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The bills are back in town

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Legislators cue up last year’s vetoed legislation for a new session, but leave us wanting more

Last spring Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed more energy bills than he signed, killing legislation designed to increase rooftop solar and energy storage, strengthen utility planning requirements, and make efficiency improvements more available to low-income residents. 

Now, with Abigail Spanberger set to replace Youngkin in the Governor’s Mansion and Democrats in a position of legislative strength, those bills are back.

Members of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) met several times this fall to examine last year’s failed energy bills to determine which should get the commission’s endorsement this year. CEUR is comprised primarily of legislative leaders from the Senate and House committees that hear energy bills, so endorsements signal a strong likelihood of passage. 

But while the bills CEUR endorsed show promise, I can’t help thinking they had better be just a starting point.  

Energy affordability and making data centers pay their fair share are supposed to be the top objectives for legislators this year. That makes it interesting, and concerning, that even as CEUR went beyond the vetoed bills to endorse some small new initiatives, it didn’t propose any legislation that would either supercharge generation in Virginia or put the onus on the tech companies to solve their supply problem themselves.  

We know bills like that are coming. Ann Bennett, the lead author of the Sierra Club’s comprehensive report on the state of the industry in Virginia, was, I hope, being hyperbolic when she told me she expects “a hundred” data center bills this session. Regardless, there will be a lot of them. 

Many will be land use bills that don’t go to the energy committees, but others will tackle the central contradiction at the heart of Virginia’s data center buildout: our leaders want the industry to grow, but haven’t faced squarely the problem of where the energy will come from. 

Getting more power on the grid (or freeing up capacity)

Some of the vetoed bills returning this year will put more energy on the grid. They won’t be enough to power the data center industry, but every bit helps. This includes one of the environmental communities’ top priorities, a bill that expands the role of rooftop solar in Virginia’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). 

A new bill permitting balcony solar also got CEUR’s endorsement. Balcony solar – two or three panels that plug into a wall outlet, reducing a resident’s need to buy power – is the buzziest new idea of the year. The systems are too small to make much of a difference in megawatt terms, but by democratizing access to solar they counter the reputation of solar as a technology for rich people and will make it possible for solar skeptics to see for themselves that solar does actually work and save money.

Another CEUR initiative is a bill similar to one Youngkin vetoed that creates a carveout in the state’s renewable portfolio standard specifically for geothermal heat pumps. Like balcony solar, geothermal heat pumps don’t put electricity onto the grid, but by freeing up power for other customers it has the same effect.

 CEUR also endorsed a bill to simplify billing in the shared solar program in Appalachian Power Company’s territory, but a far more significant proposal to greatly expand shared solar in Dominion territory was deemed not ready for consideration after one of its patrons, Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, said it was still in negotiation.  

The SCC recently directed a change in the calculation of Dominion Energy’s minimum bill that industry advocates say should make the program workable for customers beyond the low-income residents who were the only ones formerly able to access it. As currently drafted, the bill would allow shared solar to increase up to a maximum of 6% of Dominion’s peak load. That gives this bill the potential to make a meaningful dent in Virginia’s energy shortfall – if Dominion doesn’t block it. 

That assumes developers can get the community solar projects permitted at the local level. 

Virginia localities are notorious for denying permits to solar projects of all sizes, a recalcitrance that has contributed to Virginia having to import fully half of the electricity consumed in the state. CEUR has now scrapped last year’s big idea of allowing solar developers to appeal local government permit denials to the SCC, after failing to persuade enough legislators to vote for it last year. All that is left of that bill is a piece that establishes a university consortium to provide research and technical assistance. 

Luckily, last year’s other major solar siting bill lives on; it codifies best practices for solar projects without removing localities’ ability to deny permits even for projects that meet the high standards. New this year, however, is a requirement that localities provide a record of their decisions to the SCC, including the reason for any adverse decision. 

It’s not the solution the industry and landowners need to bring predictability to the local permitting process, but it does ratchet up pressure on county boards that have a habit of denying projects without articulating a legitimate reason. And sure enough, imposing that modest amount of accountability was enough to get Joe Lerch from the Virginia Association of Counties to speak against the proposal at the CEUR meeting. 

VACO seems likely to lose the fight this time around, and it should. Blocking solar development leads directly to higher electricity prices for consumers across the state. Moreover, it denies even a minimum of due process to landowners who want to install solar on their property – including farmers who need the income just to hold onto their land. For VACO to insist on counties having carte blanche to reject projects, with no responsibility to justify their decision, is arrogant and an abuse of the local prerogative.

Making the most of what’s already there

Anyone who keeps up with energy news has learned more in the past year about how the grid works than most of us ever wanted to know. There is widespread agreement that grid operator PJM has mismanaged its job, keeping new low-cost generation from interconnecting and driving up utility bills for customers across the region. Unfortunately, there is little that Virginia can do by itself to fix PJM.

But one key bit of information we can use is that utilities and the grid operator build infrastructure to meet the highest levels of demand on the hottest afternoons and coldest nights of the year, leaving much of that infrastructure sitting idle at other times. A recent study showed the grid could absorb far more data center demand than it can now if it weren’t for the 5% of the time when demand is at its highest. 

The issue is framed in terms of data centers being willing to curtail operations at times of peak demand, a solution for the companies that can do it. But there is also a broader point: we don’t need as much new generation if we use what we have better. 

That’s the principle behind several bills that CEUR endorsed. The most significant of these is a bill vetoed by Youngkin last year that almost doubles the targets for short-term energy storage laid out in the Virginia Clean Economy Act and adds targets for long-duration energy storage. As currently drafted, the 2026 version also adds new fire safety standards.

But CEUR did not discuss another obvious approach to increasing storage capacity on the grid: requiring data centers to have storage on-site, replacing highly-polluting diesel generators for at least the first couple of hours of a power outage and using spare battery capacity to assist the grid at other times. If Virginia is going to keep adding data centers at the current rate, this simply has to be part of the plan. We need far more storage than the CEUR bill calls for, and tech companies, not ratepayers, should bear the cost.

CEUR’s utility reform proposals would also help Virginia’s grid get the most out of what we already have. A bill to improve the integrated resource planning process (again, vetoed by Youngkin) requires utilities to consider surplus interconnection service projects to maximize existing transmission capacity. 

CEUR also proposes to have the SCC create a workgroup to study load flexibility. Though the SCC is already doing this through its technical conferences, the proposed legislation would formalize the process and task the work group with making recommendations.

And if all else fails, under another CEUR initiative, utilities would be explicitly allowed to delay service to new customers with more than 90 MW of demand if there wasn’t the generation or transmission available to serve them, or to protect grid reliability. As a fail-safe this is both obvious and inadequate; if a utility doesn’t have that authority now, it certainly needs it — but it needs it for a customer of any size.

