Tag Archives: climate

Looking backward, Virginia Republicans attack climate action and coddle coal

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Photo credit: Mark Dixon from Pittsburgh, PA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Even before taking office, Governor Glenn Youngkin made two rookie mistakes: he declared his intention to pull Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) by executive order, not realizing it can only be done by legislation; and he nominated the much-reviled Trump-era EPA chief Andrew Wheeler to be his Secretary of Natural Resources, apparently unaware the appointment would need approval from the Democratic-led Senate he had just infuriated with the RGGI announcement. 

Evidently not a man to admit a blunder, on his first day in office Youngkin signed an  executive order directing the Department of Environmental Quality to notify RGGI of his intent to withdraw Virginia from the carbon-cutting program, and to develop an “emergency regulation” to send to the Air Pollution Control Board for the same purpose. The language in the order is a little less than he pledged, and yet still not legal.

These are unfortunate signs that Youngkin, who ran for governor as a moderate Republican, intends to govern as a burn-the-house-down extremist when it comes to the environment. 

It’s surprising to see Youngkin pursuing Trumpist energy policies, and not just because they failed so dismally when Trump tried them. As the former CEO of a multibillion-dollar private equity investment company, Youngkin is, presumably, not an idiot. He has acknowledged climate change is real and affecting Virginia, and he has access to the same polls the rest of us do that show Americans are concerned and want government action to address the crisis. Corporate America is also calling for action; CEOs of more than 70 of the world’s largest corporations wrote a letter last June calling on governments to adopt policies capable of capping the global rise in temperature at no more than 1.5 decrees Celsius. 

The legislation that put Virginia into RGGI will lead to a 30 percent cut in the Commonwealth’s electric sector CO2 emissions by 2030. Companion legislation, the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), extends the carbon cutting out to 2050, to hit zero carbon emissions from the electric sector. Youngkin complains that RGGI costs ratepayers money, but it’s not like the money raised through carbon allowance auctions disappears into the ether: it pays for coastal flood-control projects and low-income energy efficiency programs that Virginia wasn’t funding before. Maybe Youngkin intends to replace these hundreds of millions of dollars with some of the federal funding coming to Virginia through the federal infrastructure bill—you know, the legislation that Virginia’s Republican congressmen voted against. 

Or maybe he doesn’t really care about the human consequences of his actions, since Virginia governors can’t run for reelection. Even last fall Youngkin was being talked about as a potential presidential candidate based on his ability to say nothing of substance for an entire campaign season. It was a good trick, but it’s a hard one to pull off twice. If Youngkin runs for president, he’ll be doing it as the guy who started his governorship by torching Virginia’s climate action plan.

Whether they are fellow flame-throwers or not, General Assembly Republicans are rallying around the new governor. Two bills filed last week seek to do legally what Youngkin wanted to do by executive fiat. SB532 (Stuart) and HB1301 (Kilgore) would repeal the Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparedness Act, direct DEQ to suspend the Commonwealth’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and remove provisions for using revenues from the auctions. 

SB81 (Stanley) would prohibit the Air Pollution Control Board from considering health, environmental, scientific, or economic factors when making regulations—an attack on both RGGI and clean car regulation, as well as on the independence and very mission of the Air Board. SB657 (Stuart) also attacks the Air Board’s authority (and that of the Water Board for good measure).

HB118 (Freitas) goes bigger. It repeals key features of the VCEA, including achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050; allowing the SCC to approve new fossil fuel plants only if a utility has met energy-saving goals and can prove cost-effectiveness; allowing utilities to recover costs of compliance with Virginia’s new renewable portfolio standard; and making wind, solar and offshore wind projects “in the public interest,” magic words that assure utilities they will get paid for making these investments.

The Freitas bill might pass the House, now that Republicans hold a slim majority, but neither of these two bills should pass the Senate with Democrats in charge. Creating the framework for the energy transition was a signature success for Virginia Democrats, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which they will let it be taken from them. 

That isn’t stopping other Republicans from taking their own shots. Several bills seek to undermine the energy transition in various ways; all of them are bad policy.

  • HB74 (also Ware) would subsidize certain large industrial customers by allowing them to share in the benefits, yet exempting them from the costs, of the energy transition, shifting their share of the costs onto all other customers. 
  • HB5 (Morefield) raids the RGGI funds to get money for his own district. 
  • HB892 (Kilgore) and SB398 (McDougle) subsidize RGGI costs for certain fossil fuel generators, another raid on the funds. 
  • HB1204 (Kilgore) prevents the RPS from taking effect until 2025 and guts the carve-out for distributed generation permanently. It also removes the authority of the Air Pollution Control Board over air pollution permits for “minor” sources of pollution.
  • HB1257 (Kilgore, on a roll!) guarantees customers access to natural gas in the name of “energy justice,” banning local electrification efforts, and making it really hard for the city of Richmond to terminate its gas utility.
  • HB1261 (Bloxom) also strips the Air and Water Boards of their permit-granting authority. 
  • HB73 (Ware) and SB761 (Sutterlein) eliminates language putting wind, solar and offshore wind in the public interest, undercutting the market certainty that put Virginia into the top ranks for solar energy in the past year and attracted a major offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility to Portsmouth. (The bill also lets the SCC put costs of new facilities into a utility’s rate base instead of tacking on a rate adjustment clause. If this were the only thing the bill did, it would be worth supporting.)

Not all the bills we are likely to see this year have been filed yet, so there is a good chance we will see further attacks on climate action, all with the pretense of saving money. I will continue updating this post when I hear of other bills like these. 

“Virginia is no longer anti-coal,” — new Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. 

Speaking of things that cost ratepayers money, bills to subsidize coal are back this year. As we have all learned, coal is no longer a competitive fuel in Virginia. It lost out first to fracked gas, and more recently to solar. But in a compromise with coalfields Republicans, the VCEA excluded one coal plant, the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC) in Wise County, from a requirement that Dominion Energy Virginia close its Virginia coal plants this decade. In theory, VCHEC could stay open until 2045, when the VCEA requires Dominion to reach zero carbon across all its generation.

In reality, though, the reprieve isn’t enough to save the coal plant. Dominion’s own analysis, from its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan case, assigned VCHEC a net present value of negative $472 million just for the ten years from 2020-2029. Dominion didn’t try to extend that analysis out to 2045, but clearly the cost to customers from running a money-losing coal plant for 25 years would top a cool billion. Not surprisingly, the SCC is considering requiring Dominion to retire VCHEC to save money for its customers.

Given concerns about RGGI’s cost to consumers, you might think Southwest Virginia Republicans would lead the charge to retire the money-losing coal plant in their midst. You would be wrong. To understand why, it will help you to know that the counties making up Southwest Virginia are not in Dominion’s service territory, but in Appalachian Power’s. The people who benefit from keeping a coal plant open in Wise County are not the same people who have to pay for the plant’s spectacular losses. 

