Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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Virginia and Other States Pass on Carbon Tax Pact
by Steve Haner The organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative announced Monday that only four of the twelve jurisdictions involved have agreed to move forward and implement the carbon tax on motor fuels, and Virginia is not one of them. Not yet. The 2021 Virginia General Assembly could consider legislation to join the interstate…
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Tufts Study Projects Major TCI Carbon Taxes
By Steve Haner Monday the organizers of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a carbon tax and rationing regime for Virginia motor fuels, will be announcing details of the underlying interstate compact, according to media reports. The media in Virginia has been disinterested in the issue, but the debate is raging in New England. The Boston…
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Northam Would Save Most of Virginia’s New Cash
By Steve Haner Other states are in trouble these days, but Virginia suddenly has about $1.5 billion in free cash flow to use over the next 18 months, Governor Ralph Northam announced Wednesday. About half of it ($750 million) will be placed into reserves or used to improve the financial health of the Virginia Retirement…
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With Chase Vs. Cox, The Field Looks Complete
By Steve Haner Give credit where it is due: Chesterfield Senator Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, had the wisdom and courage to reverse a bad decision. Virginia’s Republicans may be back in the game for 2021. Both Senator Chase and Delegate Kirk Cox had expressed a preference for their party to choose a nominee for governor by…
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Utilities Face Paperwork Blizzard to Provide Relief
by Steve Haner Virginia utility customers who are behind on their bills in the COVID-19 recession are closer to receiving government payments toward their debts, but there is one more paperwork hurdle that may trip some of them. A few days ago, the Virginia State Corporation Commission completed a preliminary allocation of the $100 million…
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EPA: PM 2.5 At Current Levels is No Threat
By Steve Haner “Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison. It is the dose that makes the poison” – Paracelsus (1493-1541 AD) A micron is a tiny thing. A grain of beach sand is about 90 microns, and a human hair 50 to 70 microns in diameter. In the coming session of the General…
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Does a $9 Billion Carbon Tax Get Your Attention?
by Steve Haner The 2021 General Assembly is now six weeks away, with the holidays in between. We know no more about the coming Northam Administration proposal to impose a carbon tax and rationing scheme on our motor fuels than we did months ago. Keeping you uninformed may be part of the plan. All we…
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Carbon Tax Advocates Who Lost in November
Editor’s Note: A cautionary tale as the 2021 Virginia General Assembly prepares to debate another major carbon tax? By Paul D. Craney One of the most overlooked stories on Election Day was the defeat of pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here in New England. The most notable carbon tax proponent to seek office in…
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Medicaid Enrollment Reaches 1.5 Million Virginians
By Steve Haner Just under two years into Virginia’s Medicaid expansion, and less than one year into a pandemic-sparked economic crisis, enrollment in the program is now about 1.5 million Virginians. Enrollment has grown more than 25% in less than two years and spending more than 30%. The financial impact on state taxpayers has been…
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GOP Group Seeks Repeal of 2020 Energy Omnibus
By Steve Haner A Virginia GOP activist group aimed at suburban voters will be advocating repeal of the Virginia Clean Economy Act by the 2021 General Assembly, seeking to return a herd of cows that is well out of the barn and busting down the pasture fence. The Suburban Virginia Republican Coalition has produced a…
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TCI: Taxing the Poor to Benefit the Rich
By Steve Haner “I think TCI is just taxing poor people so that we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.” So said New Jersey’s Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy for the Ironbound Community Corporation. She was speaking during an online seminar September 29 organized by Transportation and Climate Initiative advocates. That particular comment…
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One Governor Blinks on Carbon Tax. Will Northam?
By Steve Haner The governor of Massachusetts stated yesterday that he and other unnamed governors in Transportation and Climate Initiative states are reconsidering the new carbon tax. Is our Governor Ralph Northam among them? He has a news conference this afternoon and somebody should ask. From a post late yesterday at the Boston Herald: “Gov.…
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RGGI Carbon Tax Hits Dominion Bills Next Summer
By Steve Haner Beginning August 1 of next year, Dominion Energy Virginia proposes to begin to collect the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax from its customers, collecting $168 million during the first year through yet another of those proliferating rate adjustment clauses (or “RACs”). It will get it by charging a flat $.002388 per…
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Another VA Gas Pipeline Project Dies Under Fire
By Steve Haner Another proposal to build a pipeline pumping wealth and prosperity into the Virginia economy has been brought down. That is my impression of what the impact would be of expanding natural gas supply to our state – added wealth and prosperity. This beneficial project is not to be. Virginia Natural Gas has…
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What Cox Brings to the Contest for Governor
by Steve Haner Virginia’s 66th House District, basically Colonial Heights and part of Chesterfield County, was drawn by a federal court special master. The incumbent delegate, Republican Speaker of the House Kirk Cox, was not supposed to survive the 2019 election based on past partisan performance in those precincts. But Cox ran nine points ahead…