Helping low-income residents save money 

CEUR endorsed several proposals that could help residents save money on energy bills. Some, like shared solar, balcony solar, geothermal heat pumps and the distributed solar expansion bill, would benefit anyone willing to make the investment. 

For low-income residents, weatherization and efficiency upgrades remain the focus. Last year the governor vetoed legislation from Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax and Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, which would have required Dominion and APCo to expand their low-income weatherization assistance to reach 30% of qualifying customers.  Sickles has already reintroduced his bill as HB2. CEUR endorsed a different recommendation from staff that the two utilities be required to extend their spending on energy assistance and weatherization programs. 

CEUR did not examine a related bill that has been reintroduced this year following a Youngkin veto last winter, establishing an income-qualified energy efficiency and weatherization task force to produce policy recommendations to ensure repairs and retrofits reach all eligible households. 

However, CEUR endorsed a bill that will require all utilities to disclose to the SCC information about electric utility disconnections, which presumably will inform the work of the task force.  

We’re going to need more

Even taken together, CEUR’s initiatives don’t fully address the biggest energy crunch Virginia has ever faced, and the rising utility bills that result. Possibly that is intentional; Democrats will continue to control the governor’s seat as well as the legislature for at least two years, giving them time to ramp up programs and see what works.

But data center development is so far outstripping supply side solutions that if legislators aren’t more aggressive this year, next year they will find themselves further behind than ever.  

As more bills are filed over the coming weeks, we are likely to see plenty of bold proposals. Hopefully, legislators now understand the urgency, and will be ready to act.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on December 15, 2025. It has been edited to include the last two bills in the section titled “Making the most of what’s already there.”

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Facing data center sprawl and an energy crisis, Virginia legislators leap into action. Nah, just kidding.

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This was supposed to be the year the General Assembly did something about data centers. Two years ago, it crushed the first tentative efforts to regulate construction, choosing instead to goose the pace. Last year it again killed all attempts at regulation, punting in favor of a study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). 

JLARC’s report was released in December to a soundtrack of alarm bells ringing. Unconstrained data center growth is projected to triple electricity demand in Virginia over just the next 15 years, outstripping the state’s ability to build new generation and driving up utility bills for everyone. On top of the energy problem, the industry’s growth is taxing water supplies and spawning billions of dollars’ worth of transmission infrastructure projects needed to serve the industry.

Yet the most popular strategy for addressing the biggest energy crisis ever to face Virginia is to continue the status quo – that is to say, to keep the data center sprawl sprawling. Of the two dozen or so bills introduced this year that would put restrictions on growth, manage its consequences, or impose transparency requirements, barely a handful have survived to the session’s halfway point this week. 

The surviving initiatives address important aspects of local siting, ratepayer protection and energy, though they will face efforts to further weaken them in the second half of the session. Even if the strongest bills pass, though, they will not rein in the industry, provide comprehensive oversight or address serious resource adequacy problems. 

HB1601 from Del. Josh Thomas, D-Gainesville, is the most meaningful bill to address the siting of data centers. It requires site assessments for facilities over 100 MW to examine the sound profile of facilities near residential communities and schools. It also allows localities to require site assessments to examine effects on water and agricultural resources, parks, historic sites or forests. In addition, before approving a rezoning, special exception or special use permit, the locality must require the utility that is serving the facility to describe any new electric generating units, substations and transmission voltage that will be required. Existing sites that are seeking to expand by less than 100 MW are excluded. HB1601 passed the House 57-40, with several Republicans joining all Democrats in favor. 

SB1449 from Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, is similar to HB1601 but does not include the language on electricity and transmission lines. SB1449 passed the Senate 33-6. 

Typically, when the House and the Senate each pass similar but different bills, they each try to make the other chamber’s bill look like theirs, then work out the differences in a conference committee. If that happens here, the House will amend SB1449 to conform it to HB1601 before passing it. The Senate might amend the House bill to match its own. In this case, however, Ebbin’s bill never had the language on electricity and transmission. It’s possible the Senate will recognize that HB1601 is better and pass it as is rather than watering it down to match SB1449; otherwise, the bills will have to go to conference.

Only two ratepayer protection bills passed.  SB960 from Sen. Russet Perry, D-Leesburg, is the better of the two. It requires the SCC to determine if non-data center customers are subsidizing data centers or incurring costs for new infrastructure that is needed only because of data center demand; if so, the SCC is to take steps to eliminate or minimize the cross-subsidy. The bill incorporates a similar measure from Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Westmoreland. It passed the Senate by a healthy 26-13, but leaves the question of why those 13 Republicans voted against a bill designed to protect residential customers from higher rates. 

Over in the House, HB2084 from Del. Irene Shin, D-Herndon, started out similar to Perry’s bill but was weakened in committee to the point that its usefulness is questionable. It now merely requires the SCC to use its existing authority during a regular proceeding sometime in the next couple of years to determine whether Dominion and Appalachian Power are using reasonable customer classifications in setting rates, and if not, whether new classifications are reasonable. It passed the House 61-35. Hopefully the House will see the wisdom of adopting SB960 as the better bill, but again, these could end up going to conference.

The only data center legislation related to energy use to have made it this far is SB1047 from Sen. Danica Roem, D-Manassas. It requires utilities to implement demand-response programs for customers with a power demand of more than 25 MW, which could help relieve grid constraints. It passed the Senate 21-17.

The data center industry and its labor allies were successful in killing all other data center initiatives, including the only bills that dealt with the energy issues head-on. This included legislation that basically called on the industry to live up to its sustainability claims. SB1196, Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville and HB2578, Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, would have conditioned state tax subsidies on data centers meeting conditions for energy efficiency, zero-carbon energy and cleaner back-up generators. Sullivan’s bill also set up pathways for data center developers to meet the energy requirements and work towards cleaner operations.

None of this mattered. Republicans were united in their determination not to put anything in the way of continued data center sprawl, and they were joined by a number of Democrats who were persuaded that requiring corporations to act responsibly threatens construction jobs. HB2578 died in subcommittee, with Democrats Charniele Herring and Alfonso Lopez joining Republicans in voting to table the bill. SB1196 was never even granted a committee hearing. 

Yet the idea of adding conditions to the tax subsidies is not dead. Senator Deeds put in a budget amendment to secure the efficiency requirements that had been in his bill. His amendment takes on a House budget amendment requested by Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, that extends the tax subsidies out to 2050 from their current sunset date of 2035, with no new conditions whatsoever. 