As an excuse to keep the plant open, coalfields Republicans claim it’s to help the environment. Yes, really. Some of VCHEC’s fuel is waste coal excavated from the piles of mining waste that litter the coalfields, a toxic legacy of the era when coal was king and environmental regulations went unenforced. Burning the waste coal is one way to get rid of it, though not the only way or, for that matter, the right way. 

As a new report from the Appalachian State School of Law discusses, the federal infrastructure bill (again, the same one Virginia Republicans voted against) will provide millions of dollars to Virginia to remediate abandoned minelands, including these piles of toxic waste. (The report, titled Addressing Virginia’s Legacy GOB Piles, has been sent to General Assembly members but is not yet available online.)

In a letter to Senator John Edwards, report lead author Mark “Buzz” Belleville expressed his strong disagreement with bills aimed at encouraging the burning of waste coal. As he wrote, “Waste coal is of lower quality, requiring additives for combustion and resulting in even greater CO2 emissions and traditional air pollution than newly-mined coal. As the report notes, existing GOB piles can be disposed of or remediated in other manners that do not undermine Virginia’s commitment to a transition to clean energy.”

Rather than use the coming federal funds to remediate GOB piles, Republicans would prefer that Dominion customers be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in higher energy costs and put more pollution into the air. 

So at the same time they rail against the costs of RGGI and VCEA, Republicans are using waste coal as a reason to raise costs even more. 

  • HB656 (Wampler) dangles a tax credit for using waste coal. 
  • SB120 (Hackworth) and HB657 (Wampler) declare waste coal a “renewable energy” source and exempts VCHEC from the requirement that it close by 2045. 
  • HB894 (Kilgore) outright prohibits the SCC from requiring Dominion to retire VCHEC “before the end of its useful life.” (Would that be before or after Virginia becomes so hot we all move to Canada?)
  • HB1326 (Kilgore, trying everything he can think of) makes it “in the public interest” for utilities to use waste coal, and gives utilities a way to charge ratepayers extra for doing so.

Electricity customers had better get used to being used as a political football by legislators who attack the costs of the energy transition but have no qualms about making ratepayers subsidize coal. 

This post originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on January 20, 2022. It has been updated to include bills filed since then.

The General Assembly made progress on climate in 2021, but our work here is hardly done

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Before the start of the 2021 legislative session, I highlighted three areas where Virginia needed to make significant progress to support its climate agenda: transportation electrification, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and giving consumers greater access to renewable energy. 

The General Assembly delivered on one-and-a-half out of three. If we add bonus points for smaller successes, maybe we can call it a total of two. The transportation category truly outperformed expectations, but building efficiency underperformed and renewable energy access didn’t perform at all. 

In the transportation sector, the General Assembly passed the Clean Car Standards requiring manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles to Virginia dealers (HB1965); approved a statewide study of transit equity (HJ542); approved (but so far has not funded) an electric vehicle rebate program (HB1979); directed the SCC to report on ways to electrify transportation (HB2282); and established a school bus electrification fund (also empty for now)(HB2118). 

Together these bills address two of the most significant ways we can reduce emissions from the transportation sector: supporting the move away from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles and improving mass transit options. 

The House rejected a second school bus electrification bill that, as originally drafted, would have allowed Dominion Energy Virginia to own, control and profit handsomely from the batteries in as many as 1,250 new electric school buses. Adding non-polluting school buses across Virginia and testing the value of vehicle-to-grid technology would have been exciting, but Dominion couldn’t help taking a good idea and trying to make it into another bloated profit center. Given the odor of Dominion boondoggle, the question isn’t why the House rejected the bill, but why the Senate was willing to swallow it.

Still, it’s clear electric school buses are an idea whose time has come, and vehicle-to-grid technology could have real benefits for ratepayers. Dominion is already testing the technology with school bus batteries in a smaller pilot program, so we can expect to see more on this topic next year. Meanwhile, advocates hope to see funding emerge to implement HB2118, possibly from the federal stimulus bill now under consideration in Congress.

Improving the energy efficiency of new homes should have been an equally popular idea with legislators. Virginia will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars retrofitting existing homes in the years to come, so it makes sense to ensure that new houses don’t immediately join the queue of homes needing upgrades to be climate-ready. Unfortunately, beefing up the energy efficiency provisions of Virginia’s residential building code (HB2227) proved a hard sell in the face of entrenched opposition from the homebuilders’ lobby and surprising resistance from even some Democratic legislators. 

The legislation originally would have mandated adoption of the latest national energy efficiency code provisions, but it was amended to leave it up to the discretion of the code-writing board whether to require new homes to achieve this higher level of efficiency. They already had that authority; however, the board will now have to consider factors that favor stricter standards, like the long-term cost of ownership. For that reason I’m counting this bill as half a win. Whether or not the board decides to take the hint, improving efficiency in new homes is a topic we will see a lot more of in the future — and next time it is likely to come with more urgency and added features.

Energy efficiency bills did better when they addressed only government bodies. Legislation that passed now favors energy-efficient and water-efficient products in public procurement, and requires EV charging and energy/carbon tracking capability for new public buildings.

Unfortunately, 2021 was another bad year for my third priority, giving consumers the right to buy renewable energy from competitive suppliers. The House supported the “right to shop” bill (HB2048), but Senate Commerce and Labor once again proved itself a bulwark of defense for the monopoly utility model against the interests of residents and corporate customers alike. Killing the bill does nothing to lessen the demand from consumers. If Dominion does not move soon to offer better renewable energy options itself, we can expect to see this legislation return.

Senate Commerce and Labor further cemented its reputation as Dominion’s best friend by dispatching the full suite of utility reform bills that had won bipartisan support in the House. Only three senators on the 15-member committee consistently voted in favor of the reforms, ensuring that none of them got to the Senate floor. 

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/02/15/electric-utility-rate-reform-efforts-quashed-by-senate-committee/embed/#?secret=PtRlKZ6GtJ

Various other bills advanced the energy transition in smaller, focused bites. But perhaps the best news is that nothing this year marked a retreat from the commitment the General Assembly and the governor made last year to move Virginia toward a cleaner and more equitable energy supply. 

Below is a brief round-up of the climate and energy bills that passed this year, including the ones mentioned above. The governor will still have to sign the bills before they become law, but we are not expecting any surprises. 

Renewable energy and storage

• HB1925 (Kilgore) establishes, but does not fund, the Virginia Brownfield and Coal Mine Renewable Energy Grant Fund and Program. 

• HB1994 (Murphy) expands the definition of small agriculture generators to include certain small manufacturing businesses such as breweries, distilleries and wineries for the purposes of the law allowing these businesses to aggregate meters and sell renewable energy to a utility. 

• HB2006 (Heretick) and SB1201 (Petersen) change the definition of an “electric supplier” to include the operator of a storage facility of at least 25 MW, exempting them from state and local taxation but allowing a revenue share assessment. 

• HB2034 (Hurst) clarifies that the program allowing third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) applies to nonjurisdictional customers (i.e., local government and schools) as well as jurisdictional customers (most other customers) of Appalachian Power and Kentucky Utilities. 

