Author: Steve Haner
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Medicaid Expansion Cost Still Off-Budget, Elusive
By Steve Haner All the signs point to trouble. The next state budget, a two-year plan to be proposed in December, adopted by March and implemented in July, may be caught between stagnant revenue and soaring spending. The spending charge will be led once again by Medicaid. Just how much the decision to expand Medicaid…
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Environmental Balderdash: Exporting CO2 to EU
by Steve Haner In parts of Virginia, conservation groups are being paid by California to preserve forest land because trees capture the CO2 considered the culprit in global warming. In other parts of Virginia, large swaths of trees are being cut to convert into biomass fuel for European power plants, based on a claim that…
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There Is a Line and These Two Crossed It
The silly season is in full swing. Stop believing (in fact, maybe stop reading) the political trash coming into your mailbox, inbox or showing up online. Television you already know not to trust, right? Someone told me that political ads have invaded streaming services now, which is depressing. It was Democratic senate candidate Debra Rodman’s…
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Dominion’s Move Against Green Competitors Fails
by Steve Haner The verdict is in and green energy virtue in Virginia’s electricity market remains available in monthly increments. You do not need to be green twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, tracking every change of demand. That was the requirement demanded by Dominion Energy Virginia in its recent effort to block…
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GOP Also Concerned About Electricity Consumers
by Steve Haner With an eye on November 5, Virginia’s Republican legislators are expressing their concern for Virginia’s electricity customers and warning that their Democratic competitors will support a new energy carbon tax if they gain the majority. The carbon tax is a key element of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). In media releases…
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Tweet First, Check Your Notes Later
by Steve Haner It doesn’t matter what you say, only what they say you said. This was demonstrated once again this morning as the State Corporation Commission’s hearing on Dominion Energy Virginia’s profit margin unfolded in Richmond courtroom. While Dominion’s lead attorney droned on in his opening statement, Sarah Vogelsong of Virginia Mercury – doing…
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SCC Told It Lacks Authority to Limit Balance Billing
by Steve Haner The arguments which have paralyzed Virginia General Assembly efforts to end surprise bills from medical providers are surfacing again in comments to the State Corporation Commission. It is considering an internally generated regulation that requires advance consent from patients to be treated by someone outside their approved health plan. As proposed in…
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Just Pretending To Protect Ratepayers Won’t Cut It
by Steve Haner If you have nothing substantive to offer, try some meaningless virtue signaling. That’s the only way to interpret a claim from 36 General Assembly Democrats that they are taking steps to oppose “Dominion raising Virginian’s energy bills by $147 million,” to quote a Blue Virginia headline today. The story reports on a…
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Dominion: Two Reports, Four Predictions
by Steve Haner There is no sign, nine weeks out from the big General Assembly election, that the arcane and obscure field of electricity regulation is going to change any votes or win any elections in Virginia in 2019. There is plenty to debate if anybody wanted to in two recent reports now public at…
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Catholic Bashing No Disqualification for Northam?
by Steve Haner Try this thought experiment. Imagine a headline in the state capitol newspaper reading: “Appointee’s posts disparage Republicans and others on the web.” Or swap Democrats for Republicans. Would anybody bat an eye? Instead, of course, the story in the Richmond Times Dispatch is about Governor Ralph Northam’s recent appointment of a vicious…
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Dominion Must Move Customers To Competitors
by Steve Haner The State Corporation Commission Wednesday granted motions by two competitive service providers and ordered Dominion Energy Virginia to hand over various customers. The two companies, Direct Energy Business LLC and Calpine Energy Solutions LLC, offer a 100 percent renewable energy option in the monopoly utility’s territory. “The Commission has found that: (a)…
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Surplus? How About $455 Million Windfall Tax Hike
by Steve Haner Virginia ended the last fiscal year with about $797 million more in revenue than projected, and the Northam Administration credits $455 million of that to higher taxes on about 30% of taxpayers caused by conforming to the new federal tax law. More than 700,000 tax returns stopped claiming state itemized deductions, accounting…
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Best Gun Violence Idea Not Proposed in VA?
by Steve Haner The most effective gun violence prevention idea presented to the Virginia State Crime Commission Monday was one seldom discussed in the state: Add violent misdemeanors to the list of convictions that prevent gun purchases from a licensed dealer. Four states, including Maryland, have that provision and a Boston University study found it…
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Fungible (and Vintage?) Green Virtue, For A Fee
by Steve Haner Like most major electric utilities now, Dominion Energy Virginia has a certain amount of energy generated by processes now designated “renewable.” Hydro power has been around for a long time, and now that is supplemented by a growing number of solar generators – owned by the company or under contract to it.…
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Gun Issues Return to Capitol Monday, Tuesday
by Steve Haner Proposed firearms regulations will pack a General Assembly meeting room Monday and Tuesday, and for that portion of the population not already locked into an ideological position either way, it could be useful to pay attention. The Republican majorities have taken some political bashing for failing to act on the flood of…