Last night Governor Kaine held the 9th of 10 town hall meetings in Ashburn, Virginia. The meetings have been designed for the Governor to travel around the state to so he can speak highly of himself and the positive legislation that was passed in the General Assembly in 2008. But, as is rapidly becoming the case everywhere he goes, the Governor spent much of his time answering and dodging questions about Dominion’s controversial Wise County coal plant. Mr. Kaine has become very adept at juking the hard questions and deflecting criticism about his continued support of coal, in spite of the fact that it is becoming increasingly clear that a majority of Virginians want a clean energy leader, not another coal company stooge.

‘Protesters’ (e.g. me in a blazer, and Allison from GWIPL) greeted the Governor as he walked in, asking him to “please stop the Wise County Plant.” The governor deftly breezed past me like I was a chocolate eclair and he was on a diet. But, walking the gauntlet into the building was the easy part of Kaine’s night.

After the Governor rambled for thirty minutes about being an “optimist,” the questions about the controversial coal plant started.

Kayti Wingfield asked the Governor to be a ‘leader like Kansas Governor Sebelius’ who has stopped multiple coal plants and seen her national recognition and popularity rise as a result. The Governor respectfully declined.

John Koontz of Leesburg, a clean energy businessman, told the Governor that he frequently had to travel Maryland, Deleware and Pennsylvania to do business and asked the Governor to help make Virginia more hospitable to renewable energy. Once again, the Governor respectfully declined, stating his ‘belief’ that one day we will magically get a large portion of our energy from renewables.

One of the final questions of the night came from a man that asked the Governor, “why do we avoid free and non-polluting sources of energy [like wind and solar], and rush to polluting sources like coal that destroy our air and kill our children?” To which the Governor replied that renewable energy is not reliable enough to meet our needs — children be damned!

So what can we take away from this meeting? Has the Governor wavered in his support of Dominion’s controversial coal plant? No, not really. His talking points tonight were the same as the have been when we called into his radio shows and infiltrated his other Town Hall Meetings. His talking points include:

• Coal is getting cleaner, and this plant will be very clean [but will not capture carbon and will still spew NOx, SOx and Mercury]
• I don’t envision a no coal future for Virginia or the Nation, but coal should comprise less of our energy portfolio [and the quickest way to increase renewable energy production and reduce reliance on coal is to build another coal burning plant?]
• You didn’t say anything when I approved this plant in 2006, my hands are tied [no one said anything about the abusive driver fees when it was passed either…]
• The SCC and Air Pollution Control Board/DEQ have authority over this permit, I couldn’t do anything even if I wanted to [1. like you have no influence in this state, give me a break! 2. we aren’t asking you to overstep your bounds, we are simply asking you to not publicly support this controversial plant]

So those are his stock responses, and he is really good at taking your question and fitting it into one of those answer. I challenege you, the people of Virginia, to ask him a question that he can’t give you one of those answers to. It a brain puzzler up there with the Rubicks cube.

Send Kaine an email or call him at 804-786 2211