On Friday, after nearly a week of hearings that involved thousands of pages of filings from parties ranging from Attorney General Mark Herring’s office to the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Virginia regulators began deliberations about whether Appalachian Power should be able to raise its electric rates to increase its...
Last winter, during the fight to pass the Virginia Clean Economy Act, Dominion Energy lobbyists went out of their way to save the company’s youngest coal plant in Wise County.It worked. Legislators exempted the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center from closure until 2045, when Dominion has to shutter...
The Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board voted Thursday to expand public notification requirements for applications to construct or make major changes to certain fossil fuel plants or natural gas compressor stations.The regulatory changes were the product of legislation sponsored by Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, during the 2020 regular...
The Virginia Senate passed legislation Wednesday that will require all utilities except those controlled by municipal authorities to offer 12-month payment plans to residential customers who have been unable to pay their bills due to the COVID-19 pandemic.The measure passed 24-12, garnering support from four Republicans. All Democrats except...
Virginia's State Corporation Commission agreed to extend an existing moratorium on utility disconnections until Oct. 5.But regulators warned it would be the last time they granted an extension on the shutoff ban, which has already been renewed twice since the SCC first imposed it on March 16 — just...
With no clear end in sight to the Virginia General Assembly’s ongoing special session, Gov. Ralph Northam is again asking the State Corporation Commission to extend an existing moratorium on utility disconnections.The current ban is set to expire on Wednesday. But in a letter sent earlier this week, Northam...
By Beth Kreydatus, Golden Carter, Emily Satterwhite and Kim Williams
National news has been brutal and relentless lately.
Reasonable people might question whether we can actually fix any of our problems when so much of our collective energy has been sucked into division and vitriol. But there are good reasons to...
Virginia’s coal tax credits, some of the state’s largest economic incentives, “generate negligible economic benefits” and “no longer appear relevant” in a world where natural gas is rapidly displacing coal, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission told legislators Monday morning ahead of the release of a new report...
Crystal Spindel Gaston was reaching into the rear door of her Prius outside her house when she felt an excruciating pain in her right leg.“It felt exactly like a scorching-hot knife passing through the outside of my calf,” said Gaston, 55, of New Kent County. “Before I looked down...
Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit in federal district court today against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accusing the agency of violating the Clean Water Act by failing to enforce Chesapeake Bay pollution reduction limits for upstream states Pennsylvania and New York. “With today’s lawsuit we are taking...