It seems like a reasonable ask for the tech industry to meet some efficiency requirements in exchange for billions of dollars in subsidies and the raiding of Virginia’s water and energy supplies. Indeed, the industry could have had it worse. Senator Stuart had introduced a bill to end the tax subsidies Virginia provides to data centers altogether. Alas, like several other more ambitious bills intended to bring accountability to the data center industry, it failed to even get a hearing in committee.  

Now, maybe Virginia will get lucky – or unlucky, depending on how you look at it – and the data center boom will go bust. The flurry of excitement around China’s bid to provide artificial intelligence at a fraction of the cost of American tech joins other news items about efficiency breakthroughs that could mean the tech industry needs far fewer data centers, using far less energy and water. That would be good for the planet, not to mention Virginia ratepayers, but it would leave a lot of empty buildings, upend local budgets, and strand potentially billions of dollars in new generation and transmission infrastructure. A little preparation and contingency planning would seem to have been the wiser course.  

Failed bills.

Most bills to regulate data centers never made it out of committee, but the problems of data center sprawl and resource consumption will only increase in coming years. In addition to the energy legislation from Senator Deeds and Delegate Sullivan, here are other bills we may see come back again in another form. 

SB1448 from Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Westmoreland, would have required any new resource-intensive facility (defined as drawing more than 100 MW or requiring more than 500,000 gallons of water per day) to get a permit from the Department of Environmental Quality. DEQ is to permit the facility only “upon a finding that such facility will have no material adverse impact on the public health or environment.” The impacts are broadly defined and include transmission lines and cumulative impacts from multiple facilities in the same area. The bill reported from Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources but was then sent to Finance and Appropriations, never to be heard from again. 

A bill from Del. Thomas would have required localities to change their zoning ordinances to designate data centers as industrial uses and to consider changes in how they evaluate data center siting, especially around noise impacts. HB2026 was tabled unanimously in subcommittee. 

HB2712 from Del. Ian Lovejoy, D-Manassas, would have authorized a locality that is weighing a permit application for a data center to consider factors like water use, noise and power usage, and to require the applicant to provide studies and other information. It lost on a bipartisan subcommittee vote. 

Lovejoy’s HB1984 would have required data centers to be located at least one-quarter mile from parks, schools and residential neighborhoods. It was killed on an 8-0 subcommittee vote. 

A third Lovejoy bill, HB2684, would have required Dominion to file a plan with the SCC every two years to address the risk that infrastructure built to serve data centers might become stranded assets that other customers would be left paying for. It was never docketed. 

A bill that did not mention data centers but originated with local fights over the siting of transmission lines needed to serve them was Roem’s SB1049. It would have prohibited new overhead transmission lines unless the SCC determined that putting them underground was not in the public interest. It lost in a 4-11 vote in committee.  

This article (minus the section on failed bills) was published in the Virginia Mercury on February 10, 2025.

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Virginia climate advocates find progress requires more than a Democratic majority

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Virginia's capitol building in Richmond.

Climate advocates felt hopeful last fall when Democrats won control of both the Senate and House with promises to protect the commonwealth’s climate laws, including the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) and the Clean Car Standard. It seemed possible the General Assembly might pass much-needed initiatives modest enough to avoid a veto from a Republican governor.   

Apparently not. Democrats did fend off attacks on the VCEA and Clean Cars, and killed a lot of terrible bills. Through the budget process, they’re trying to require Virginia’s renewed participation in the carbon-cutting Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But Gov. Youngkin won’t even get his shot at most of the priority bills from the environmental community. Of the bills that did pass, most were so watered down as to make their usefulness questionable. A few bills died even when they went unopposed. Some successful bills seem likely to add to Virginia’s energy problems rather than help solve them.

A lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of Dominion Energy, which took a bipartisan drubbing in the 2023 session, but was back this year stronger than ever like a plague that surges when we let our guard down.

But that’s only half the story. As a party, Democrats seemed to have simply lost interest in the fight. Climate change may be an urgent issue in the rest of the world, but in Virginia, a lot of lawmakers seem to think they already checked that box. 

Two steps forward

In the spirit of optimism, let’s start with the positive highlights of the session, though admittedly they were more like flashlight beams than floodlights.

Most consequential for the energy transition is legislation establishing a statewide green bank, a requirement for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for clean energy projects. The House and Senate versions are different and will go to a conference committee. A show of opposition from Republicans in both chambers could attract a veto, but most governors welcome free money.

Similarly, new legislation directs the Department of Energy to identify federal funding available to further the commonwealth’s energy efficiency goals. 

Another encouraging piece of legislation updates and expands on existing energy efficiency requirements for new and renovated public buildings, a category that would now include schools. Provisions for EV charging capabilities, resilience measures, and onsite renewable energy and storage are included. The measure attracted only a couple of Republican votes, so it may be at risk of a veto.

Another change will bring sales of residential rooftop solar within the consumer protections that apply to other contractors. Virginia’s Board for Contractors will be required to issue regulations requiring relevant disclosures.

The net metering law that supports customer-sited solar will now include provisions for the leasing of solar panels and the use of batteries under a measure that is not expected to draw a veto. A solar facility paired with a battery of equal capacity will be exempt from standby charges, and the customer may use the batteries in demand-response and peak-shaving programs. Though none of the bill’s provisions were controversial, Dominion exacted a price in the form of a line directing the SCC to “make all reasonable efforts to ensure that the net energy metering program does not result in unreasonable cost-shifting to nonparticipating electric utility customers.” Our utilities hope this will undermine the current full retail value for net metered solar when the SCC considers the future of net metering in proceedings later this year and next year. 

A bill to require the Board of Education to develop materials for teaching students about climate change passed mainly along party lines. 

Another bill allows, but does not require, local governments to create their own “local environmental impact funds,” to assist residents and businesses with the purchase of energy efficient lawn care and landscaping equipment, home appliances, HVAC equipment, or micro mobility devices (like electric scooters). Almost all Republicans voted against it, so modest as it is, it may draw a veto.

Both chambers have agreed to request the SCC form a work group to consider a program of on-bill financing for customer energy projects such as renewable energy, storage and energy efficiency improvements. The SCC will also be asked to study performance-based regulation and the impact of competitive service providers. Dominion will now also have to assess the usefulness of various grid enhancing technologies in its Integrated Resource Planning at the SCC.

Efficiency advocates had high hopes for a bipartisan measure they dubbed the SAVE Act to strengthen requirements for Dominion and APCo to achieve energy efficiency savings and to make it easier for efficiency programs to pass SCC scrutiny. Unfortunately, the final legislation does almost nothing, with most improvements pushed off to 2029.  

