This story was reported and written by Radio IQ.
As Southwest Virginia begins to move from response to recovery mode in the wake of Helene, elected officials are looking at what to do next to address the damage.
We still don’t know how costly Helene will be. FEMA and the state have been pouring resources into the area, but long-term repair will be time consuming and costly. And at least one Virginia legislator thinks now’s as good a time as any to blame the storm on climate change and adjust state policy to reflect future climate-related issues.
“We could do a lot more to prevent these types of disasters if we invested money in advance to help these communities to prepare for the coming effects of Climate change,” Fairfax Senator and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell told Radio IQ. He said programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, were an option to help buttress the state from future natural disasters.
Virginia received about $830 million from the multi-state compact before Governor Glenn Youngkin pulled the state out. Pretty much all of it has already been spent or is allocated towards resilience projects and green energy improvements that stretch from Norfolk to Tazewell.
It's also been dipped in to support flood recovery. Back in 2021, after the Hurley flood destroyed dozens of homes in Southwest Virginia, over $10 million was allotted from RGGI proceeds by the legislature.
But at over $4 every electricity bill, the governor called it an unfair tax.
Lynchburg Senator Mark Peake agrees. He also doubts the impact of a warming climate.
“We’ve had floods for a long, long time, going back to the beginning of time, and Noah and his ark,” he told Radio IQ. “Scientists say all kinds of things.”
Peake pointed to floods in Southwest Virginia in the past, including one in the 1980s that led to moving the town of Grundy to higher ground.
“RGGI was one of the biggest mistakes Democrats ever made,” he said. And even if climate change was real, Peake argued, the impact made by the U.S. in the face of international inaction would be too costly.
“West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina, who are our biggest competitors for business, they're not members of RGGI," he said, suggesting the cost was “penalizing Virginia, making us uncompetitive, or less competitive with our neighboring states.”
Still, Peake thinks there will be an ask for support for the region.
"We should look at some of the excess revenue and get it down to the places that were hard hit," he said, pointing to recent, positive financial reports out of the capitol.
Youngkin floated the idea of asking for RGGI funds to aid recovery when asked about the issue Wednesday. About $40 million remained from the program at the start of the year.
But Democrats have the majority in both chambers, and if there is a financial need from SWVA, Charlottesville Senator Creigh Deeds said everything is on the table, including a return to RGGI, as negotiations unfold.
“We need to discuss things, but RGGI just gives us more flexibility and helps us prepare for the future,” he told Radio IQ. “You can’t be afraid to upset people to get things done.”
But Peake said he hoped to not make Helene’s recovery a political issue.
“Anytime our citizens' lives have been disrupted, we need to look at it on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “It would be very crass when we’ve got people in SWVA without homes, to tie some California-type RGGI program to taking care of our citizens.”
Any legislative action couldn’t happen until legislators return to Richmond. A special session could be called before the January 2025 session, an idea Peake is open to.
Surovell said he had no comment about a special session before the new year. But in a text message, Democratic House Speaker Don Scott said, “all options are on the table on how we best support and rebuild areas affected by Helene.”
“There will be a time for politics, but right now we’re focused on how we can best support Virginians affected by this horrible disaster,” he added.
