Author: Steve Haner
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RGGI Tax Appears on Dominion Bills in September
by Steve Haner In a polite but clear “the emperor has no clothes” message, a member of the State Corporation Commission has questioned the need to impose a carbon tax to cut carbon emissions from electric generation by 30%, when the General Assembly has passed another law requiring a 100% reduction with no tax. Judge…
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Got $26,000 To Replace All Your Gas Appliances?
by Steve Haner Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon the War on Fossil Fuels will be fought in the equipment room or garage of your house. A push to prohibit new natural gas connections and remove existing home gas services is inevitable if Virginia’s current leaders are serious about zero carbon within 20 to…
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Local Unions Are Recognized Before Workers Vote?
by F. Vincent Vernuccio Local government leaders are negotiating with union executives who have not been officially recognized by public employees they claim to represent. Counties in northern Virginia are taking steps to allow public sector collective bargaining. But they are doing it with the support of union executives – not a groundswell of voter…
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SCC Hikes Electricity Bills For New PIPP Subsidy
By Steve Haner All customers of Dominion Energy Virginia and Appalachian Power in Virginia will begin soon to pay an extra monthly charge related to the coming Percentage of Income Payment Program, the General Assembly’s new electricity cost subsidy for low-income residential customers. The PIPP was initially created in the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act…
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Vital COVID Issue: Paid Student Athletes?
by Steve Haner I warned everybody to watch for extraneous issues buried in the new budget bill pending at the special session which starts tomorrow. Who knew that regulating the potential income of student athletes was a vital COVID emergency issue that couldn’t wait for the regular General Assembly meetings in January? What follows should…
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Dominion Takes $206M From You Off the Top
by Steve Haner As of late 2020, Dominion Energy Virginia had forgiven $206 million in unpaid electric bills for customers financially stressed by last year’s COVID-19 pandemic and recession. Those unpaid bills are not being covered by any of the billions in federal COVID emergency funding, nor are stockholders eating a loss. We, the other…
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SCC Starts Review of Dominion Wind Proposal
by Steve Haner Acting on its own initiative, the State Corporation Commission has established a docket to consider the coming application from Dominion Energy Virginia for its massive offshore wind proposal, the centerpiece of Virginia Democrats’ plan to save us all from catastrophic climate change. Earlier this month, the utility started the federal review process…
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If No Better Ideas Emerge, Go With These
By Steve Haner First published Tuesday by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. In 1972, a Virginia taxpayer needed a taxable income of $12,000 before the state’s maximum income tax rate kicked in. Adjusted for inflation, that threshold should be $78,000 today. There has been one adjustment since, to $17,000 in income before the…
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Election Law Changes: Sept. 17 is Now Key Date
by Steve Haner If the current COVID-19 surge continues into the fall, and Governor Ralph Northam once again declares a health emergency, absentee ballots returned by mail will not need a witness signature. Now it will be by General Assembly fiat, not a judge’s order. That alone ought to motivate a bunch of hesitant Republicans…
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Virginia Next-to-Last in Motley Fool Ranking
by Steve Haner If you need another reason to break into peals of laughter over the recent CNBC “Top States for Business” ranking, consider this. In the story about the infrastructure rankings, while praising the state of Nevada, the illustration provided was the aerial shot of the Tonopah Solar Energy facility. The failed, now-in-bankruptcy (also…
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Freedom From Union Dues Hangs on Warner
By Vincent Vernuccio First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. A bill under active consideration in Congress would allow unions to get Virginia workers fired for not paying union fees. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, among many other things would end right-to-work laws in Virginia and in 26 other states.…
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With Defeat in Connecticut, Will Virginia Drop TCI?
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Why do Virginia’s leaders run away from the Transportation and Climate Initiative? Could it be because the first state legislature to consider it, in reliably Democratic Connecticut, just adjourned without even taking a vote on the proposed carbon tax compact, despite…
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State Revenue Up a Full Third in Northam Years
by Steve Haner With one month to go in its fiscal year, Virginia has almost met its General Fund revenue target in the first eleven months, as the revenue bonanza described here before continues. Partly it is due to the strong economic recovery post-COVID, but it is also due to numerous increased tax rates or…
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Businesses Taxed For Somebody Else’s Layoffs?
by Steve Haner So many Virginia employers faltered or failed during 2020, the remaining companies may be charged a special tax of $95 on each of their own employees in 2022. It will cover the unemployment benefits paid to workers somebody else laid off, the highest so called “pool tax” ever imposed, more than double…