A bill passed that designates each October 4 as Energy Efficiency Day. (I said these were small victories.)

https://virginiamercury.com/2024/01/25/as-youngkin-takes-an-axe-to-the-deep-state-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/embed/#?secret=WWoGYRV68g#?secret=u72DtPLbbq

Finally, in a rejection of one of the more inane initiatives of the governor’s regulation-gutting agenda, both Houses overwhelmingly passed legislation preventing changes to the building code before the next regular code review cycle. I imagine the governor will have to veto the bill, and Republican legislators will then be caught between party loyalty and a duty to govern intelligently, but any way you look at it, eggs are meeting faces.

Two steps back 

Failure to pass a bill might seem to leave matters where they are, with no winners or losers. Inaction in the face of climate change, however, means we lose time we can’t afford to waste.

Inaction can also have devastating consequences in the here and now. Solar projects on public schools and other commercial properties in Dominion Energy’s territory have been delayed or outright canceled for more than a year due to new rules imposed by Dominion in December of 2022 that raised the cost of connecting these projects to the grid exponentially. Legislation promoted by the solar industry and its customers would have divided responsibility for grid upgrades between the customer and the utility, while giving Dominion the ability to recover costs it incurred. Through its lobbyists’ influence on legislators, Dominion killed the bills not for any compelling reason, but because it could. 

Dominion’s obfuscations and half-truths often work magic when the subject is technical. But of all the votes taken this year on energy bills, this one actually shocks me. No one listening to the committee testimony could have misunderstood the significance of the legislation, affecting dozens of school districts and local governments. In desperation, the solar industry offered amendments that (in my opinion) would have given away the store, to no avail.  

A cross-check of votes and campaign contributions shows the legislation failed due to the votes of committee members who happen to accept large campaign contributions from Dominion. This dynamic tanked a number of other climate and energy bills as well, and underlines why utilities must be barred from making campaign contributions.  

Dominion’s influence also killed a priority bill for the environmental community that would have required the SCC to implement the Commonwealth Energy Policy, slimmed down SCC review of efficiency programs to a single test, increased the percentage of RPS program requirements that Dominion must meet from projects of less than 1 megawatt, and increased the percentage of renewable energy projects reserved for third-party developers. Two other bills that were limited to the Commonwealth Energy Policy provision also failed.

Dominion’s opposition was also enough to kill a bill designed to expand EV charging infrastructure statewide, especially in rural areas, in part by protecting gas station owners who install electric vehicle charging from competition by public utilities. Sheetz and other fuel retailers testified that they want to invest in charging infrastructure but won’t take the risk as long as Dominion can install its own chargers nearby. The reason is that using ratepayer money allows a public utility to undercut private business. Other states have dealt with this by prohibiting utilities from getting into the EV charging business. Here, the retailers asked for 12 miles between themselves and any utility-owned chargers. Dominion opposed the bill, and the fuel retailers lost in subcommittee. A second bill that would have created an EV rural infrastructure fund passed the House but could not get funding in the Senate. 

Bills in both the House and Senate would have required most new local government buildings to include renewable energy infrastructure, especially solar. The House bill, though unopposed, was killed by Democrats in Appropriations because a fiscal impact statement erroneously said it might cost something, in spite of bill language exempting situations where the improvements would not be cost-effective. Then the same committee felt tradition-bound to kill the Senate bill when it came over, although that bill carried no fiscal impact concerns and it was by then clear that killing the House bill had been a mistake. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but also of mindless rules.  

Moving along: all of the bills that would have put limits on the ability of localities to bar solar projects in their jurisdictions failed, as did legislation that would have given solar developers essentially a right to appeal an adverse decision to the SCC.

None of the many bills supporting customer choice in electricity purchasing passed. Legislation to allow localities to regulate or ban gas-powered leaf blowers also failed, as did a bill that would have required Dominion and APCo to reveal how they voted in working groups advising grid operator PJM. This bill passed the House but, like so many others, it died in the heavily pro-utility Senate Commerce and Labor committee.

Two steps sideways?

Community solar, known as shared solar in Virginia, staggered a few steps forward, or maybe just sideways. Readers will recall that the Dominion program authorized in 2020 has proven a success only for low-income customers who don’t have to pay the high minimum bill Dominion secured in the SCC proceeding that followed enactment.  

Trying to make the program work for the general public was the goal of legislation that advanced this year but may or may not help. As passed, the compromise language offers an opportunity to expand the program a little bit and to take the argument about the minimum bill back to the SCC with a different set of parameters.  

In addition to modifying the program in Dominion territory, shared solar now has a modest opening in Appalachian Power territory under a similar bill. Again, the final bill offers far less than advocates hoped, and it lacks even the special provisions for low-income subscribers that make the original Dominion program work at all. Like Dominion, APCo fought the bill, though unlike Dominion, APCo’s rate base has been shrinking, so losing customers to alternative suppliers is a more legitimate concern. 

(At least for now. All APCo needs to do to reverse the decline is to lure a couple of data centers from up north. Data centers are such energy hogs that they would swamp any losses from shared solar, and residents of NoVa would be glad to forgo a few. Or for that matter, a few dozen.) 

Other new measures garnered support from many in the environmental community, but don’t really move the needle. One allows geothermal heat pumps, which reduce a building’s energy demand but don’t generate electricity, to qualify under Virginia’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Another allows an old hydroelectric plant to qualify for the RPS, a move that adds no new renewable energy to the grid but means the electric cooperative that gets the electricity from the plant can now sell the renewable energy certificates to Dominion and APCo.

Lying down and rolling over

In the face of the single greatest threat to Virginia’s — and the nation’s — energy security and climate goals, the General Assembly’s leaders chose to do nothing. In fact, doing nothing was their actual game plan for data centers. A quick death was decreed for legislation requiring data centers to meet energy efficiency and renewable energy procurement requirements as a condition of receiving state tax subsidies. Also killed were a bill that sought to protect other ratepayers from bearing the costs of serving data centers, and more than a dozen bills dealing with siting impacts, water resources, noise abatement, undergrounding of transmission lines and other location-specific issues. 

The excuse for inaction is that the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee is undertaking a study to examine the energy and environmental effects of data centers. However, legislators did not impose a concomitant pause in data center development while the study is ongoing. Instead, for at least another year, Virginia’s leaders decreed that there will be no restraints or conditions on the growth of the industry, even as ever more new data center developments are announced and community opposition increases. 

And falling for the boondoggle

Nuclear energy has always had its true believers at the General Assembly, and the prospect of small modular reactors (SMRs) has excited them again. Many of the same legislators who busied themselves killing climate and energy bills this year insist Virginia needs SMRs to address climate change. They are more than happy to let utilities charge ratepayers today for a nuclear plant tomorrow — or rather, ten years from now, or maybe never if things go as badly here as they did in South Carolina, Georgia and Idaho.

