On July 8, as rush hour clogged the roads of Alexandria, a slow-moving southbound storm caused a deluge of rain to fall over the city.And fall. And fall. And fall.All throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, precipitation and flood records were shattered.By the end of a single hour, 3.44...
After a slow start, the General Assembly is beginning to take up energy bills.The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on Monday signed off on a set of updates to the Commonwealth Energy Policy, as well as proposals to classify nuclear energy as clean energy and develop a strategic plan...
Virginia farmers last year saw big bumps in cotton thanks to favorable weather, but soybeans and tobacco suffered as a result of the China-U.S. trade war.The commonwealth produced 22 percent more cotton in 2019 than it did in 2018, according to numbers released by the Virginia Department of Agriculture...
Virginia Beach Del. Barry Knight’s milk bill cleared its first hurdle Wednesday afternoon when the House Agriculture Subcommittee voted 7-1 to pass it on for consideration to the larger Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee.The measure, which defines milk as “the lacteal secretion, practically free of colostrum, obtained by...
Gov. Ralph Northam is weighing legal action against Pennsylvania over its Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, which falls short of the state's commitments to reduce pollutants that make it into the bay.On Jan. 8, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced he was directing his state’s attorney general to pursue an action...
By Karla LoebLast month, a broad coalition of clean energy companies including energy efficiency providers, rooftop solar installers and utility scale renewable energy developers joined with leading environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers to unveil the key pillars that will make up the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a bill that...
The rich may get richer and the poor poorer, as the saying goes, but in a world increasingly altered by climate change, the poor may also be getting hotter — especially if they’re people of color.So finds a study released Monday in Climate journal by Science Museum of Virginia...
Appalachian banana. Hillybilly mango. Quaker delight. Call the pawpaw by any name you like, but if one House of Delegates member has her way, make sure you also call it Virginia’s state fruit.Native to Virginia and growing mainly in forests, pawpaws have been enjoying an unexpected moment in the sun....
CHRISTIANSBURG — Activist and self-identified “raging granny” Glenna “Duff” Benjamin traveled to Montgomery County in September to lock herself to a sideboom pipelayer and block construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for five hours.On Monday, she returned to face the consequences of her act of non-violent civil disobedience. The...
Climate and energy activists have been pinning their hopes on the 2020 legislative session to produce a framework for transitioning our economy to 100 percent carbon-free energy.After years of talking big but delivering little in the way of carbon reductions and clean energy, the General Assembly is under...
