Author: Steve Haner
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But The Idea Is To Cut Power Use, Isn’t It?
California’s giant Pacific Gas and Electric has a major program providing energy audits for its customers, and recently retained an outside firm to study the results. While quite a few customers did reduce their energy usage after the audits, it turned out a larger number increased demand. The report, dated December 2018, noted 19 percent…
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Assisted Conception Option For The New Realities
A major revision of Virginia’s assisted conception laws has fought its way through to a final vote in the State Senate Monday, pushed by a former Virginia official who has gone public with his unconventional and very 21st century family. Jay Timmons and his husband Rick Olson faced a major legal battle in Wisconsin a…
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Virginia Goes Wet With Nary A Whimper
It has only been a century since Prohibition was approved with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. Is it finally over in Virginia? For Virginia, a century is but a moment. Are we rushing this? A bill is sitting on Governor Ralph Northam’s desk that would not have been successful ten years ago, would…
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GA Bills You For Industrial Electricity Discount
The people who make the real decisions about what we pay for electricity in Virginia, which would be the members of the General Assembly, have just cut electricity costs for large Dominion Energy Virginia customers by up to $10 million and shifted those costs over to other customer classes, including residential. This is yet another…
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Revised Again, Tax Bill Envisions Future Reforms
The possibility of additional future state tax reform or tax cuts improved Monday under a new version of the pending bill that puts Virginia into conformity with the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The resulting tax revenue not returned by the modest policy changes in this bill are to be held in reserve for…
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You May Pay A North Carolinian’s Coal Ash Costs
The cost to Dominion Energy Virginia customers for recycling coal ash or moving it into more secure landfills is growing, because the proposed bill now recognizes that Dominion’s North Carolina electricity customers cannot be forced to pay by the Virginia General Assembly or the State Corporation Commission. This phrase has been added to the current…
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State Cap on Deductions Added To Tax Bill
The compromise income tax bill hailed for preventing a tax policy train wreck in Virginia includes one new provision not included in earlier bills, not mentioned in any of the Republican press releases and not yet included in any fiscal impact statements. Democrats wanted it. It is yet another departure from the new federal Tax…
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Senator Confesses to Post: 72 Years of Blackface
To: Nomination committee, 2019 Pulitzer Prizes. I know somebody will be winning your prestigious award for the deep and insightful reporting we’ve all seen in Virginia over the past week. To finish out the most amazing week in my 35 General Assembly sessions, I have enjoyed the following example of the fine trade of journalism, which…
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RGGI Debate Continues With New Comment Period
The clock is ticking toward a March 6 deadline if you are burning with a desire to comment on the latest version of Virginia’s proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative regulation. Perusing the hundreds of comments from the 2018 round of comments, there may not be much to add. If you liked the first version, you’ll…
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ACP Cost Bill Passes House With Bipartisan Vote
Five House Democrats joined 35 House Republicans in voting against the legislation reinforcing the State Corporation Commission’s authority to decide just how much captive electricity customers must pay once the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is supplying Dominion Energy Virginia generators. Delegate Lee Ware’s House Bill 1718 passed Tuesday with 57 positive votes, 42 from Democrats and…
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TCJA Remains A Big Revenue Gain for State
The tax relief proposals advancing in both the Virginia House of Delegates and Virginia Senate return at most half of the estimated additional state revenue created by the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) over six years. As Virginia leaders have debated what to do about the situation, all have been working off an…
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Can We Step Back And Ask, Why Not Forgive?
I want to believe Ralph Northam, but I don’t know which statement to believe. I want our political discourse to recognize everybody has made mistakes, everybody has at least one clay foot and most of us two, all who judge shall themselves be judged. But the American political arena now resembles the blood-soaked sand of…
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Updates: ACP Customer Charge, M&T, Competition
The following updates three pieces of legislation previous featured on Bacon’s Rebellion. Each headline links to the previous posts for background. SCC Review of Customer Pipeline Costs Two legislators flipped their votes from subcommittee and voted no in the full House Commerce and Labor Committee, but legislation to reinforce State Corporation Commission authority to review…
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SCC: RGGI To Cost Dominion Customers Billions
Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which would require the state’s utilities to pay a carbon tax on their fossil fuel power plants and to reduce operation of those plants, might cost the ratepayers of Dominion Energy Virginia $3.3 to $5.9 billion over the first decade, according to a State Corporation Commission…
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House, Senate Tax Policy Shootout Starts
The numbers to remember as the Virginia House of Delegates and State Senate start voting on income tax conformity bills, perhaps beginning tomorrow, have nothing to do with the hundreds of millions of dollars on the table or the millions of taxpayers waiting to file returns. The key numbers are 32 and 80. With an…