• HB2148 (Willett) provides for energy storage facilities below 150 MW to be subject to the DEQ permit by rule process as “small renewable energy projects.” This is a priority bill for renewable energy industry associations. 

• HB2201 (Jones) and SB1207 (Barker) expands provisions related to siting agreements for solar projects located in an opportunity zone to include energy storage projects; however, according to existing language, the provision only takes effect if the GA also passes legislation authorizing localities to adopt an ordinance providing for the tax treatment of energy storage projects. This is another renewable energy industry bill. 

• HB2269 (Heretick) provides for increases in the revenue share localities can require for solar projects based on changes in the Consumer Price Index. 

• SB1258 (Marsden) requires the State Water Control Board to administer a Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Program (VESCP) on behalf of any locality that notifies the Department of Environmental Quality that it has chosen not to administer a VESCP for any solar photovoltaic (electric energy) project with a rated electrical generation capacity exceeding five megawatts. The provisions become effective only if the program is funded.. 

• SB1295 (DeSteph) requires utilities to use Virginia-made or U.S.-made products in constructing renewable energy and storage facilities “if available.” As amended, the products must be “reasonably available and competitively priced.” 

Energy efficiency and buildings

• HB1811 (Helmer) adds a preference for energy efficient and water-efficient products in public procurement. 

• HB1859 (Guy) amends last year’s legislation on Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loans to allow these loans to be extended to projects completed in the previous 2 years; it also expressly excludes residential buildings of less than 5 units and residential condominiums. 

• HB2001 (Helmer) requires state and local government buildings to be constructed or renovated to include electric vehicle charging infrastructure and the capability of tracking energy efficiency and carbon emissions. Local governments are authorized to adopt even more stringent requirements. It now has an amendment delaying its effectiveness to 2023 for localities with populations under 100,000. 

• HB2227 (Kory) originally required the Board of Housing and Community Development to adopt amendments to the Uniform Statewide Building Code within one year of publication of a new version of the International Code Council’s International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) to address changes related to energy efficiency and conservation. The bill would have required the Board to adopt building code standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in the new version of the IECC. 

Financing

• HB1919 (Kory) authorizes a locality to establish a green bank to finance clean energy investments. 

Fossil fuels 

• HB1834 (Subramanyam) and SB1247 (Deeds) originally required owners of carbon-emitting power plants to conduct a study at least every 18 months to determine whether the facility should be retired; and to give notice of any decision to retire a facility to state and local leaders within 14 days. Both bills were amended so that the retirement analysis is now just a part of the integrated resource planning process of investor-owned utilities, currently every three years, leaving out other plant owners like cooperatives. 

• HB1899 (Hudson) and SB1252 (McPike) sunset the coal tax credits as ofJan. 1, 2022. 

• SB1265 (Deeds) makes it easier for DEQ to inspect and issue stop-work orders during gas pipeline construction. 

• SB1311 (McClellan) requires pipeline applicants to submit detailed erosion and sediment control plans and stormwater management plans to DEQ. 

Climate bills 

• HB2330 (Kory) is the legislation the SCC asked for to provide guidance on the Percentage of Income Payment Program under the Virginia Clean Economy Act. 

• SB1282 (Morrissey) directs DEQ to conduct a statewide greenhouse gas inventory, to be updated and published every four years. 

• SB1284 (Favola) changes the name of the Commonwealth Energy Policy to the Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy, and streamlines the language without making major changes to the policies set out last year in Favola’s successful SB94. That bill overhauled the CEP, which until then had been a jumble of competing priorities, and established new targets for Virginia to achieve 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 and net-zero carbon economy-wide by 2045. 

• SB1374 (Lewis) sets up a Carbon Sequestration Task Force to consider methods of increasing carbon sequestration in the natural environment, establish benchmarks and identify carbon markets. 

EVs and Transportation energy

• HB1850 (Reid) increases the roadway weight limit for electric and natural gas-fueled trucks to accommodate the extra weight of batteries or natural gas fuel systems. 

• HB1965 (Bagby) is the Clean Car Standards bill, which would require manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles to Virginia dealers beginning in 2025. 

• HB1979 (Reid) creates a rebate program for new and used electric vehicles; however, the GA provided no funding. 

• HB2118 (Keam) establishes an Electric Vehicle Grant Fund and Program to assist school boards in replacing diesel buses with electric, installing charging infrastructure, and developing workforce education to support the electric buses. It currently has no funding.

• HB2282 (Sullivan) directs the SCC to develop and report on policy proposals to accelerate transportation electrification in the Commonwealth. The bill also limits how utilities get reimbursed for investments in transportation electrification: they must recover costs through normal rates for generation and distribution, and not through rate adjustment clauses or customer credit reinvestment offsets. 

• HJ542 (McQuinn) requests a statewide study of transit equity and modernization. 

• SB1223 (Boysko) adds a requirement to the Virginia Energy Plan to include an analysis of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other infrastructure needed to support the 2045 net-zero carbon target in the transportation sector.

This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on March 5, 2021.

The session may be short, but the list of energy bills is long

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Clean energy advocates expected this legislative session to feature fewer initiatives of interest, in part because of the shorter session and bill limits for legislators. Good news (I guess): the number of bills we are following is growing longer by the hour. 

Below are a number of bills of interest, organized by category, and then with House bills first, Senate bills second, in ascending order. I will update this post as I learn of other bills.

If you are interested in supporting or opposing any of these, you will want to act fast, since committees are hearing bills already. In Virginia, if a subcommittee or a committee votes against a bill, it is usually gone for good. 

Renewable energy and storage

HB1925 (Kilgore) Establishes, but does not fund, the Virginia Brownfield and Coal Mine Renewable Energy Grant Fund and Program. Kilgore put in a similar bill last year, which unfortunately did not pass. With no budget impact, this ought to pass easily. But I said that last year, too. 

HB1937 (Rasoul) is this year’s version of the Green New Deal Act. It contains policy initiatives to prioritize jobs and benefits for EJ populations and displaced fossil fuel workers and requires a transition to renewable energy by 2035, though these latter provisions are poorly integrated into the VCEA.

HB1994 (Murphy) and HB2215 (Runion) expands the definition of small agriculture generators to include certain small manufacturing businesses such as breweries, distilleries and wineries for the purposes of the law allowing these businesses to aggregate meters and sell renewable energy to a utility.

HB2006 (Heretick) exempts energy storage systems from state and local taxation but allows a revenue share assessment. This is a priority bill for renewable energy industry associations.

HB2034 (Hurst) and SB1420 (Edwards) clarifies that the program allowing third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) applies to nonjurisdictional customers (i.e., local government and schools) as well as jurisdictional customers (most other customers). Currently, PPA projects with local governments in APCo territory have been held up due to a contract provision between the localities and APCo, and it is hoped this legislation will break the logjam.

HB2048 (Bourne) restores the right of customers to buy renewable energy from any supplier even once their own utility offers a renewable energy purchase option.  In addition, third party suppliers of renewable energy are required to offer a discounted renewable energy product to low-income customers, saving them at least 10% off the cost of regular utility service.  

