Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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New Northam Financial Directive Late, Clueless
By Steve Haner When I’m wrong, I should rush to admit it. The concerns expressed by others on this blog that the Northam Administration was failing to recognize the financial aspects to the COVID-19 pandemic were valid. The person exhibiting wishful thinking was me, with my assumption they were already acting. That’s because they just…
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Move 2020 Nomination Deadline To Late Summer
By Steve Haner A week after the March 3 Democratic presidential primary I was sick, probably with a cold but I had to wonder. No fever developed and patent medicines got me through. But it could have been COVID-19 after checking in hundreds of voters in the Maple Street Firehouse. There is no way I’m…
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The Solution Nobody Will Mention: DNR
By Steve Haner This is how we solve the coming hospital bed crisis. This is how we stretch our ventilators supply. No politician is going to say this, neither Donald Trump nor Andrew Cuomo, and doctors won’t start this conversation. Lester Holt won’t bring it up on Nightly News. It is called a “do not…
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This is the Green New Deal Economy. Enjoy.
By Steve Haner If all else fails in achieving your green energy dreams, you can always hope for a depression. In Italy, the COVID-19 depression has already dropped electricity demand by about 18-21%, as reported recently by Utility Dive. The regional transmission organizations around the United States are seeing declines, as well, and I’ve been…
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Northam: Take the Bricks Off the Life Rafts
My first post in two weeks. What the heck, I should join the parade and give a bunch of advice to our beleaguered Governor which he is likely to ignore. This first appeared today in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. It has one of those annoying “take a survey” paywalls, but in this case asks a…
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Sweet 16 (Tax Bills) Will Cost Virginians Billions
By Steve Haner What will this year’s General Assembly cost you in taxes? Here are at least 16 bills approved by the 2020 General Assembly that create or raise taxes on Virginians or authorize a local government to do so. No one told Virginians at the start of session that major tax increases were coming,…
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Electric Yellow School Buses? Pure Green Grease
By Steve Haner Having voted to give Dominion Energy Virginia a blank check to spend billions of your money on offshore wind turbines, the Virginia House of Delegates will vote today to provide hundreds of millions more from your pockets for electric school buses. Last week the House defeated a similar bill, twice. It received…
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Incredible Bills in Conference List Remains
The Virginia House and Senate convene at noon today, and today is actually today finally. The General Assembly recognizes this as March 7, having had a two-day March 5. March 6 will never exist in the records. Stopping the clock for an entire 24 hours allowed legislators to continue to put disputed bills into conference,…
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Energy Updates: Signs of Resistance After All
The Main Clean Energy Bill. Both General Assembly chambers have now approved a single substitute version of the omnibus clean energy bill, on largely (but not totally) party line votes. In a further compromise on their plan to save the world, proponents decided not to force closure of a Southwest Virginia coal-burning plant and were…
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Sine Die Tomorrow? Bills in Conference
Somehow I don’t think this is done by Saturday…From the Legislative Information System (LIS) this morning, here are the bills still in conference committees. Some are known to have resolutions, but still must come to the floor:
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Dominion’s Base Rates Like Cable You Can’t Cancel
By Steve Haner The 2020 effort to bring Dominion Energy Virginia back under full State Corporation Commission regulation failed because too many of the loudest advocates are two-faced hypocrites. If they truly cared about ratepayers and the proper balance in utility regulation, they wouldn’t be pushing that other bill, the one that further guts the…
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The Ohio Energy Bill Subsidy Virginia Would Copy
by Steve Haner Both the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate have voted to increase the price of electricity to most Virginians in order to subsidize the bills of low-income utility customers. How much? They have no idea. But the program in Ohio being copied adds from $1 to $3.66 to the price of 1,000…
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Virginia’s Top Employment Cop Adds Enforcers
By Steve Haner The final state budget is still in negotiation, but it could add as many as five new enforcement staff to the Office of the Attorney General to seek out and prosecute discrimination in Virginia’s workplaces, using old and new definitions of what is prohibited. The price tag looks to be about $600,000…
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SCC Raises Estimate of Clean Energy Bill Costs
By Steve Haner The State Corporation Commission staff popped up in a House of Delegates Committee Tuesday to provide another unwelcome lecture, with revised estimates on the likely cost to Dominion Energy Virginia customers of the pending omnibus clean energy legislation. The numbers it provided to the House Labor and Commerce Committee Tuesday afternoon were…
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With Friends Like These, Ratepayers in Big Trouble
By Steve Haner If your main concern is that people pay a fair price for electricity, the best outcome of Monday’s Senate Commerce and Labor Committee meeting would be approval of the bill changing the rules on Dominion Energy Virginia’s 2021 rate review, followed by defeat or delay of the highly touted Virginia Clean Energy…