More cautious lawmakers say if Dominion or APCo wants to go all in on an unproven and risky technology like small modular reactors, they should shoulder the expense themselves and only then make the case for selling the power to customers. 

Dominion has achieved a terrific success rate with boondoggles over the years. (See, e.g. its coal plant in Wise County, spending on a North Anna 3 reactor that was never built, and the so-called rate freeze, followed by the also-lucrative legislation undoing the rate freeze.) By now you’d think more legislators would have joined Team Skeptic. But as always, utility donations and lobbyists’ promises are the great memory erasers. So once again, the General Assembly voted to allow ratepayer money to be spent on projects that may never come to fruition. 

This year APCo is in on the act as well. Two bills, one for APCo and the other for Dominion, will allow the utilities to charge ratepayers for initial work on nuclear plants of up to 500 MW. The final language of both bills requires SCC oversight and imposes limits on spending. That is, for now.

Will the real climate champions please step forward?

This round-up might leave readers thinking there aren’t many lawmakers in Richmond who take climate change seriously. Fortunately, this is not the case. Close to two dozen legislators introduced bills targeting stronger measures on energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles and utility reform. Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, led the pack both in the sheer number of initiatives he introduced and the tenacity with which he pursued them, but he was not alone. 

A few Republicans also supported good energy legislation, and even, in the case of Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, sponsored priority bills like the SAVE Act. With groups like Energy Right and Conservatives for Clean Energy making the case from a conservative perspective, maybe we will see progress towards a bipartisan climate caucus to build on Virginia’s energy transition. 

If that sounds too optimistic, consider that the alternative right now is the near-total inaction that marked this year’s session; we just don’t have time for that.

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Legislative Scorecard Shows Continued Action on Climate, Environment, and Justice From Lawmakers

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The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club released its 2021 Climate, Energy and Justice Scorecard today, grading state legislators on their votes on key issues during the last General Assembly session. Votes scored include energy policies, climate solutions, voting rights and environmental justice. Sixty-three out of one hundred forty legislators scored an “A.”

The organization’s press release highlights the adoption of the Clean Car Standards as the standout win for the environment. The scorecard also notes progress on other transportation bills, residential building codes, pipelines, plastic waste and energy equity. 

A lot of utility reform bills that Sierra Club supported went down to defeat, and votes against those bills pulled down the grades of several Senate Democrats who sit on the Commerce and Labor Committee. Senators Barker, Saslaw, Lewis and Lucas were especially notable for their alignment with utility interests. 

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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.

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We’re rounding the final curve at the GA. Here’s the status of the energy bills.

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BILLS STILL ALIVE

Don’t let the long list fool you. While the majority of the bills we’ve been following have either passed both chambers or seem well on their way to doing so, some of the most impactful bills are now dead, and others have been amended into meekness. 

The entire category of Utility Reform got emptied out into the dumpster in Senate Commerce and Labor, which also killed Jeff Bourne’s “right to shop” bill that would have opened up the renewable energy market. They are all now found under “Dead and Buried” at the end.

Kaye Kory’s building code bill that would have ensured the Virginia residential code meet the minimum requirements of the national energy efficiency model code has been amended to require that the national code merely be considered. An additional sentence saying essentially “we really mean it” only partially redeems the amendment.

On the other hand, the Clean Cars Standard is alive and well, showing that ambitious bills can succeed when a large enough coalition pushes hard enough (and when Dominion will benefit from higher electricity sales). Even a few Republicans voiced support, though they would not go on record to vote for it. But the EV rebate bill may be in some peril, and it was supposed to be the carrot that brought auto dealers on board. 

As for school buses, stay tuned. 

Renewable energy and storage

HB1925 (Kilgore) establishes, but does not fund, the Virginia Brownfield and Coal Mine Renewable Energy Grant Fund and Program. Passed both the House and Senate unanimously and now goes to the Governor.

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. HB2215 was incorporated into HB1994, which passed the House 93-6 (nay votes from Brewer, Campbell, R.R., Gilbert, LaRock, Poindexter, and Wright) and the Senate 39-0. The bills now go to the Governor.

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. This is a priority bill for renewable energy industry associations. HB2006 passed the House 88-11-1 and Senate 37-1-1 (Amanda Chase was the nay vote). SB1201 passed the Senate 38-0-1 (must have slipped by Chase) and House 91-6-1 (nay votes from Batten, Cole, M.L., Freitas, LaRock, Webert, and Wright. The bills now go to the Governor.

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). Passed the House 99-0 and Senate 39-0. Senate companion bill SB1420 (Edwards) also passed Senate and House unanimously, so this is another done deal. It now goes to the Governor.

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. Passed the House 89-9, reported from Senate Ag. but then referred to Finance for reasons no one can understand. If it doesn’t get hung up there it is likely to pass the full Senate.

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. (Why doesn’t the bill just go ahead and include that authorization? Don’t ask me.) This is another renewable energy industry bill. HB2201 passed the House 71-29 and Senate 34-3-1 (Chase, DeSteph and Reeves were the only holdouts). SB1207 passed the Senate 37-0 and is on its way to the House floor. Another done deal. 

HB2269 (Heretick) provides for increases in the revenue share localities can require for solar projects based on changes in the Consumer Price Index. Passed the House 91-8, passed the Senate 37-1-1 (the sole nay vote came from, yes, Amanda Chase). It now goes to the Governor.

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. Passed the Senate 39-0, still bouncing around House committees but with no opposition.

SB1295 (DeSteph) requires utilities to use Virginia-made or US-made products in constructing renewable energy and storage facilities “if available.” After much criticism it was amended to read that the products must be “reasonably available and competitively priced,” after which the now-happily-pointless bill passed the Senate 37-0-2 and has gone on to be reported from House Commerce and Labor unanimously.

Energy efficiency and buildings

HB1811 (Helmer) adds a preference for energy efficient products in public procurement. Passed the House 55-44 along party lines. Passed the Senate 25-14 but with amendments limiting it to state agencies and softening the language—because, you know, why force localities to save taxpayer money if they would rather waste it? The House then rejected the amendments; the Senate has requested the bill be sent to a conference committee.  

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. Passed House 61-38; passed Senate 26-12-1. It now goes to the Governor.

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. Passed the House 53-45; reported from Senate General Laws with an amendment delaying its effectiveness to 2023 for localities with populations under 100,000; referred to Finance. 

