Category: Blog

First I want to offer my sincere CONGRATULATIONS to my colleagues and neighbors working in Maryland. Maryland is clearly leading the way and setting the example for what other states can be doing in the absence of federal climate legislation.

I’d like however to focus on Virginia, which by stark contrast is anything but a leader on this issue. As many may be aware, the Virginia General Assembly reconvened for it’s one day veto session last week. The only real way to sum up the results of that one day session is with one word… disappointing.

We had a real opportunity to move Virginia towards the a clean energy future that is already available and affordable, it just needed a little legislative help. Some of you may have followed me on twitter last week giving the play by play of what went down and I decided to sit and think on it over the weekend before voicing my complete disappointment in our elected officials.

There are some champions to be highlighted and thanked before I go on:

Senator Donald McEachin- introduced a comprehensive piece of legislation on energy efficiency that would have saved consumers money on the electricity bills in the long run and created 10,000 plus jobs for the commonwealth and contained a strong mandatory target. (SB 1447)

Senator Mark Herring- introduced key components of the above bill (a mandatory 19% Efficiency goal for utilities) (SB 1440)

Delegate Albert Pollard- introduced a bill that would give utilities the same rate of return for investments in efficiency that they currently see for investments in coal. This bill passed and is an important step towards a clean energy economy but it is just the first step.

Senator Chap Petersen- introduced bills with strong targets on efficiency. Senator Petersen was also a vocal champion for moving Virginia forward and embracing a clean energy future.

Governor Tim Kaine- yeah that’s right, Governor Kaine endorsed legislation that contained mandatory efficiency targets at the beginning of the session and amended the weakened bills that came out of the session to include a 19% efficiency target.

These are the five BIG thank yous I feel I have to give before moving on to lastweek’s veto session.

Unfortunately, none of the legislation was able to make it out of the General Assembly with a mandatory efficiency standard. Utilities, like Dominion were able to make that a scary idea, because according to them it’s impossible to control the behavior of rate payers, despite the fact that mandatory efficiency measures have been successful in other states like California and Vermont (note that Vermont is a mostly rural state with mountains). But Governor Kaine stepped in and amended the legislation that passed to include a 19% target. This is far from where we started at the beginning of the session but still would have been a step forward, and would have put us a better place to start next legislative session. In my eyes this was the least we could do this session and claim victory.

Well, we couldn’t do that.

We were unable to pass a voluntary efficiency standard! It passed in the Senate with a close vote but I will briefly thank the senators that voted for the amendment. Barker, Colgan, Deeds, Edwards, Herring, Houck, Howell, Locke, Lucas, Marsh, McEachin, Miller, J.C., Miller, Y.B., Northam, Petersen, Puckett, Puller, Reynolds, Saslaw, Ticer, Vogel, and Whipple all voted in support of the goal so thank you!

Then we went to the House. Delegate Pollard stood up and endorsed the Governor’s amendments to SB 1248 and was immediately countered by Delegate Hogan. Delegate Hogan that made false accusations in regards to the target, the most egregious being that Virginia already has a voluntary efficiency standard of 12% that we are not meeting so why set the bar higher. This is utterly absurd but stood uncontested. Virginia does not have a voluntary energy efficiency standard of any kind! We do however have a voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) of 12% but this is COMPLETELY different! I was shocked that no one contested this. He also threatened that efficiency is going to raise rates for consumers period. No mention of the fact that our current course will also raise rates and in fact will raise rates far more than efficiency. Delegate Pollard brought that issue up, but Hogan’s damage was done. The votes fluctuated a bit but ultimately the Gov’s amendments were defeated by 3 votes. 47-50 with 3 people abstaining. I’ve heard a lot of discussion that the ultimate demise was the result of a partisan battle in the House that was beyond our control. I find that hard to accept when I examined the vote count. There were Republicans voting for the amendments as well as Democrats voting against. Maybe it was a case of partisan politics I’ll list the vote count below and you can decide. The one thing I ask is if your Delegate voted against this simple amendment please give them a call and voice your disappointment that we were enable to push our cheapest fuel source here in Virignia…. Energy Efficiency.

It’s great that we got close, but we’ve certainly got our work cut out for us in Virginia next session.

The House Vote Count:

YEAS–Alexander, Amundson, Armstrong, Athey, BaCote, Barlow, Bouchard, Brink, Bulova, Caputo, Dance, Ebbin, Eisenberg, Englin, Frederick, Hall, Herring, Howell, A.T., Hull, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Marsden, Marshall, R.G., Mathieson, McClellan, McQuinn, Melvin, Miller, P.J., Morrissey, Nichols, Plum, Poisson, Pollard, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Shannon, Shuler, Sickles, Spruill, Toscano, Tyler, Valentine, Vanderhye, Ward, Ware, O., Watts–47.

NAYS–Abbitt, Albo, Bell, Bowling, Byron, Carrico, Cline, Cole, Cosgrove, Cox, Crockett-Stark, Fralin, Gilbert, Griffith, Hamilton, Hargrove, Hogan, Hugo, Iaquinto, Ingram, Janis, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Kilgore, Knight, Landes, Lohr, Loupassi, Massie, May, Merricks, Miller, J.H., Morgan, Nixon, Nutter, O’Bannon, Oder, Orrock, Peace, Phillips, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Saxman, Sherwood, Ware, R.L., Wright, Mr. Speaker–50.

ABSTENTIONS–0.

NOT VOTING–Gear, Marshall, D.W., Tata–3.