HB2067 (Webert) lowers from 150 MW to 50 MW the maximum size of a solar facility that can use the Permit by Rule process. 

HB2148 (Willett) provides for energy storage facilities below 150 MW to be subject to the DEQ permit by rule process as “small renewable energy projects.” Although 150 MW is not “small,” the permit by rule process has worked pretty well, so this should be acceptable. This is a priority bill for renewable energy industry associations.

HB2201 (Jones) expands provisions related to siting agreements for solar projects located in an opportunity zone to include energy storage projects; however, according to existing language, the provision only takes effect if the GA also passes legislation authorizing localities to adopt an ordinance providing for the tax treatment of energy storage projects. (Why doesn’t the bill just go ahead and include that authorization? Don’t ask me.) This is another renewable energy industry bill.

HB2269 (Heretick) provides for increases in the revenue share localities can require for solar projects based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.  

SB1201 (Petersen) changes the definition of an “electric supplier” to include the operator of a storage facility of at least 25 MW, and subjects them to the same reporting obligations as other suppliers. 

SB1207  (Barker) is a companion to HB2201.

SB1258 (Marsden) requires the State Water Control Board to administer a Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Program (VESCP) on behalf of any locality that notifies the Department of Environmental Quality that it has chosen not to administer a VESCP for any solar photovoltaic (electric energy) project with a rated electrical generation capacity exceeding five megawatts. The provisions become effective only if the program is funded; Marsden has submitted a budget amendment. This is also a priority bill for renewable energy industry associations.

SB1295 (DeSteph) requires utilities to use Virginia-made or US-made products in constructing renewable energy and storage facilities “if available,” but it does not require any added cost to be reasonable.

SB1420 (Edwards) is a companion bill to HB2034, clarifying PPA language for Appalachian Power territory.

Energy efficiency and buildings

HB1811 (Helmer) adds a preference for energy efficient products in public procurement.

HB1859 (Guy) amends last year’s legislation on Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loans to allow these loans to be extended to projects completed in the previous 2 years; it also expressly excludes residential buildings of less than 5 units and residential condominiums.

HB2001 (Helmer) requires state and local government buildings to be constructed or renovated to include electric vehicle charging infrastructure and the capability of tracking energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

HB2227 (Kory) is the same as SB1224, below.

SB1224 (Boysko) requires the Board of Housing and Community Development to adopt amendments to the Uniform Statewide Building Code within one year of publication of a new version of the International Code Council’s International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) to address changes related to energy efficiency and conservation. The bill requires the Board to adopt Building Code standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in the new version of the IECC. This is one of the important bills I wrote about last week. 

Financing

HB1919 (Kory) authorizes a locality to establish a green bank to finance clean energy investments. Fairfax County has requested this authority. 

Fossil fuels 

HB1834 (Subramanyam) requires owner of carbon-emitting power plants to conduct a study at least every 18 months to determine whether the facility should be retired. It also requires notice of any decision to retire a facility to be submitted to state and local leaders within 14 days, a step that allows transition planning.

HB1899 (Hudson) sunsets coal tax credits, because it is absolutely crazy that Virginia continues to subsidize coal mining while we’ve committed to close coal plants.

HB1934 (Simon) requires local approval for construction of any gas pipeline over 12 inches in diameter in a residential subdivision. The genesis of this bill is a particular project in Simon’s district, but I was surprised this isn’t a requirement already. 

HB2292 (Cole) is similar to Rasoul’s Green New Deal bill but without the speeded-up RPS timeline. It contains a moratorium on permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure and requires programs for transitioning fossil fuel workers that guarantees them jobs at the same income they had before, and with early retirement benefits and pension guarantees. It also requires development of new job training programs; requires that 40% of energy efficiency and clean energy funding go to EJ communities; and mandates that 50 percent of the clean energy workforce come from EJ communities. 

SB1247 (Deeds) is a companion to HB1834.

SB1252 (McPike) sunsets the coal tax credits. 

SB1265 (Deeds) makes it easier for DEQ to inspect and issue stop-work orders during gas pipeline construction. 

SB1311 (McClellan) requires DEQ to revise erosion and sediment control plans or stormwater management plans when a stop work order has been issued for violations related to pipeline construction.

Climate bills 

HB2281 (Ware) would exempt certain companies that use a lot of energy from paying for their share of the costs of Virginia’s energy transition under the VCEA, driving up costs for all other ratepayers. And thus the slow chipping away at the VCEA begins. Everybody’s got a reason they’re special.

SB1282 (Morrissey) directs DEQ to conduct a statewide greenhouse gas inventory, to be updated and published every four years.

SB1284 (Favola) changes the name of the Commonwealth Energy Policy to the Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy, and streamlines the language without making major changes to the policies set out last year in Favola’s successful SB94. That bill overhauled the CEP, which until then had been a jumble of competing priorities, and established new targets for Virginia to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 and net-zero carbon economy-wide by 2045. This year’s bill shows the Northam Administration is now fully on board, and the result is a policy statement that is more concise and coherent. 

SB1374 (Lewis) would set up a Carbon Sequestration Task Force to consider methods of increasing carbon sequestration in the natural environment, establish benchmarks, and identify carbon markets. 

And because this category would not be complete without a bill from a legislator who thinks climate action is a bunch of hooey, we have HB2265 (Freitas), which would repeal provisions of the VCEA phasing out carbon emissions from power plants, repeal the restrictions on SCC approval of new carbon-emitting facilities, and nix the provisions declaring wind, solar, offshore wind and energy storage to be in the public interest. Oh, but in case you thought Freitas was just a free market believer, or cared about cost, the bill provides that planning and development of new nuclear generation is in the public interest. 

Utility reform

Advocacy groups worked with legislators to develop a slate of bills, each a little different, that restore SCC oversight over utilities and/or benefit customers with refunds. More information about these bills is available on the Clean Virginia website.

HB1835 (Subramanyam) eliminates provisions that limit rate reductions to $50 million in the next SCC review of Dominion’s rates.

HB1914 (Helmer) changes “shall” to “may” in a number of places, giving the SCC discretion over when to count utility costs against revenues.

HB1984 (Hudson) gives the SCC added discretion to determine a utility’s fair rate of return and to order rate increases or decreases accordingly.

HB2049 (Bourne) would prevent utilities from using overearnings for new projects instead of issuing refunds.

HB2057 (Ware) changes how the SCC determines a fair rate of return for utilities and gives the SCC discretion in the treatment of certain utility generation and distribution costs, as well as in determining when a rate increase is appropriate. It also provides that when a utility has earnings above the authorized level, 100% of the overearnings must be returned to customers, up from 70% today. The SCC is also given authority to determine when a utility’s capital investments should offset overearnings. 

HB2160 (Tran) gives the SCC greater authority to determine when a utility has overearned and gives the Commission greater discretion in determining whether to raise or lower rates and order refunds. It also requires 100% of overearnings to be credited to customers’ bills, instead of 70%, as is the case today.