HB2227 (Kory) and SB1224 (Boysko) 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. It turns out the homebuilders who oppose higher efficiency standards have more clout with committee chairs David Bulova in the House and George Barker in the Senate than consumer and environmental advocates do. The Senate bill never even got a hearing in committee. After much negotiation, the amended House bill now merely requires the Housing Board to “consider” adopting amendments “at least as stringent as those contained” in the latest IECC, and must “assess the public health, safety, and welfare benefits” involved, “including potential energy savings and air quality benefits over time compared to the cost of initial construction.” Republicans still wouldn’t vote for it, so it passed the House only on a party-line vote of 55-45. In the Senate, it passed General Laws 8-4 but was then sucked over to Finance on the pretense that it would cost money. Once again, this is either incompetence on someone’s part or a deliberate effort to gum up the process of legislating. I’ll just note that a great many bills incorrectly hauled into Finance are ones opposed by that committee’s senior Republican, Tommy Norment.

Financing

HB1919 (Kory) authorizes a locality to establish a green bank to finance clean energy investments. Fairfax County has requested this authority. Passed the House 55-43 on another party-line vote.  Passed the Senate with a substitute 25-13. The substitute does not appear to me to hurt the bill, but the House will have to agree to it, or go to conference. 

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 3 years, leaving out other plant owners like ODEC. With further amendments, both bills have passed both chambers unanimously and will go to the Governor.

HB1899 (Hudson) and SB1252 (McPike) sunset the coal tax credits, because it is absolutely crazy that Virginia continues to subsidize coal mining while we’ve committed to close coal plants. Amended to give the coal companies one more year of subsidies before the program ends January 1, 2022. HB1899 passed the House 54-45 and the Senate 21-17 (Republican Hanger voting with Democrats); SB1252 passed the Senate 22-17 and House 55-45. It now goes to the Governor.

SB1265 (Deeds) makes it easier for DEQ to inspect and issue stop-work orders during gas pipeline construction. An amendment slightly weakened the bill before it passed the Senate 38-0. It has reported from House Ag. and should now be before the full House.

SB1311 (McClellan) originally required 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. The bill has been amended significantly and the stop-work language removed. It does require pipeline applicants to submit detailed erosion and sediment control plans, and expands the applicability of the requirement to areas with slopes with a grade above 10 percent, a number that is currently 15 percent. Passed the Senate 20-17. In House subcommittee it picked up a new substitute and that was reported out of committee. If that passes the full House it will need to go back to the Senate. I’m told negotiations on the language continue.

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. This turned out to be harder than one would have thought for a bill that was just supposed to help implement a section of a previous year’s bill. With some amendments it passed the House 54-46, the usual party-line split except that Democrat Sam Rasoul joined the Rs. It passed the Senate 20-19 but only with a substitute saying it won’t take effect unless passed again next year. That’s the equivalent of voting it down, except that in this case it gives the bill a chance to go to a conference committee to work out the remaining concerns.  

SB1282 (Morrissey) directs DEQ to conduct a statewide greenhouse gas inventory, to be updated and published every four years. Passed the Senate 22-16. (It picked up one Republican vote: Jill Vogel.) It has reported from House Ag. 13-8 on a party-line vote and now goes to the floor.

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. Amendments make the bill slightly more friendly to biomass and natural gas than the introduced bill had been, but it remains an improvement on existing law. Senator Norment, who opposed last year’s bill as well as this year’s, tried to run out the clock on it by getting it referred to Finance after it was reported from Commerce and Labor, but Finance promptly reported it. It passed the Senate 21-18 (party line) and the House 55-45.

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. Passed the Senate 38-0 and the House 79-20 with a couple of very minor amendments that the Senate agreed to, so this now goes to the Governor.

Utility reform

The reform category was well-populated at halftime, but that was then, and this is two weeks later. In the interim, Senate Commerce and Labor met—first the subcommittee, whose five members expressed great concern about harm to Dominion Energy’s profits and none about ratepayers getting fleeced, then the full committee, which wasn’t much better. All the bills in this committee can now be found in our graveyard section at the end.

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. It picked up minor amendments along the way and easily passed the House and Senate with no dissenting votes (until Delegate Cole voted nay at the end, possibly a recording error). The bill goes now to the Governor.

HB1965 (Bagby) is the Clean Car Standard bill, which would require manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles to Virginia dealers beginning in 2025. To get agreement from the dealers, this bill was “packaged” with HB1979 (rebates for EVs), which dealers wanted to ensure the customers would be there. Passed the House 55-44. Senator Newman made a last-ditch effort to kill the bill through amendments on the Senate floor, which were rejected. Passed the Senate 21-15, with a few Republicans not voting.

HB1979 (Reid) creates a rebate program for new and used electric vehicles. Passed the House 55-45. Senate Finance amended it to require it to be reenacted next year, and that substitute bill passed the Senate 21-17. The different House and Senate versions will go to conference, where advocates hope to get the reenactment clause stricken; if not, the bill is dead.

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 seems to be an empty fund. Passed the House 55-44-1. In the Senate, the bill reported from Finance but ran into trouble on the floor. Reportedly Senator Lucas did away with the bill by “rolling it into” her SB1380 in spite of their dissimilarities. This is not yet reflected in LIS, and the floor vote is being delayed from day to day.

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. Passed the House 76-23, passed the Senate 38-1 (yes, that was Chase dissenting again). Now goes to the Governor.

HJ542 (McQuinn) requests a statewide study of transit equity and modernization. Passed the House 77-19. Senate Finance amended it to change who is to do the study, then agreed to it by a voice vote. 

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. Passed the Senate 22-15, passed the House 57-42; now off to the Governor.

SB1380 (Lucas) authorizes electric utilities to partner with school districts on electric school buses. The utility (read: Dominion) can own the batteries and the charging infrastructure, earning its usual rate of return from ratepayers, and use the batteries for grid services and peak shaving. Passed the Senate 33-4. The House amended the bill to make it better but then voted it down anyway by a vote of 34-53. After that, the House agreed to reconsider the vote and pass it by for the day. . . and the next day, too. Lucas seems to expect to change minds by her power move to eliminate competition from the Keam bill. 

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. Passed the Senate 39-0 and the House 100-0. Goes next to Governor.

DEAD AND BURIED

In numerical order, House bills first

HB1914 (Helmer) changes “shall” to “may” in a number of places, giving the SCC discretion over when to count utility costs against revenues. HB1835 (Subramanyam) was incorporated into this bill. Passed the House 60-39. I had hopes this one might survive in the Senate due to its elegant simplicity, but no. Killed in C&L 8-7, with Saslaw, Lucas, Barker, Lewis and Mason joining Republicans Norment, Newman and Obenshain to PBI (pass by indefinitely). The 7 senators who voted not to kill were Spruill, Edwards, Deeds, Marsden, Ebbin, Surovell and Bell.

HB1934 (Simon) requires local approval for construction of any gas pipeline over 12 inches in diameter in a residential subdivision. Killed in committee.

