Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Virginia’s Greens Need to Change Their Strategy
by James C. Sherlock When you ask a question you have to be prepared for the answer. McKinsey Global Institute, in collaboration with McKinsey Sustainability and the Global Energy & Materials and Advanced Industries practices released in January a massive study of the costs to get the planet to net zero emissions by 2050. The study is “The Net…
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AG Expert: Wind Project Unneeded, Accounting Off
by Steve Haner There is no justification for Dominion’s $10 billion offshore wind project other than that the General Assembly has ordered it, a witness for Virginia’s Attorney General has testified. The utility doesn’t need its electricity, doesn’t need its renewable energy attributes, and is ignoring lower cost alternatives if it does need generation in…
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Another Try for Natural Gas to Hampton Roads
by Steve Haner Natural gas pipeline companies have applied to federal regulators with another proposal to enhance supply into Virginia’s Hampton Roads region, despite the earlier failures of two similar high profile efforts. Columbia Gas Transmission, part of TC Energy which is best known for the recently-rejected Keystone XL pipeline, is proposing to replace 48…
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No Other State Plans Utility-Owned Wind Farms
by Steve Haner The table reproduced above may one of the most interesting exhibits submitted to the State Corporation Commission as it considers Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind application. Two things jump out, both highlighted in pre-filed expert testimony sponsored by environmental activist group Clean Virginia. First, only in Virginia is such a project being…
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How the City of Richmond Kneecaps Itself
by James A. Bacon Andreas Addison may be a city councilman in Richmond, but it doesn’t look like he’s getting any special treatment from city hall. With plans to open a gymnasium, he is renovating an old brick building in Scott’s Addition, a neighborhood that is transitioning from light industrial and warehousing into a hipster…
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Wind Case Spinning Up; Your Comments Sought
by Steve Haner In the coming weeks, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission takes up one of the largest utility investments ever undertaken in the Commonwealth, where the cost and the risk will rest squarely on Virginia’s citizens: Dominion Energy Virginia’s $10 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. In applications and appendices filed late last year, probably…
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AG Sought Rejection of Some Solar Over Cost
by Steve Haner On behalf of Dominion Energy Virginia’s customers, Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) asked the State Corporation Commission to reject five of the solar projects included in the statewide renewable energy development package the Commission approved last week. The Commission, however, did not take them off the approved list and thus did not…
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Secrecy Also Hides Key Solar Energy Data
by Steve Haner Perhaps issuing its ruling on the Ides of March by design, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission last week approved another major wave of requests from Dominion Energy Virginia for solar plants it will own, solar plants it will contract with, and a smattering of battery storage facilities added to provide some public relations…
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Transformation Has a Long Way to Go
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Eric Moeller, Governor Youngkin’s Chief Transformation Officer, has his work cut out for him. In Executive Order No. 5, the Governor said that the chief responsiblities of the position would be to “to help build a culture of transparency, accountability, and constructive challenge across our government.” As for building a “culture of…
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Key Data on Dominion Wind Project Still Secret
By David Wojick A previous article published by Bacon’s Rebellion and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow challenged the notion that Dominion Energy Virginia can build a huge amount of wind and solar generating capacity and retire all of its fossil-fueled generators with almost none of the enormous storage capacity that is required to make the…
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A Low Solar Minimum Bill Ups Yours, By Design
by Steve Haner Virtue signaling can be fun. It can also be profitable if you can shift the overall cost onto somebody else. That is what is going on in the battle over a proposed “minimum bill” for Dominion Energy Virginia customers who seek to partially escape the utility by signing on with a separate…
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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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The Battle Over History Never Ceases
by Jock Yellott Visit the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall, and you will find that the Department of Historic Resources is fast-tracking regulations governing the contextualization of “monuments or memorials for Certain War Veterans.” I object to this fast-tracking. The new regulations will expedite the promulgation of Woke propaganda to litter the Virginia landscape. The fast-tracked regulations…
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Economic Illiterates Demand Youngkin Halt Gasoline “Price Gouging”
by James A. Bacon Virginia Democrats are calling upon Governor Glenn Youngkin to combat rising gasoline prices by declaring a state of emergency and activating the anti-price-gouging law. “Governor Youngkin has the power to act and help protect Virginians at the pump, but so far, has failed to do so. Instead, he continues to point…
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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…