Updated Bill Tracker

Throughout the General Assembly session, VCN maintains an updated conservation bill tracker online. The bill tracker is updated every Friday after VCN’s Board of Directors votes on positions recommended by VCN’s Legislative Committee.

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Top Three

#1: Budget Amendments — The money subcommittees are tasked with making decisions about which budget amendments to support. Their recommendations will be announced on Sunday, February 18th. This means that now is the time to contact members on these subcommittee and urge them to include adequate funding for critical conservation programs. After decisions on the budget amendments are made, conferees will be appointed to hammer out the differences in the House and Senate budgets. For a great rundown on priority land and water budget amendments, check out this action alert page by Piedmont Environmental Council.

Call members of the House Finance Committee and Senate Finance Committee and ask that they fully fund Virginia’s conservation programs.

#2: Coal Tax Credits — The coal tax credits expired on January 1, 2018. Since its creation over 25 years ago, Virginia has given over $637 million in tax breaks to corporations and other business entities in the coal industry. These coal tax credits are not only incredibly outdated as we work to transition to clean energy, they are also not actually fulfilling their intended purpose of slowing the deadline of coal production. In a recent study from the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission (JLARC) of tax preferences, JLARC found that Virginia’s coal tax credits do not effectively promote coal production and employment in Virginia, despite their large fiscal impact.

Two bills to extend the coal tax credits were introduced this year — HB665 and SB378. Senators voted 29-11 to pass SB378 on the Senate Floor on Monday. This vote is a veto-proof majority. HB665 also passed the House Commerce and Labor Committee on Wednesday with a 14-8 vote.

Call your delegate and urge him/her to VOTE NO on HB665.

#3: Coal Ash — Senator Surovell’s suite of coal ash bills that we highlighted in the past few weeks are now down to one bill, SB807. This bill was amended and rolled together with Senator Chase’s SB378. Highlights of this compromise bill language include:
No coal ash ponds can be issued closure permits until July 1, 2019.
Owners of coal ash ponds in the Chesapeake Bay watershed must issue a request for proposals by July 1, 2018 to determine the quantity of coal ash that may be suitable for recycling, the cost of recycling such coal ash, and the potential market demand for material recycled from coal ash.
After receiving the request for proposals, the owners must provide an assessment of the information provided to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Commerce and Labor Committees, the Governor, the Department of Environmental Quality, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Call your senator and urge him/her to VOTE YES on SB807.

Week Five Legislative Update

Crossover is next Tuesday, February 13th. This means that all bills still alive on the House side cross over to the Senate side, and all bills still alive on the Senate side cross over to the House side. There are a few bills and issues that we’re carefully following as we near this important moment in the legislative session.

Dominion’s Rate Freeze — The bills that came out of Governor Northam’s moderated stakeholder working group have been finalized. The Senate bill passed its first, second, and third readings on the Senate Floor, which means it will head to the House. The House bill was just reported out of Commerce and Labor yesterday — it is now headed to the House Floor. You may have seen the news coverage of these bills. As written, the bills come with some significant investments for energy efficiency, in addition to some problematic issues related to the rate structure. Some of the top lines of these bills include:

Clean Energy / Energy Efficiency

  • Requires Dominion and Appalachian Power to commit to significant funding of energy efficiency programs ($1 billion over 10 years from Dominion and about $140 million from Appalachian Power).
  • Effectively kills the RIM test, which is one of the tools the SCC has used in the past to kill efficiency programs. Now, if a program passes any three of the four cost effectiveness tests (of which the RIM test is one), then the SCC must approve the program.
  • Declares 5,000 MWs of solar and wind to be in the public interest.
  • Creates an energy storage pilot program.
  • Creates incentives for Dominion to invest in upgrading the electric grid in a way that better enables distributed generation, storage, and energy efficiency.

Refunds / Rate Structure

  • Allows the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to order refunds and rate reductions in every rate case. Currently, rate reductions cannot happen unless a utility has two rate cases in a row where funds were ordered.
  • Refunds $200 million to customers to compensate for the over-earnings that Dominion kept in 2015 and 2016 under the rate freeze (many groups in the community have been calling on the SCC to provide a full audit to determine the refund).
  • Includes 2017 over-earnings in the next rate review case (under the rate freeze, the SCC would never have reviewed 2017 earnings).
  • Allows Dominion to cancel out any refunds by investing in certain types of capital projects while still allowing Dominion to charge customers the full amount of those investments going forward, even though they have already kept the refund money. This refers to the “double dip” analogy that some may have heard of.
  • Severely limits the SCC’s ability to spread certain types of large expenses out over time, which allows Dominion — and not the SCC — to determine whether over-earnings (and therefore refunds and rate cuts) will ever happen. This is an expansion of the North Anna 3 write off legislation from a few years ago.
  • Forces the SCC to approve a massive expenditure on under-grounding power lines, which the SCC has twice rejected in the past as not cost-effective.

Fracking — Senator Surovell’s SB951, which would have banned fracking in the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area, was amended to be a moratorium. This bill died last night in the Senate Finance Committee with an 8-8 vote. This was a bipartisan vote. Please contact the following Senators to thank them for voting yes:

  • Senator Howell — (804) 698-7532 | district32@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Saslaw — (804) 698-7535 | district35@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Lucas — (804) 698-7518 | district18@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator McDougle — (804) 698-7504 | district04@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Vogel — (804) 698-7527 | district27@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Barker — (804) 698-7539 | district39@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Stuart — (804) 698-7528 | district28@senate.virginia.gov
  • Senator Dance — (804) 698-7516 | district16@senate.virginia.gov