The Virginia General Assembly Passed Nine Bills to Increase Electricity Costs
The 2026 Virginia General Assembly has passed at least nine separate new laws that will increase the cost of your electricity. Not one of the bills creates a single megawatt of additional energy for our use. Most of the bills create new ways for the utilities to take money from all their ratepayers and spend it […]
First They Came for the Data Centers, But Will It Stop There?
Building Virginia into the leader of the data center industry for the United States and the world has been a bipartisan goal of several recent governors and General Assemblies. The golden egg laying goose they nurtured is now in danger of being butchered. What is happening to this one industry during the 2026 General Assembly […]
House and Senate Budgets Propose No Major Tax or Spending Increases
The Senate and House of Delegates’ financial committees met on Sunday to approve competing sets of amendments to the next Virginia budget, neither proposing any general tax increases. The Senate version included modest tax reform: a small taxpayer rebate for this year and an increase in the income tax standard deduction. The Senate, however, allows […]
Your Electricity Bill is the General Assembly’s New Favorite Piggy Bank
Key energy legislation poised to pass the 2026 General Assembly will increase your future electricity bills, not lower them. They will worsen price increases already caused by the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which passed the last time Virginia was under one party control. As the Assembly crosses its first deadline, with each chamber now able to […]
Legislators Not Curious About Cost, Safety or Efficiency As Massive Battery Mandate Rushes Toward Approval
Today, a Senate committee is scheduled to take up the bill directing Virginia’s two investor-owned utilities to propose huge battery installations that will cover square miles of ground, cost ratepayers billions of dollars, and produce zero energy to power our homes and businesses. The bill has Governor Abigail Spanberger’s endorsement. So far, legislators have been in a “see, […]
Governor Spanberger, Winter Storm Fern Showed Us Wind and Solar Are Inadequate
Governor Abigail Spanberger’s major campaign pledges to lower electricity bills have already been crushed by the harsh reality of last week’s Winter Storm Fern. Virginians everywhere are about to see their highest energy bills ever, and the energy sources Spanberger wants us to adopt were all but useless during the crisis. Day after day, if you checked […]
Revenue-Hungry Democrats Give Themselves a Buffet of Tax Increase Choices for 2026
Governor Abigail Spanberger so far is no more clear on her tax and spending priorities than Candidate Spanberger was, but her fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are laying out a smorgasbord of tax increase options for her. Would she like a major “tax the rich” approach? Start with Delegate Vivian Watt’s House Bill 979, pending in […]
A “Free” Heat Pump Conversion for Oil and Propane Customers, Paid for by Virginia Ratepayers
A free heat pump for thousands of Virginians who are now using oil or propane to heat their homes, paid for by Virginia’s general population of electricity ratepayers. That is the goal of legislation that passed its first hurdle in a House of Delegate subcommittee Tuesday on a bipartisan vote. House Bill 2 is the same as legislation vetoed last year by former Governor Glenn Youngkin (R). The language linked is a substitute adopted […]
Proposed Commission Would Expand Beyond Electricity to Oversee All Forms of Energy in Virginia
A legislative commission created in 2008 to oversee one narrow function of two electric utilities is about to expand its scope of oversight of all forms of energy in Virginia, including nuclear, coal, and natural gas. It will be the legislative counterpart – and counterweight – to the politically independent State Corporation Commission. The bill to […]
The VCEA Renewable Certificate Mandate Reduces Energy Affordability
A key, but poorly understood, provision of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is a requirement that Virginia’s two largest electric utilities must either generate or purchase a growing number of renewable energy certificates (RECs). Eventually their RECs must equal 100% of their non-nuclear generation. What are RECs and why do they matter to you? Put simply, […]