Virginia lawmakers are quickly moving through this year’s General Assembly session.
Tuesday marked “crossover” day, meaning all bills that made it through the House of Delegates are now sent to the Senate, and vice versa.
Dozens of proposed bills impact the future of the Commonwealth’s climate, environment and energy policy. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) look at where they stand.
PASSED ONE CHAMBER
Electric vehicles: An Electric Vehicle Rural Infrastructure Program and Fund to help private developers build more EV charging stations in rural areas.
Energy efficiency: An Income Qualified Energy Efficiency and Weatherization Task Force to look at ways to coordinate energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households.
Fusion: Adding nuclear fusion to Virginia’s list of carbon-free energy sources. A Massachusetts-based company recently announced it plans to build the world’s first fusion power plant in Chesterfield County.
Geothermal energy: Allowing utilities to use geothermal energy – heat generated from underground reservoirs — to meet renewable energy requirements.
Solar energy:
- Allowing local governments to require solar panel canopies over large commercial parking lots.
- A distribution cost-sharing program to help solar facilities connect to the electric grid more efficiently.
- A pilot program for “virtual power plants,” which would let utilities pay customers for access to their home energy resources. These mini-plants would combine the power of home solar panels, heat pumps, electric cars and water heaters to send excess energy onto the grid.
- Incentivizing building solar infrastructure on or adjacent to public schools.
Data centers:
Lawmakers have expressed concerns about the explosion of data centers in Virginia, which use massive amounts of energy projected to overwhelm the state energy supply in the coming decades. Approved proposals include:
- Requiring localities, before approving rezoning or permits for data centers, to examine the facility’s potential impacts on sound nuisance, water resources, parks, historic sites and farmland.
- Directing the State Corporation Commission to investigate whether typical Virginia ratepayers are unfairly subsidizing the costs of electricity for data centers.
- Allowing large commercial and industrial energy customers like data centers to contract directly with utilities for renewable energy and battery storage.
Offshore wind: An Offshore Wind Industry Workforce Program to support workforce training related to offshore wind development at colleges and training centers.
Environmental justice: Requiring local governments to consider adopting an environmental justice strategy in their comprehensive plans.
Forever chemicals: Requiring the state to do quarterly monitoring of PFAS in public wastewater systems. PFAS are a class of manmade toxic chemicals that were commonly used in consumer and industrial products in previous decades and can impact people’s health and the environment.
Electric utilities:
- Requiring Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power to prioritize local economic development and workforce opportunities in renewable energy projects.
- Expanding requirements for utilities to build energy storage capacity.
- Changing the way utilities make their long-term plans, called integrated resource plans, including expanding public engagement and mandating that officials consider technologies that better support the future electric grid.
- Improving electrical transmission infrastructure by requiring “advanced conductor” technologies.
Health and the environment
- Encouraging local governments to consider social determinants of health when planning policy related to public health and health care services. Social determinants of health are considered the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, work and play – all of which can affect their health outcomes.
- Requiring state health officials to protect employees from heat illness, a condition that is expected to become common as climate change fuels more instances of extreme heat.
Flood funding:
- Directing the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to study the methodology for allocating state money to local governments for federal Coastal Storm Risk Management projects, which include Norfolk’s floodwall and similar efforts underway in Virginia Beach and the Peninsula.
- Allowing state and federally recognized tribes to access grants and loans through the Community Flood Preparedness Fund.
- Re-establishing a state group that recommends strategies for reducing Virginia’s flood risk. The Joint Subcommittee on Recurrent Flooding sunset in 2023.
Invasive species:
- Removing the current one-fish daily catch limit for blue catfish in specific tidal waters, such as the James and York rivers, to cut back on the invasive species while also benefiting anglers.
- Requiring plant sellers to post signs identifying invasive species and encouraging alternatives.
Wetland restoration: A wetland restoration and creation policy task force to protect existing wetlands and address expected losses from climate change.
Trees: Expanding the ability of local governments to require builders to protect or replace trees during development.
Waste: Directing the state to study possible “modernization” of the current litter tax to better promote recycling and reducing landfill waste.
FAILED
- A bill that would have boosted real estate disclosure laws on flood risk.
- An attempt by Republicans to repeal state regulations passed by Democrats several years ago that require cutting carbon emissions.
- The latest attempt by environmental and recreational fishing groups to get the state to fund a study of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay. The groups are at odds with the menhaden fishing industry over whether the crucial fish is suffering in the local ecosystem.
- Creating a Virginia Energy Facility Review Board meant to streamline solar and interconnection projects by reviewing proposals at the state level. The bill faced pushback from local governments that want to retain control over approval of solar farms.
- A study of microplastics in Virginia’s public drinking water.
- A grant program to protect wildlife when building infrastructure.
- Requirements for data centers to use a certain percentage of clean energy in order to get tax exemptions, and publicly report their energy and water usage.
