshore wind (OSW) project proposed by Dominion Energy. In this case the hidden data is about the threat to the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. I earlier reported on the big hidden whale study done by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is doing…
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Next Virginia Tax Reform: Index for Inflation
by Barbara Hollingsworth Most Virginians are painfully aware that it’s becoming much more difficult to make ends meet. Prices for food, housing, gasoline and other necessities have soared. Inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June, the largest yearly increase since January 1982. And a recent study from the University of Iowa found…
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Sinking the Newest Sea Level Rise Exaggerations
by Steve Haner So, let me get this straight. If we willingly keep paying the carbon tax on our electric bills, then thousands of parcels of prime Virginia waterfront won’t slip beneath the waves? Was that the point of these parallel prophecies of doom in the September 12 Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury?
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SCC Can Set CVOW Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Despite Dominion Energy Virginia’s complaints that the Virginia State Corporation Commission has exceeded its authority, a legal analysis provided by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy finds that the SCC’s proposed performance standard for an offshore wind project is…
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Consequences of the Zero Carbon Fantasy
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginians may finally be waking up to the consequences of the headlong rush to adopt utopian energy policies under our previous governor. The issues are getting more attention than ever before, and now people need to realize that all the…
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When Politicians Run Power Companies
by Steve Haner Residential customers of Dominion Energy Virginia will soon be paying 55% more for electricity than they were when the Virginia General Assembly took over micromanaging utility regulation in 2007. The Western Virginia customers of Appalachian Power will have seen their electric bills rise by 92%. Underlying inflation for the period has been…