It’s “halftime” at Virginia’s General Assembly! We have reached crossover as of February 4th – the day that bills introduced and passed in one chamber of the General Assembly “cross over” to be voted on by the other.

No new bills will be introduced or considered now that we have reached crossover. Instead, the state House and Senate will consider only legislation that has successfully passed the opposite chamber. While we are heartened to see many of our priorities successfully making it through, this does mean that the list of bills that are still “alive” has whittled down slightly and we can refocus our advocacy efforts on those that remain to kill bad bills and uplift good conservation policy.

VCN has taken a position to support, oppose, or remain neutral on 147 bills this session and has internally monitored 385 bills – an unprecedented amount for a short session!

After crossover, our list of bills narrows as bills get left in their chamber of origin. This leaves the conservation community with  62 bills to focus on supporting through the rest of the session, and only 2 opposed bills still remain to be defeated or amended this session.

For a full list of bills that the Virginia Conservation Network has taken a position on, please visit our Bill Tracker.

Virginia’s General Assembly is in a (super) “short” session this year that will last for 45 days, although the first five days were missed due to the water crisis in Richmond and the start of session. Legislators introduced a total of 2489 bills this session. Of these bills, VCN voted to support 110 bills and oppose 35 bills. Note: This chart does not include bills for which we have moved our position to “neutral.”

Now that we’ve reached crossover, our list of remaining conservation bills has been whittled down. Of the remaining 64 bills VCN took a position on, a majority deal with energy legislation. See our Bill of the Day updates to learn more about the conservation community’s legislative priorities this session.

Now that we’ve reached crossover, your advocacy is crucial to get pro-conservation bills across the finish line, or defeat bills that would harm Virginia’s environment. See our General Assembly Advocacy 101 Guide to see actions you can to support/oppose bills or how to contact your legislator to discuss pro-conservation policy.