HB1937 (Rasoul) was this year’s version of the Green New Deal Act. But like last year, it never even got a hearing, in part because it rocked too many boats, and in part because it was a lousy bill.

HB1984 (Hudson) gives the SCC added discretion to determine a utility’s fair rate of return and to order rate increases or decreases accordingly. Passed the House 64-35, killed in Senate C&L 11-4. Only Democrats Edwards, Deeds, Ebbin and Bell voted against the motion to PBI.

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.  Passed the House 67-32, killed in Senate Commerce and Labor due to the obsequiousness of the committee members. 

HB2049 (Bourne) would prevent utilities from using overearnings for new projects instead of issuing refunds. Passed the House 56-44, killed in Senate Commerce and Labor 11-4. Senator Spruill, ordinarily a secure vote for Dominion, joined Deeds, Ebbin and Bell in dissent. 

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

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. Passed the House 62-38, killed in Senate Commerce and Labor 12-3.

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. HB2057 (Ware) was incorporated into this bill, and it passed the House 63-37. Killed in Senate Commerce and Labor. This time Republican Steve Newman joined Deeds, Ebbin and Bell in dissent, though Newman had voted to kill the similar SB1292. 

HB2265 (Freitas) 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; however it also would declare that planning and development of new nuclear generation is in the public interest. Killed in subcommittee.

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. Killed in subcommittee.

HB2292 (Cole) was labeled the fossil fuel moratorium bill but included many other parts of the Green New Deal as well. It suffered the same fate, and for the same reasons. 

SB1292 (McClellan) was the only utility reform bill to begin in the Senate instead of the friendlier House. It would require 100% of utility overearnings to be credited to customers’ bills, instead of 70%, as is the case today. Killed in Senate Commerce and Labor 11-3, with Deeds, Mason and Bell the dissenters.

SB1463 (Cosgrove) would create a loophole to let HOAs to ban solar once again. It turned out even the HOA lobby didn’t like the bill. It was stricken by the patron in committee. 

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Electric school buses would be good for Virginia, but it has to be done right

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Electric Bluebird school bus. Photo by University Railroad via Wikimedia Commons

Transportation electrification is the focus of several bills moving through the General Assembly this winter. Environmental advocates support legislation providing rebates for purchases of electric vehicles and making EVs more readily available, both of which will help develop a market for electric cars. But buses present an even stronger case for electrification because they serve more people of all income levels, and are mostly diesel now. Switching to electric buses, especially school buses, would save money on fuel and improve air quality, especially for children riding them. 

Yet the only electric school bus bill that would have much immediate impact is so deeply flawed and counterproductive that the environmental community is largely united in opposition. SB1380 has passed the Senate and reached the House floor, where it is now encountering headwinds. That opposition contrasts with the broad support offered for HB2118 (Keam), now in Senate Finance, which establishes a public funding mechanism for electric school buses, but unfortunately so far no funds have been appropriated.

I asked Gary Greenwood, the EV Issues Chair for the Sierra Club’s legislative committee, to explain the problems with SB1380 and what amendments it would need to have before Sierra Club could support it. Below is Gary’s response.  

Last week, the House Labor and Commerce committee approved a bill that allows Dominion to deploy an unproven technology, electric school bus batteries used to support the electric grid, and collect the costs from ratepayers.  The bill, SB1380 (Lucas), specifies that these school buses connected to the grid are in the public interest, and therefore ratepayers must pay for them, including the guaranteed profit for the utility. Also of concern is that the bill does not ensure that the buses will always be available when the schools need them for transporting kids.

While vehicle-to-grid technology is not new, it has never been deployed at this scale to support a utility’s electric grid.  SB1380 will allow Dominion to charge ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars for this unproven technology, without a thorough SCC evaluation.

Yes, the environmental community wants to reduce and ultimately eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.  And switching from diesel school buses zero-emission electric school buses is an important part of this effort.  We also know that electric school buses will be much healthier for the children that ride them.  “Do it for the kids” is a great sentiment, but a poor excuse to declare unproven technology in the public interest.  Note that Mothers Out Front, a champion of electric school buses in Virginia, also spoke against this bill.

The environmental community supports battery storage as a key part of the transition to renewable energy, and adding battery storage to the grid is needed for utilities to meet VCEA’s storage targets of 250MW by 2025 and 1200MW by 2030.  However, the vehicle-to-grid technology that enables electric buses to support the electrical grid has not been implemented at this scale.  Dominion has begun a pilot program, but it is in its infancy.  

We don’t believe that the General Assembly should declare the deployment of this technology in the public interest.  Rather, an analysis evaluating the benefits and reliability of using school bus batteries to support the grid should be presented in an SCC filing, comparing the costs of bus batteries to dedicated batteries for grid support.

We do need to convert our school bus fleets to electric buses. SB1380 could move us in the right direction if it is amended to guarantee that the buses are always available for transporting students, and to allow for unfettered SCC oversight of costs.

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The bill list gets longer. How do you choose what to focus on?

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[This post was updated January 22 to include two bills filed just ahead of the deadline. See SB1463 under Renewable Energy, and HB2330 under Climate.]

The 2021 General Session is in full swing, with bills being heard at all hours of the day, every day of the week. We’re now told the session will be extended to 45 days as it normally is in odd years, buying a little time for committees to act before the new “crossover” date of February 6.  

Meanwhile, the list of bills I’ve corralled over the past week has grown to nearly 50. I’ve included the updated list here—scroll down. 

Unless you’re paid to lobby, you may have only a few minutes at a time to contact legislators about the bills you want to see passed (or in some cases, defeated). So how do you set priorities? 

Let me propose three criteria for you to lobby for a bill: 

  1. If enacted, the legislation would achieve progress on the issue you care about, in a way you approve of;
  2. The legislation has a shot at passage; and
  3. Your lobbying could make a difference

Do you like the bill? You might think this one is easy, but I recommend reading the whole bill before you decide to support one, and not just the summary. In my experience, the summaries are often misleading or incomplete. And even if you agree with the apparent goal of a bill, you might conclude the specifics are unwise or could lead to unintended consequences. But don’t dismiss a bill because it doesn’t go far enough or have everything you want. They seldom do.

Can it pass? This largely depends on who is against it, and how much influence they have. It used to be that if the utilities opposed a bill, it would die. Last year we saw a rebellion against that norm, but utilities are still formidable foes—and there are plenty of other powerful interests who can sink a bill.

There is a second reason some bills don’t have a chance: they cost money. If legislation requires public spending and the patron hasn’t got that figured out, the committee that hears the bill is likely to send it to the Appropriations Committee to die.  

