Category: Environment
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Another Reliable Energy Provider Abandons VA
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. A long-embattled plan to build a natural gas-fueled generating plant not owned by Dominion Energy has become the latest victim of Virginia’s patent hostility toward fossil fuels. Environmental opponents and the incumbent utility will probably join in popping the corks.…
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Virginia Remains a Green New Deal Mecca
by Steve Haner The elections of a Republican Virginia governor and a new Republican majority in the House of Delegates have not changed Virginia’s status as one of the greenest of Green New Deal states in the country. Every effort to reverse the course set during the previous period of Democratic hegemony has failed at…
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Will Environmental Regs Throttle the Solar Industry?
by James A. Bacon Virginia environmentalists are coming to grips with the fact that while solar farms may help fight global warming, they’re not always good for the local environment. In the wealthy northern Piedmont, known for its wineries, horse farms and scenic vistas, some residents have complained about the clear-cutting of forest to make…
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Virginia’s Greens Need an Epiphany
by James C. Sherlock Headlines from the war in Ukraine have raised exponentially the interest in natural gas and the extreme price volatility caused by supply constraints. It is perhaps useful to understand the uses of natural gas, the prices Virginians pay relative to West Virginians, the decline of production in Virginia, and the costs…
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Fairfax County Also Prepared to Move Against Gas
by Steve Haner It was a Richmond City Council resolution back in the fall, expressing a desire to shut down its municipal natural gas utility, that triggered pending (and now struggling) Virginia legislation to prevent localities from prohibiting natural gas. Less attention has been given to the “climate action” plan by Virginia’s largest local government…
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Does Virginia Really Need a “Tribal Consultation” Ombudsman?
by James A. Bacon The Washington Post takes note today of three bills affecting Virginia’s sovereign Indian tribes moving through the General Assembly. One would update state code to reflect federal recognition of the tribes. One would make tribes eligible for grants from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund. And third would give federally recognized tribes,…
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Big Gas Users Protect Selves, Abandon Home Users
by Steve Haner Divide and conquer is an ancient tactic. Virginia’s residential natural gas customers were just divided from industrial and commercial users, and those big users then threw homeowners under the bus. Without blinking an eye. House Bill 1257 had passed the House of Delegates on an almost party line vote, with two Democrats…
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Taking One More Brick from the Green Wall
by James C. Sherlock The green wall preventing businesses from operating at some level of certainty when and if their development proposals will be approved is missing a brick today. The days of a Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board and State Water Control Board overruling the findings of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality…
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Reliable Electricity Not Part of the Plan
by David Wojick I recently published a report on how Virginia’s big electric power utility, Dominion Energy Virginia, deliberately ignores the fact that the state’s zero emission law does not work. Utilities are doing this around the country. They will make a fortune building useless wind and solar generation before they finally admit it does…
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The Real and Present Threat of Flooding in Virginia Requires Coordinated Action
by James C. Sherlock An editorial in The Virginian-Pilot this morning is titled, “A worrisome, watery future,” and is built around an update on flooding from NOAA. It is a grave situation. NOAA projects one foot of combined sea level rise and subsidence here in Hampton Roads by 2050. The adjacent map has not been…
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Christie Decries “Mother of All Legal Weapons”
by Steve Haner Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission changed the rules on pending and future natural gas pipelines and related projects, citing the threat of catastrophic climate change and injecting environmental justice concerns. Now with a 3-2 Democratic majority under President Joe Biden, the vote followed party lines. One of the nay votes…
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New Sea Level Prediction Less Dire, Still Unlikely
by Steve Haner The latest projection from the ever-trustworthy federal authorities sweating out the climate crisis is that the sea level will rise one foot along Virginia’s coast by 2050, rising the same amount in 30 years as it rose in the previous 100. The news quickly swept across the Commonwealth. Here is the Richmond…
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House GOP Repeals VCEA, EV Green Mandates
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginia’s House of Delegates Republicans have passed a series of bills retreating from Virginia’s rush toward a fossil-fuel-free future, but they were party-line votes and Democrats in the Virginia Senate, who hold a majority on that side, may promptly kill…
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Climate Suit Against Virginia Would Lose at Trial
by Steve Haner Less than one month after taking office, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) and other state officials are being sued by thirteen school-age defendants who claim the state’s long history of permitting the use of fossil fuels for various purposes is causing a climate crisis and harms them directly. The petition in the…
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Richmond Leader Opposes Right to Gas Bill
by Steve Haner “I hope the General Assembly will reaffirm its confidence in localities to make these critical decisions on behalf of our residents.” So said Richmond City Council member Katherine Jordan in opposition to pending legislation that would establish in law a right for Virginians to use natural gas and require localities that wish…