HB2200 (Jones) makes a number of changes to SCC rate review proceedings, including setting a fair rate of return, requiring 100% of overearnings to be credited to customers’ bills, and eliminating the $50 million limit on refunds to Dominion customers in the next rate review proceeding.

SB1292 (McClellan) requires 100% of overearnings to be credited to customers’ bills, instead of 70%, as is the case today.

EVs and Transportation energy

The Virginia Mercury ran a good article this week that covered most of these bills.  

HB1850 (Reid) increases the roadway weight limit for electric and natural gas-fueled trucks to accommodate the extra weight of batteries or natural gas fuel systems.

HB1965 (Bagby) is the Clean Car Standard bill, which would require manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles to Virginia dealers beginning in 2025.

HB1979 (Reid) creates a rebate program for new and used electric vehicles. 

HB2118 (Keam) establishes an Electric Vehicle Grant Fund and Program to assist school boards in replacing diesel buses with electric, installing charging infrastructure, and developing workforce education to support the electric buses. 

HB2282 (Sullivan) directs the SCC to develop and report on policy proposals to accelerate transportation electrification in the Commonwealth. The bill also limits how utilities get reimbursed for investments in transportation electrification: they must recover costs through normal rates for generation and distribution, and not through rate adjustment clauses or customer credit reinvestment offsets.

HJ542 (McQuinn) requests a statewide study of transit equity and modernization. 

SB1223 (Boysko) adds a requirement to the Virginia Energy Plan to include an analysis of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other infrastructure needed to support the 2045 net-zero carbon target in the transportation sector. 

SB1380 (Lucas) authorizes electric utilities to partner with school districts on electric school buses. The utility can own the batteries and the charging infrastructure and use the batteries for grid services and peak shaving.  

Code update

SB1453 (Edwards) revises Titles 45.1 and 67 of the Virginia Code. “The bill organizes the laws in a more logical manner, removes obsolete and duplicative provisions, and improves the structure and clarity of statutes pertaining to” mining and energy. The bill is a recommendation of the Virginia Code Commission. 

This post has been updated to add bills and correct a misstatement about the development of the utility reform agenda.

An early look at climate and energy bills in the 2021 session

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Last year Virginia’s General Assembly passed more than 30 separate clean energy bills, which together put Virginia on a path to zero-carbon electricity by 2050, enabled massive investments in renewable energy, storage and energy efficiency and eased restrictions on distributed solar. 

But many of the bills that passed were not perfect, and most of the new mandates affect only the electric sector. Only about a quarter of Virginia’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from power plants, so getting serious about a zero carbon economy means finding ways to reduce emissions from transportation, buildings, industry and agriculture. 

Unfortunately, building on last year’s progress will be hard this winter, not because there aren’t plenty of opportunities, but because the legislative session that starts Jan. 13 is likely to be exceptionally short and tightly-controlled. If, as expected, Republicans force a 30-day session limit(including weekends and holidays), that means each chamber must dispose of its own bills even faster than that to meet the crossover deadline (around Jan. 28, I’m told), when bills that have passed one chamber “cross over” to be considered in the other. Leadership has responded by strictly limiting the number of bills a legislator can carry, hoping not to overwhelm the committees that have to vet the bills. 

One result is that complex bills haven’t got a prayer. Climate advocates and their legislative champions will be focused on bills that are narrowly-crafted (or at least short) and easy to explain. 

Adding to the challenge, for those who want to weigh in with their legislators, is the fact that very few bills appear in the Legislative Information System yet, in another departure from prior years. 

And then of course, there’s COVID-19, disrupting normal procedures and making it harder than ever for citizens to make their voices heard. 

So yeah, ain’t we got fun?

What follows is a list of bills that are far along in the drafting process, have a patron, and are likely to be filed this year. I’m omitting other initiatives that don’t seem likely to make it into legislation this year or that I don’t have enough information to go on. I have not seen the language for any of these bills, so descriptions are based on previous years’ legislation, information from legislators and advocates, or both.

Building codes

One of the most cost-effective ways to lower carbon emissions from buildings is by constructing them with an eye to saving energy right from the start. If the builder puts more insulation in the walls and attic, reduces draftiness and installs better windows, buyers will save money and future residents will have lower heating and cooling costs for decades. Any small increases in a buyer’s mortgage costs are recouped many times over in utility bill savings.  

A national standard for energy efficiency in residential buildings even takes the guesswork out. The standard, known as the International Energy Efficiency Code (IECC), is updated every three years by a national organization referenced in the law setting out procedures for adopting Virginia’s residential building code. Unfortunately, the Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD) has long ignored its statutory obligation to keep Virginia’s building code at least consistent with these nationally recognized standards. 

As a result of that, and BHCD’s slow review process, Virginia’s building code is still behind the 2012-2018 IECC’s consumer protections.  Unless BHCD is compelled to protect residents consistent with national standards, sub-standard housing will continue to be built for years into the future.    

Ideally, the attorney general or the governor would direct BHCD to correct its latest decision to extend substandard code protections. Regardless, this long history of our building code underperforming national standards calls for legislative action. Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, is expected to introduce legislation that would require the BHCD to adopt the latest IECC within 12 months.  

[Update: Boysko’s bill is SB1224. Delegate Kory has also introduced HB2227.]

Right to buy

It’s a strange paradox. The Virginia Clean Economy Act is one of the most ambitious clean energy laws in the U.S., calling on our utilities to add thousands of megawatts of solar and wind energy in the coming years. And yet most Virginia customers still can’t buy solar energy unless they install it on their own property. 

This is an absurd position for Virginia to be in today, insisting on an energy transition but not allowing customers to actually go buy electricity from solar. Indeed, this restriction threatens Virginia’s ability to meet its carbon reduction goals, for one reason in particular: data centers. 

Data centers are energy hogs, and this sector has grown so fast in Virginia it now makes up 12 percent of Dominion Energy’s total electric demand in the state. Most data center operators say they want to run on renewable energy, and we need them to make good on that. Otherwise, cutting carbon will be harder and more expensive for the rest of us. 

But we have to make it possible for them to do so. Right now, only the really big companies, like Microsoft or Facebook, can get Dominion to come to the table on solar deals. The rest don’t have that kind of market power. Neither, of course, do residential customers and small businesses. 

The irony is that customers actually had the right to go outside their utility to buy 100% renewable energy until just recently. The Virginia Code gives customers that right so long as their own utility wasn’t offering a 100% renewable energy product. But first Appalachian Power, and then Dominion Energy Virginia, triggered a “kill switch” by offering their own products. The trouble is, these products cost more, use existing facilities instead of adding new renewable energy to the grid, and in Dominion’s case, include the poison pill of dirty biomass energy.

Last year saw the passage of a bill patroned by Del. Jeffrey Bourne, D-Richmond, that would return to customers their right to go outside their utility to buy renewable energy from sellers who qualify as competitive service providers. But there was a catch: an amendment tacked on at the last moment made the bill effective only if passed again in 2021.