Can you make a difference? It’s a waste of your time to lobby for a bill that can’t pass, unless your game plan is to build momentum for future years. On the other end of the scale, sometimes a bill has been negotiated before it is even introduced, or it makes technical amendments that no one opposes; those bills don’t need your help. Focus on the bills where you believe public support matters. (And then get your friends involved, too.) 

Three bills to consider for your priority list. These bills pass all three tests. They would make a difference on climate and they all have a shot, but they need public pressure to win votes.

If you have time to adopt additional bills, you might consider adding one or more of the utility reform measures. I’m also partial to HB1925 to bring renewable energy to the Coalfields, which would pair nicely with HB1899/SB1252, sunsetting the coal tax credits. I could go on, but you’ve heard enough. 

Here is the whole list, updated this morning, and hopefully now comprehensive:

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) 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. [Passed House, now in Senate Commerce & Labor.]

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. [Killed in committee.]

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. [Amended to resolve the reasonable cost issue.]

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

SB1463 (Cosgrove) would reverse the progress made last year in preventing homeowner associations from unreasonably restricting rooftop solar. It would create a loophole to let HOAs ban solar once again. [Withdrawn by patron.]

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. [Passed House with a substitute, now in Senate.]

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 the 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 provides 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. [Killed in subcommittee.]

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% 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

Clean Virginia developed a full slate of bills, each a little different, that all restore SCC oversight over utilities and/or benefit customers with refunds. 

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. 

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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.

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What part of ‘zero’ doesn’t Dominion understand?

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Photo courtesy os the Sierra Club.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on May 1. Instead of charting the electric utility’s pathway to zero carbon emissions, it announced its intent to hang on to all its gas plants, and even add to the number. In doing so, it revealed a company so thoroughly wedded to fracked gas that it would rather flout Virginia law and risk its own future than do the hard work of transforming itself.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act may be new, but Dominion can hardly claim to be surprised by the commonwealth’s move away from fossil fuels. Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order last September set a statewide target of zero carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2050. “Challenge accepted,” said a Dominion spokesman at the time, and in February of this year the company claimed it was embracing a 2050 net-zero-carbon goal company-wide. A month later, passage of the Clean Economy Act moved the deadline up to 2045 for Dominion, keeping it at 2050 for utilities that lack Dominion’s head start of 30 percent nuclear power.

Dominion’s IRP, however, does not accept the challenge to get off fossil fuels. It rejects the challenge, directing a giant middle finger at the governor and the General Assembly. Dominion’s “preferred” plan keeps the utility’s existing fracked gas generating plants — currently 40 percent of its electric generation — operating through 2045. The IRP acknowledges this violates the law, so it argues against the law.

The IRP posits that if Dominion stops burning gas in Virginia, it will instead simply buy electricity from out of state, some of which will be generated by gas, and this will cost more money without reducing carbon emissions at the regional level. Better, then, to keep burning gas in Virginia.

It gets worse. The IRP actually proposes increasing the number of gas combustion turbines in Dominion’s fleet. The VCEA imposes a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel plants, so Dominion’s timetable has these gas peaker plants coming online in 2023 and 2024. The justification is vague; the IRP cites “probable” reliability problems related to adding a lot of solar, but it offers no analysis to back this up, much less any discussion of non-gas alternatives.

Dominion’s flat-out refusal to abandon gas by 2045 poisons the rest of the document. The IRP is supposed to show a utility’s plans over a 15-year period, in this case up to 2035. And for those years, the IRP includes the elements of the VCEA that make money for Dominion: the build-out of solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects. It also includes money-saving retirements of outmoded coal, oil and biomass plants, as the VCEA requires. Heck, it even includes plans to close a coal plant the VCEA would allow to stay open in spite of its poor economic outlook (the Clover plant, half-owned by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.)

But the IRP proposes no energy efficiency measures beyond those mandated by the VCEA between now and 2025. Dominion hates energy efficiency; it reduces demand, which is bad for business. So the company has made no effort to think deeply about how energy efficiency and other demand-side measures can support a zero-carbon grid — or, for that matter, how customer-owned solar can be made a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

This isn’t surprising: a plan that contemplates keeping gas plants around indefinitely looks very different, even in the first 15 years, from a plan that closes them all within 10 years after that.

A company that really accepted the challenge of creating a zero-carbon energy supply would not just get creative in its own planning; it would look beyond generating and supplying electricity, at the larger universe of solutions. It would advocate for buildings constructed to need much less energy, including for heating and cooling, to lessen the seasonal peaks in energy demand.

It would want the state to embrace strong efficiency standards. It would press its corporate and institutional customers to upgrade their facilities and operations to save energy, especially at times of peak demand. It would partner with communities to create microgrids. It would invest in innovation.

In short, it would ask “How can we achieve our fossil-free goal?” instead of asking “How can we keep burning gas?”

It’s not hard to understand why Dominion clings to gas; its parent company is fighting desperately to keep the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project alive in the face of spiraling costs (now up to $8 billion), an increasingly uphill battle at the State Corporation Commission to stick utility ratepayers with the costs of a redundant gas supply contract and a dearth of other customers anywhere along the route.

What is really hard to understand, though, is why Dominion chose to be quite so transparent in its disdain for the VCEA. Senator Jennifer McClellan and Delegate Rip Sullivan, both Democrats, who introduced the law and negotiated its terms with Dominion lobbyists and other stakeholders through many long days and nights, reacted to the IRP with entirely predictable outrage. In a statement they responded:

“The VCEA requires Virginia utilities to step up to the plate and be active leaders in carbon reduction. Dominion Energy’s IRP is tantamount to quitting the game before the first pitch is thrown. The law sets clear benchmarks for Virginia to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2045, not for utilities to plan to import carbon-polluting energy from West Virginia or Kentucky.”

Senator McClellan, it might be pointed out, could be on her way to becoming Virginia’s next governor. Most companies would hesitate to offend a leader of her stature, as well as such a prominent Democratic leader as Delegate Sullivan.

A growing number of legislators also seem interested in ending Dominion’s monopoly and bringing retail choice to Virginia. Though the bill that would have done that didn’t make it out of committee this year, the high-handed tone of the IRP will push more legislators into the anti-monopoly camp.

Arrogance and complacency seem like dangerous traits in times like these, but that’s Dominion for you. It will rise to any challenge, as long as the challenge doesn’t require anything the company didn’t already want to do.

A version of this article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on May 14, 2020.

Want a better understanding of how this year’s legislation works? I’m presenting the ins and outs of over a dozen bills in these three webinars:

  • What to expect when you’re expecting an energy transition, May 14, 2020 (recording available here)
  • New solar opportunities for homeowners, businesses and nonprofits, May 21, 2020, 5:30 p.m., register here
  • New tools for local governments to cut carbon, May 28, 2020, 5:30 p.m., register here