Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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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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Democrats Against Due Diligence
by Bill O’Keefe In 2020, as we all know, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) to eliminate fossil energy for electric power generation while simultaneously restricting the regulatory oversight of the State Corporation Commission (SCC). The effect of the legislation was, in effect, a license to pick the pockets of…
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Still Time to Limit Governor’s Emergency Powers
by Barbara Hollingsworth First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Should the governor of Virginia have the power to unilaterally declare an open-ended state of emergency that indefinitely restricts Virginians’ civil and constitutional rights without a recorded vote by the General Assembly? The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns raised this serious question.…
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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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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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School Threat Assessment Teams Revisited
by James C. Sherlock I wrote on February 12 of this year about what I consider an indicator of a potential overreach by the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). FCPS security has published an RFP for corporate support for web search to support its threat assessment team. Since that article, I have conducted extensive email…
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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 Latest Obstacle to Solar Power in Virginia: the PJM Project Queue
by James A. Bacon Solar energy is the cheapest source of energy available to the world today. The more solar energy we can generate, the better… up to a certain point. Once solar and other intermittent energy sources comprise 30% or so of the juice supplied to the electric grid, they create problems with reliability…
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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…
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VCEA Added Costs Exceed $2,000 per Household?
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. By 2050 Virginia’s transition to wind and solar power under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) could add almost $200 a month on average to a residential electric bill. Previous estimates of the consumer cost of dumping all fossil fuels…
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State Interest in the Operating Efficiency of Virginia’s Nonprofit Hospitals
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s nonprofit hospital systems are partially funded with taxpayer money, pay no taxes, and are protected from competition by the state. The state, having provided all of those advantages, needs to make sure its citizens reap as much benefit from them as the hospitals do. Yesterday I wrote that the…