Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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Firearms Theater: Boring, Tiresome, Repetitive
It is easy to dismiss next week’s special session of the General Assembly on proposed gun control as meaningless political theater, because that it what it will likely amount to. It is also boring, tiresome and repetitive. Following the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, a group of well-intended and well-informed experts formed a non-partisan task…
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Make This Check To: Southwest Virginia
Here is what I had to say in today’s The Roanoke Times about Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed pumped storage facility in Tazewell County, addressed to the people so excited about the revenue it will generate. This posting is for the people here in the other part of Virginia who pay the bills for the utility.…
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The (GOP) Chaos and Dysfunction Must End
For years my daily routine during the General Assembly included time in Delegate Riley Ingram’s office, in fact pretty much as long as the Hopewell Republican was there. I’d worked on several of his campaigns. Trust me, he left the best stories out of his hilarious farewell floor speech. In 2018 I was present when…
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Dominion’s IRP Approved, With High Costs Detailed
The State Corporation Commission today approved Dominion Energy Virginia’s Integrated Resource Plan, laying out possible investment combinations to keep the power flowing in its territory over the next fifteen years. It also laid out the costs, in excess of $18 billion of investments plus interest plus profit margin to be paid by future customers. The…
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Federal Tax Conformity Flooding State With Cash
What will you do with your $110? Thanks to the conformity revenue flood, it’s coming. Checks are expected to arrive in October for most Virginia taxpayers, the most important piece of campaign mail they’ll get before November’s election. The $110 extra refund, $220 for a married couple, is the General Assembly’s response to the huge…
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Dominion Seeks To Add Carbon Tax In Fuel Factor
Dominion Energy Virginia is taking advantage of its annual, and usually boring, fuel cost review to move the cost of any future carbon tax or emissions allowances out of its fixed base rates and into its variable fuel charge. If the State Corporation Commission agrees it could either lower or raise your bill someday but…
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Comrades: Check Out Virginia’s Planned Economy!
There are portions of the recent state audit report on economic incentives that would warm the hearts of retired Soviet planned economy apparatchiks, sitting around their dachas dreaming of the good old days. Case in point: The analysis concluding Virginia’s use of a single sales factor method to tax manufacturers is “moderately effective.”
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JLARC: Semiconductor Grants Have Not Succeeded
The recent report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission on economic incentives related to manufacturing (here) goes far beyond a discussion of data centers, and if the General Assembly accepts it as gospel some of the existing incentives might be in jeopardy. Two programs aimed at environmental goals should be eliminated, the staff…
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Fix the General Assembly, Then Tackle Energy Bill
It has been over a month since a coalition of unnatural allies announced a proposal to revise Virginia’s electricity regulation system – again – but the idea dropped from view fairly quickly. One of the main and most visible proponents, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has now taken on a very different role in…
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No Great Leap, But a Continuing Tide
The following was written for the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s Jefferson Policy Journal and distributed earlier today. Some themes repeat an earlier post. It’s hard to dissect a battle while the smoke is still clearing, but the June 11 Virginia primaries demonstrated again the state’s continued and steady move away from its conservative past. It was…
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Primary Reading: Themes on the Partisan Blogs
How different will Virginia’s politics and political future be at close of business tomorrow? This time the big shift may come in tomorrow’s primaries rather than with the November general election that actually chooses 140 General Assembly members.
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Dispatches. 75 Years Ago Tonight, Now, It Was On.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (AP) — Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast of France in tremendous strength by cloudy daylight today and stormed several miles inland with tanks and infantry in the grand assault which Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” German broadcasts…
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More (But Not All) Cost Projections Filed About Ratepayer Bill Transformation Act
With some of its closest legislative allies facing primary challenges next week, much of what Dominion Energy Virginia filed Friday in response to questions about the consumer cost of its future plans is redacted. The story in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch (here) could only cover that portion of the data not kept secret. Three of the…
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Rider E Case Shows Many Flaws With This Process
Dominion Energy Virginia’s pending application for a new charge on electric bills for coal ash remediation is both a fairly routine request and an illustration of what is deeply wrong with Virginia’s electricity regulation. When the major investor-owned utilities negotiated a return to regulation in 2007, the ability to create and collect these stand-alone add-on…
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SCC Again Denies Escape from Dominion Monopoly
The State Corporation Commission has denied another request from a major Virginia retailer for permission to escape from Dominion Energy Virginia’s monopoly electricity service. The score for such petitions is now one approval, two denials, and the message is clear to all the other petitioners: Go fight it out at the General Assembly. The petition…