Delegate Bourne is bringing the bill back this year, with added language that would require competitive service providers who sell renewable energy in Virginia to offer a discount to low and moderate income consumers. The providers would have to offer 100% renewable energy at a 10% discount off the cost of the utility’s standard residential rate. [Update: the bill is HB2048.]

Workers install solar panels at Huguenot High School in Richmond. (Sun Tribe Solar)

Solar for public schools and other government buildings

Last year the VCEA and Solar Freedom legislation expanded the ability of customers to finance onsite solar projects by raising the cap on third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) and making the program available to a wider range of customers in Appalachian Power territory, where it had previously been restricted. The new limits in Dominion territory are 500 MW for “non-jurisdictional” customers like local governments and schools and 500 MW for “jurisdictional” customers like residents and businesses; in Appalachian Power territory the new limit is 40 MW for all customers. This year a bill from Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, clarifies that the program in Appalachian Power territory applies to non-jurisdictional customers as well as jurisdictional customers. 

The bill also expands a pilot program for municipal net metering established in 2019 that allowed a local government to use surplus electricity generated by solar panels on one building for another building also owned by the locality. As originally enacted, however, the pilot program did not allow the locality to use PPA financing for its solar panels, a restriction that prevents budget-conscious local governments from using the program. Senator Edwards’ bill will let local governments of both Dominion and APCo use PPAs for solar projects installed under the pilot program. In addition, the previous caps on the municipal net metering pilot program are removed in favor of the general PPA program caps. 

[Update: Delegate Hurst introduced HB2049, which just addresses PPAs in APCo territory.]

Transportation

What RGGI does for the electric sector, the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) is supposed to do for transportation. As Sarah Vogelsong reported last week, Virginia is participating in the development of the multistate compact designed to lower carbon emissions from the transportation sector 30 percent by 2032, but it hasn’t yet pledged to join the compact. There may be some details to work out before that happens, including resolving concerns from environmental justice leaders who believe more of the revenues should go to historically underserved communities. So whether we will see a TCI bill this year is anyone’s guess, but I’ve included it here because of the impact it would have if it does show up.

Three other transportation bills are more certain. One, called the Clean Car Standard, simply requires manufacturers of electric vehicles to send some of their vehicles to Virginia dealers, so consumers can actually buy them. (Weirdly, many dealers are opposed.) Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, is expected to carry the bill; its passage is a priority for a long list of environmental and grassroots groups. [The bill is HB1965.]

A bill from Del. David Reid, D-Loudoun, would have Virginia offer incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles, following recommendations from a 2019 study. I’m told we should also expect at least one bill from Del. Mark Keam, D-Fairfax, and one from Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, to get more electric school buses on the road. [Reid’s bill is HB1979. Keam’s is HB2118.]

Another bill would require a Transit Modernization Study, which would gather information about how the public is currently being served by the existing transit system, including details as specific as which bus stops in which communities have benches and covered facilities. The study will determine which transit systems have infrastructure needs related to safety, reliability and environmental impact, such that when funding is available, the results of the study can ensure that funding is allocated equitably and to be used to make non-car options more appealing. A patron will be announced soon. [The patron is McQuinn, and the bill is HJ542.]

Environmental Justice

Del. Shelly Simonds, D-Newport News, and Keam are expected to introduce a bill that will expand last year’s Environmental Justice Act to change how the state forms and carries out environmental justice policies within agencies, and to ensure greater public involvement in the permitting process at DEQ. Among other issues, residents often learn too late that Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality has finalized a permit for a facility that will add to the pollution in their community. The legislation would also require DEQ to consider the cumulative impact of polluting facilities — that is, to take into account whether the community is already overburdened.

Low-income ratepayer protections

The State Corporation Commission has been busy writing implementing regulations for many of the programs established by 2020 legislation. Some of the rules that have come out of the SCC are disappointing enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see corrective legislation, but probably not until next year. One exception, where legislation is needed right away, concerns the Percentage of Income Payment Program. 

The PIPP is an important feature of the Virginia Clean Economy Act  that caps utility bills for qualifying low-income customers. The SCC convened a stakeholder group to hammer out the details, but concluded the statute did not provide enough information to go on. An SCC order issued Dec. 23 left open critical elements of the program, and urged the General Assembly to provide additional legislative guidance. It is very late in the year to craft a response and secure a patron, but the administration and advocates are trying. 

Pipelines

A bill from Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, adds specificity to the currently vague process that governs small to medium changes in pipeline routes and may impact permit conditions like erosion control measures. Currently it is unclear under what conditions DEQ must re-examine plans it has previously approved. The legislation will bring clarity and explicit direction to all parties involved. [The bill is SB1311.]

At least one and possibly two other bills that would affect pipeline construction are also said to be in the works, but I have no details. [See SB1265, from Senator Deeds.]

Fossil fuel moratorium

Last year’s Virginia Clean Economy Act contains a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel electric generating plants. Del. Joshua Cole, D-Fredericksburg, is expected to introduce legislation expanding this into a permanent moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure, to take effect in 2022. The bill would exempt retail projects like local gas hook-ups but would otherwise affect not just electric generation, but pipelines, fracking infrastructure, refineries and processing facilities. 

Utility reform

Last year saw a number of bills that would affect how our utilities do business. These issues have not gone away, so we should expect to see legislation to strengthen SCC oversight and pare back the ability of utilities to pocket overearnings. [Clean Virginia produced a whole slew of bills. These include HB1835, HB1914, HB1984, HB2049, HB2160, and HB2200.]

Will there be bad bills?

Yes, we should expect to see a few bills from Republicans attempting to roll back parts (or all) of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, or trying to block Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. These aren’t expected to get far in the Democratically-controlled General Assembly. [So far the worst of the bunch is HB2265.]

This post originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on January 4, 2021. It has been updated to reflect additional bill information.

A Candidate’s Guide to Clean Energy and the Pipelines

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Photo courtesy of Chris Tandy.

Recently I attended a forum where a candidate for statewide office discussed his energy policies and voiced his support for wind and solar. He embraced a goal of Virginia reaching at least 30% renewable energy by 2030, which was roundly applauded. But then he added that we couldn’t get started on it without advances in battery storage, because, he said, without storage there is no way to put surplus wind and solar on the grid.

People around the room look dumbfounded. They weren’t energy experts, but they knew that was flat-out wrong. Later he made other statements that showed he misunderstood facts about energy, climate change and the grid, hadn’t questioned what he’d been told by utility lobbyists, or just hadn’t been paying much attention.

Maybe you are a candidate yourself (or you work for one), and you don’t want to embarrass yourself by saying so, but you frankly don’t understand what was wrong with that statement about wind and solar. Or perhaps you are an activist and you’d like to help your local candidate for office bone up on some of the most important issues he or she will have to vote on while in office.

Allow me to help. Here is what you need to know about the hot-button energy issues in Virginia today. I’ll also offer my opinion about where you should stand on those issues, but that part is up to you.

