ROUNDUP: Virginia Energy Plan
Governor Youngkin released the 2022 Virginia Energy Plan. The Virginia Energy Plan is updated every 4 years to identify actions to take over the next ten years to achieve a net-zero carbon energy economy by 2045.
Virginia Conservation Network and our partners called on the Governor to use this plan to continue to map out Virginia’s clean energy future and meet our goal to be carbon-free by 2050. Instead, Youngkin’s plan seeks to undermine the Virginia Clean Economy Act, repeal our Clean Car Standards, and invest in unproven technologies. The Virginia Clean Economy Act sets a plan to reach a carbon-free grid by 2050. Clean Car Standards provides Virginians with more opportunities to buy an electric vehicle.
Staying on the path to carbon-free energy
Virginia’s communities are facing more climate change, rising fossil fuel prices, and increasingly severe weather resulting in increased flooding throughout the state. Now is the time to build upon our climate policy – not roll it back.
“The facts are clear: The Virginia Clean Economy Act will increase the use of more affordable clean energy and lead to a decrease in the cost of energy bills for the average Virginia family by $30.” – Senator Jennifer McClellan
A Clean Energy Plan Without Clean Energy
Infrastructure for solar and wind already exists and is expected to receive a boost from the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act.
Data and experience show that a reliable electricity system based on renewable energy sources is entirely possible. Factoring in exponential technological improvements in energy management, energy storage, and federal investments, a carbon-free grid by Virginia’s 2050 deadline is not only a possible reality, but a necessary reality.
To meet our mandated goal of 100% clean energy by 2050, Virginia needs continued investments in carbon-free technologies such as wind, solar, efficiency, and batteries. Youngkin is instead choosing to use this plan to boost fossil fuels and unproven technologies.
See the Our Common Agenda policy paper, Realizing Virginia’s Clean Energy Transformation, to learn more about the Virginia Economy Act, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and how Virginians can transition to a clean and affordable energy grid.
Response from the Conservation Community
Virginia’s conservation leaders remarked on the Governor’s Energy Plan. Please check back as we continue to gather VCN partner statements.
Last updated October 5th, 2022.
Appalachian Voices
Peter Anderson, Virginia Policy Director
“Appalachian Voices has long advocated for bipartisan reforms to our electric utility regulation model that will work better for customers, as Virginia pursues a clean, affordable, and reliable energy system. However, now is the time to raise — not lower — our clean energy ambitions.” (Read more)
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Mike Tidwell, Director
“As hurricanes bash the U.S. east and wildfires torch the west, Governor Youngkin’s new energy plan for Virginia fails to meet the challenge of cleaning our air and solving the climate crisis. His ‘all-of-the-above’ approach would have been fine in 1950 but has no place in the year 2022. Methane gas is not ‘clean’ and nuclear power is fantastically expensive and will not protect consumers or the environment. Instead of embracing false solutions like gas and nuclear, the Governor should be embracing and implementing the Virginia Clean Economy Act and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – policies already on the books and benefiting Virginians. Instead, he calls for review and changes to these fully functioning and successful policies. The people of Virginia want serious solutions, not games, when it comes to energy. They want low-cost wind and solar and the electric vehicles Detroit is all-in on manufacturing. Glen Youngkin should catch up to modern Virginia and leave 1900s Virginia behind.”
Clean Virginia
Brennan Gilmore, Director
“After years of inaction in which Virginia’s utilities actively denied climate change while promoting fossil fuels and blocking clean energy solutions, Virginia has leaped forward during the past few years with the passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, the Clean Cars Act, and membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Collectively, this legislation has put the Commonwealth on a path to a future free of harmful emissions. While the Governor’s plan rightly sounds the alarm about unsustainable energy costs for Virginian families, the transition to clean energy is not the culprit. Clean Virginia will, along with our partners, defend the progress Virginia has made towards a clean energy future.” (Read more)
SELC
Trip Pollard, Land & Community Program
“The misguided call to repeal Clean Cars standards would scrap the biggest step Virginia has taken to address the largest source of climate pollution,” said Trip Pollard, leader of SELC’s Land & Community Program. “The plan doubles down on the misinformation campaign the administration is mounting against Clean Cars and would hit the snooze button on transportation electrification.” (Read more)
Virginia Interfaith Power & Light
Rev. Dr. Faith Harris, Executive Director
“Access to affordable and reliable energy for the future needs of Virginia requires practical solutions that take the realities of climate change seriously. This reality is mostly missing from this energy plan. Reducing carbon emissions is critical to preventing future catastrophic changes in our climate. It should be the central focus of any responsible energy plan. Like every other state, Virginia has a moral and global responsibility to transition as quickly as possible from burning fossil fuels for our energy production. Slowing down the retirement of coal and natural gas plants and removing Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is the wrong direction for Virginians who want our state to do its part in combating climate change. While we agree that technology is still developing, we should not use this time to double down on fossil fuels. Instead, we need a forward-looking plan that centralizes renewables, providing incentives for their development.”
Virginia League of Conservation Voters
Michael Town, Executive Director
“In his legislatively mandated roadmap to what is supposed to be our clean energy future, Governor Youngkin has instead given up by generating a plan with big handouts to the fossil fuel industry and that does little to accomplish even his own stated goals. This ‘all-of-the-above’ energy plan is really just a thinly veiled attempt to obstruct our transition to a clean energy economy and roll back the climate action policies that are securing cleaner air for Virginia while creating jobs and investment in our state. We firmly oppose any weakening or wholesale repeal efforts targeting the clean energy and climate action policies we fought so hard to secure, and we will work with our champions in the Senate to block this Administration every step of the way as they work to undermine our progress.”