Round Hill, VA, Feb. 5, 2026. The Thomas Jefferson Institute announced the following two appointments today: Ali Ahmad, Senior Visiting Fellow A lifelong Virginian and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Ali is a Senior Managing Director at PLUS Communications, located in Richmond, Virginia. He brings more than 20 years...
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...
Governor Abigail Spanberger campaigned on a promise to sign “paid family and medical leave” when it reaches her desk. But popular vote-getting concepts often ignore the damaging impact such policies have once they are implemented. Virginia’s proposed paid family and medical leave program (SB2)/(HB1207) is a case study in how...
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...
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....
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...
For Immediate Release By the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy Date: January 17, 2026 Today, the Thomas Jefferson Institute congratulates Governor Abigail Spanberger on her historic inauguration as the 75th governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia — and the first woman in the nearly 250-year history of the Commonwealth...
“Affordability” has become the most powerful word in modern politics – and nowhere more than here in Virginia. Candidates promised “affordable housing,” “affordable health care,” “affordable energy,” and “affordable child care,” often without defining what affordability means or acknowledging the tradeoffs required to achieve it. Now in office, the progressives in the General Assembly...
Governor Glenn Youngkin’s final State of the Commonwealth address last night offered more than a farewell, it served as an empirical rebuttal to the claim that conservative, pro-growth governance, like those supported by the Thomas Jefferson Institute, cannot deliver tangible results. By every meaningful metric — jobs, investment, education outcomes,...
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...