Solar is coming on strong—and it is the cheapest energy in Virginia today. This astounds people who don’t keep up with energy trends, but it’s what Dominion Energy Virginia’s latest integrated resource plan (IRP) reveals. Utility-scale solar farms, 20 megawatts (MW) and up, can produce electricity at a cost that beats coal, gas and nuclear. That’s why Dominion’s IRP proposes a build-out of 240 MW of solar per year. It’s why Amazon Web Services has been building 260 MW of solar in five Virginia counties to supply its data centers. It’s why, over the past year, developers have proposed more than 1,600 MW of additional solar capacity in counties across the state. It’s also why today, solar already employs more Virginians than coal.

None of the solar under development includes battery storage. It doesn’t have to, because electricity from solar all goes into one big grid.

The grid is HUGE. If you’re from around here, you probably remember the earthquake of August 2011. It was centered in Mineral, Virginia, but did damage all the way to Washington, D.C. It also caused an immediate shutdown of Dominion’s two nuclear reactors at North Anna that lasted for more than three months. That meant 1,790 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity, enough to power 750,000 homes, suddenly went offline. Do you remember what happened to your power supply at home? You probably don’t. Why not? Because your power didn’t go out.

That’s because the North Anna nuclear plants are only two out of more than 1,300 generating units (power plants) feeding a 13-state portion of the transmission grid managed by independent operator PJM Interconnection. When one unit fails, PJM calls on others. PJM’s job is to balance all this generation to meet demand reliably at the lowest cost.

The grid has no problem with solar. While solar makes up less than 1% of its electricity supply currently, a PJM study concluded the grid could handle up to 20% solar right now, without any new battery storage. Wind and solar together could make up as much as 30% of our electricity with no significant issues. The result would be less coal, less gas, and less carbon pollution—and $15.6 billion in energy savings.

Virginia already has energy storage. You could even say we are swimming in it. Bath County, Virginia is home to the world’s largest “battery” in the form of “pumped storage.” A pair of reservoirs provide over 3,000 megawatts of hydropower generating capacity that PJM uses to balance out supply and demand.

Actual batteries are also an option today, not sometime in the future. The price has dropped by half since 2014, to the point where solar-plus-storage combinations compete with new gas peaker plants. Batteries are also being paired with solar today to form microgrids that can power emergency shelters and other critical functions during widespread outages.

If Virginia goes totally gangbusters with solar, a day will come when there is so much electricity being generated from the sun in some areas that we’d need batteries. But, sadly, we aren’t anywhere near there yet.

So, you should definitely get on board with battery storage; just don’t make the mistake of thinking we can’t ramp up renewable energy today without it.

Make renewable energy your BFF. It probably polls better than you do. Renewable energy has favorability ratings most politicians only dream about. A Gallup poll last year showed 73% of Americans prefer alternative energy to oil and gas, a number that rises to 89% among Democrats. Republicans love it, too; North Carolina-based Conservatives for Clean Energy found that 79% of registered Republicans in their state are more likely to support lawmakers who back renewable energy options.

Distributed renewable energy—think rooftop solar—is especially popular with the greenies on the left and the libertarians on the right, and pretty much everyone in between. It offers benefits that utility solar does not. The policy that makes it affordable is called net metering. It gives solar owners credit for the excess solar electricity they put on the grid in the daytime, to be applied against the power they draw from the grid at night. If you want to support your constituents’ ability to power their own homes with solar, you should protect and expand their right to net meter their electricity.

People who understand Dominion’s pipeline hate Dominion’s pipeline. The proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline would carry fracked gas 600 miles from inside West Virginia through the heart of Virginia and into North Carolina. Instead of following highways, it cuts across mountains, rivers, forests and farms, and requires land clearing 150 feet wide the whole way. Landowners along the route are furious, as are lovers of the national forests and the Appalachian Trail, people who care about water quality, people who care about climate change, and fans of caves, bats and other wildlife.

The gas it will carry is extracted from shale formations deep underground using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a loud, dirty and dangerous practice that doesn’t poll well in Virginia. More quietly (but in many ways worse), leaking wells, pipes, and storage reservoirs are estimated to emit enough greenhouse gases to cancel out the climate advantages of burning gas over coal, and increase smog. An analysis using industry data found that building the ACP and a second controversial pipeline project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, would more than double the carbon footprint of Virginia’s power sector.

Sea level rise is already taking a toll in Virginia with “sunny day” flooding regularly crippling low-lying areas of Hampton Roads. If you’ve pledged to address climate change, you need to understand how building gas pipelines will undermine the very efforts to reduce such threats.

Now, if you don’t want to oppose Dominion, you might be inclined to minimize all these issues, or to tell voters the destruction of all we hold dear is just the price we pay for cheap energy. I’m sure you can phrase it better than that.

Before you do, though, you should also spend a few minutes to understand why critics say the ACP will raise energy prices, not lower them. That’s because Dominion’s gas-burning electric generating plants already have long-term contracts to use another company’s pipeline, for less money. Using the ACP instead of cheaper alternatives means raising costs to consumers.

Dominion also plans to build more gas-fired power plants so it can fill the pipeline. Gas plants are built to last 30 years or more, pipelines 50 years. Locking us into gas infrastructure for decades when solar is already cheaper than gas now is a seriously bad bet.

And if you think Dominion is going to shoulder the loss of a bad bet, better think again. That’s what its captive ratepayers are for.

Another name for those people is “voters.”

Sierra Club’s 2015 Legislative Scorecard Reflects Partisan Divide on Climate Change

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Photo credit: Corrina Beall

Photo credit: Corrina Beall

The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club just published its second annual Virginia General Assembly Climate and Energy Scorecard. The Scorecard grades Virginia’s state elected officials on the votes they took during the 2015 General Assembly Session on legislation that will have a direct impact on Virginia’s energy policy and strategy to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

This was the General Assembly’s first opportunity to weigh in on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the nation’s first effort to deal with carbon pollution. The plan gives new momentum to the transition underway in the electric sector away from dirty coal and towards clean energy like efficiency, wind and solar. The plan won’t be finalized this summer, but a lot of Republicans have already decided they’d rather fight than switch.

So although two-thirds of Virginians support government action to reduce climate pollution, Republican legislators in the Commonwealth mostly toed the party line when it came to voting on climate bills. This brought down their GPAs on the Scorecard.

Another problem—affecting members of both parties—was a tendency to toe the Dominion Virginia Power line. As we have seen, bills Dominion liked got passed, and ones it didn’t like were killed. Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Besa put it this way: “Too many legislators from both parties defer to Dominion Virginia Power on energy policy matters, and that is why Virginia continues to lag in energy efficiency, and solar and wind investments compared to our neighboring states.”

Yet a number of legislators received perfect scores, and some received extra credit for introducing important bills, even when they did not pass or even make it out of small-but-hostile subcommittees.

Looking at the scorecard, you might wonder about all the clean energy bills we tracked this year, but which don’t show up as scorecard votes. The reason is that most of those good bills were killed in House subcommittees, where votes aren’t recorded. If the House leadership would kindly change that practice and ensure that all bills get recorded votes, we would have a lot more to work with.

Even with these limitations, people who have lobbied in the General Assembly will find the Scorecard a reasonably accurate reflection of members’ positions on energy and climate. Yes, we would have expected better scores for a handful of Republicans who have been real leaders on clean energy; it is unfortunate that their climate votes dragged down their grades.

But that’s what happens when climate change is treated as a political zero-sum game and party members are forced to choose whose side they’re on. Perhaps next year, with the Clean Power Plan finalized, legislators will find themselves able to move past the political posturing and turn their attention to the pressing need for solutions. Certainly, we’d like to see more “A” students.

Thirteen Senators scored a perfect 100%, including Sen. Barker (D-39), Sen. Colgan (D-29), Sen. Dance (D-16), Sen. Ebbin (D-30), Sen. Favola (D-31), Sen. Howell (D-32), Sen. Lewis (D-6), Sen. Lucas (D-18), Sen. Marsden (D-37), Sen. McEachin (D-9), Sen. Miller (D-1), Sen. Petersen (D-34) and Sen. Wexton (D-33).

Twenty-five Delegates scored a perfect 100%, including Del. Bulova (D-37), Del. Carr (D-69), Del. Filler-Corn (D-41), Del. Futrell (D-2), Del. Herring (D-46), Del. Hester (D-89), Del. Hope (D-47), Del. Keam (D-35), Del. Krupicka (D-45), Del. Lopez (D-49), Del. Mason (D-93), Del. McClellan (D-71), Del. McQuinn (D-70), Del. Morrissey (I-74), Del. Murphy (D-34), Del. Plum (D-36), Del. Preston (D-63), Del. Sickles (D-43), Del. Simon (D-53), Del. Spruill (D-77), Del. Sullivan (D-48), Del. Surovell (D-44), Del. Toscano (D-57), Del. Ward (D-92) and Del. Watts (D-39).

To view the Scorecard online, visit the Virginia Sierra Club’s website at vasierraclub.org or on Facebook.

Mother Nature to be sued for copyright infringement

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Hurricane Sandy, in an image clearly copied from “The Day After Tomorrow”

To: Mother Nature, d/b/a “Hurricane Sandy”

Re: Copyright infringement

Dear Ms. Nature,

It has come to our attention that you and/or your agents have made unauthorized use of certain intellectual property belonging to our client, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (“Fox”), including images, illustrations, plotlines, audio and video unlawfully appropriated from “The Day After Tomorrow,” a motion picture owned by Fox. This letter is to notify you that we believe your actions constitute a violation of U.S. copyright law, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.

It is clear that the plotline of Hurricane Sandy has been substantially copied from portions of “The Day After Tomorrow.” The motion picture is a dramatization in which a storm of epic proportions bears down on the eastern United States, causing massive destruction and widespread flooding, including in Manhattan. Scientists in the movie say human-induced climate change is the reason for the storm’s unusual size and damaging force.

Your agent, Hurricane Sandy, was a storm of epic proportions that bore down on the eastern United States, causing massive destruction and widespread flooding, including in Manhattan. Scientists in real life say human-induced climate change is the reason for the storm’s unusual size and damaging force.

Certain scenes from Hurricane Sandy appear to be copied directly from portions of the motion picture. Photographs taken during and after your storm depict waves swamping buildings, taxicabs in floodwaters up to the windows, lower Manhattan completely dark, and a flooded subway system—images closely replicating events in “The Day After Tomorrow.” We believe this demonstrates a clear infringement of our client’s copyright.

Moreover, we feel it is incumbent on us to point out that your actions in turning a fictional and hypothetical entertainment into actual fact violate the expectations of the public that climate change is and will remain a matter of mere speculation concerning events that are firmly in the future. The American audience expects the continued burning of fossil fuels to produce entertaining epics like “The Day After Tomorrow,” while having no actual effect whatsoever on their lives. Your insistence on demonstrating that a warming ocean will produce larger and more damaging hurricanes is, frankly, in poor taste.

This letter will serve as notice of our intent to pursue any and all remedies available to our client under applicable law, including an injunction against further infringing activities.

Yours truly,

I.M. Cole

Law Offices of Cole & Oyle, LLC

Coal and the big lie

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Hurricane Sandy swept into town this week, reminding Americans that climate change may be the Issue That Cannot Be Talked About, but that doesn’t mean it has gone away. Suddenly the fact that the two presidential candidates have been trying to outdo each other in professing their love for coal comes across as unseemly, if not downright perverse. Surely this would be a good time to acknowledge the impossibility of preventing the catastrophic effects of increasing carbon emissions if we are unwilling to stop burning the things that emit carbon—chief among them, coal.

So a war on coal might be a good idea, although the idea that the Obama Administration has been waging one is nonsense. The reasons for the decline of the coal industry are primarily the flood of cheap natural gas, which is out-competing coal as a fuel for electric generation, and the increasing cost of coal, especially in Appalachia.

Indeed, the Appalachian coal industry has been on the decline for years. The richest and most easily-reached coal has been mined, leaving thin seams that take more effort and expense to extract, pushing the price of Central Appalachian coal well above that of coal from the Powder River Basin further west.

From 1990 to 2006–before the recession, before the Obama presidency, and before the price of natural gas collapsed–Virginia coal mining declined from about 10,000 workers to about 4,500.  The U.S. Energy Information Agency projects that Virginia coal production will continue to decline through the rest of this decade.

But coal executives prefer to lie to workers than admit they can’t compete in the free market, and the politicians who’ve taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the coal companies would rather parrot their lies than admit they have failed their constituents. Coal companies and their political bedfellows have been exploiting coal miners for two centuries; it’s no surprise to see them using these workers now as pawns in the presidential campaign.

But fingering the real culprits for coalworkers’ distress is the easy part; what’s harder is helping the residents of the coalfields areas find new jobs to replace the ones that are never coming back.

Ironically, in Virginia it has been environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices that have championed a plan to do just that. For several years they have been urging an end to the approximately $45 million annually in state taxpayer subsidies that currently go to enrich coal companies, and replacing them with incentives to support new jobs in tourism, technology, clean energy and other industries.

This proposal should have gotten traction last year, when a report by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) concluded that the subsidies do not achieve their goal of supporting coal employment, and indeed that  “changes in coal mining activity appear unaffected by the credits.”

One would have thought that Republicans especially might have jumped at the chance to cut $45 million per year of wasteful spending, or that Governor “Bob-for-Jobs” McDonnell would have gladly seized the opportunity to build a jobs program that did not add a new line-item to the budget.

Following the release of the JLARC study, the legislature and the Governor did act—to extend the coal company subsidies for several more years. The message to the residents of southwest Virginia could not have been any clearer: it’s the coal company executives and their money we care about, not the miners and their families.

The presidential election will be over in a few days. Regardless of who wins, the Virginia coal industry will continue its decline. The only question left is how long the miners will accept being lied to.