When the smoke clears on the November elections and Virginia has a new governor and a different House of Delegates, energy policy will still head the list of crucial issues. It is in the state’s best interest to highlight those issues during what’s left of the campaign season and force candidates to state their intentions.
Virginia is a net energy importer, approving electricity-sucking data centers faster than it can put up power plants and power lines to serve them. The power plants that our major utilities are directed to build by state law are mostly vast solar farms, plagued by low operational reliability, while the more reliable hydrocarbon generation is still scheduled by law to disappear. The threat of shortages is growing.
If recent history is the guide, a solution to the demand-supply disconnect will be difficult because of the revenue produced by the data center industry and the public appetite for our digital economy. The same history indicates a Democratic victory in November will leave solar and wind as the preferred (basically mandatory) generation choices, with a nod toward more nuclear power at some point. A mandate for huge spending on batteries will probably resurface, but they do not power anything unless charged first by a real generator.
Dominion Energy Virginia is seeking a green light from the regulatory State Corporation Commission to build new natural gas-fired generation, with both problems in mind. The SCC is in the final stages of evaluating a 15-year integrated resource plan (IRP) for the utility that includes several new gas plants in the next few years, but opponents of using hydrocarbons have argued the utility has failed to prove that gas is the only choice.
The final round of written arguments following the long public hearing weigh heavily against the utility’s plan, with most case participants arguing it should now be rejected. Even Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares told the SCC his office merely had “no objection” to the IRP, hardly a ringing endorsement. Should the SCC decide Dominion did not make the case for gas, the utility’s corresponding application to build the first such plant in Chesterfield County will face a higher hurdle.
Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears has expressed support for allowing the use of hydrocarbon fuels and Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger has not. But in the case of Spanberger, the question hasn’t been posed directly. In her most recent extended interview on energy the discussion was about how to expand solar power in Virginia.
Another key energy issue facing the next governor is Virginia’s membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI. RGGI imposes a carbon tax on utilities that extracted $828 million during the three years the state belonged, 2021-2023, mostly paid by customers. Earle-Sears has said she supported leaving RGGI and Spanberger has stated support for getting back in, but in both cases the comments were made last year. There has been no recent discussion.
Further complicating Virginia’s path forward is the continuing disruption of just about every related federal policy.
Congress and President Donald Trump are close to passing an omnibus tax and policy bill that will eliminate the generous tax subsidies granted to most wind and solar projects, at least for the next wave of projects and beyond. If that passes, ratepayers will begin to see the full cost of those projects on their bills. That rightly terrifies advocates for wind and solar. Consumer cost projections in multiple cases pending at the SCC will change.
Congress has passed legislation, headed to President Trump and then likely to court, to override California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards. Those are the standards Democrat Governor Ralph Northam also imposed on Virginia’s automobile sales, but which expired in Virginia when it failed to update its regulations to match revisions made by California. Under the new California standards, sales of gasoline and diesel vehicles are heading for a ban.
The congressional action could save Virginia’s 2025 candidates from being forced to take a position on the question of returning to the California vehicle compact. Having left Congress, Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger didn’t have to record a vote on the recent resolution. Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, did vote to maintain California’s plan and to leave the door open for Virginia to reverse course and impose a similar ban by 2035.
President Trump’s Executive Order on offshore wind projects is still in force and presumably will prevent the approval of any of projects not yet through the regulatory pipeline. Dominion Energy Virginia has two future wind projects in its plans, and insists they are years off and will not be under Trump’s purview, but there is great uncertainly around them anyway. The entire industry is also facing performance and financial problems, and Trump’s tariffs are increasing the component costs. Losing tax benefits could be the final blow.
Trump did briefly use the executive order to stop construction on a fully approved wind project off the coast of New York. He then reversed that order and construction is starting after all. Well-publicized efforts to get the Trump Administration to stop Dominion’s first $10.5 billion wind project, the 176 turbines off Virginia Beach also well into construction, have been met with silence. One can now assume it will be completed without interference.
In its final year, the Biden Administration finalized a new set of Environmental Protection Agency rules to restrict or eliminate the use of hydrocarbon fuels in electricity generation. There has been a target on those, as well, since Trump took office, but his EPA is still working internally toward revising or repealing them. Recent reports indicate when a new proposal is published, it may basically stop treating carbon dioxide as something that needs to be regulated at all.
Perhaps the problem is there is too much to talk about, too many moving parts to frame a message to a distracted electorate with a short attention span. If nothing else, at least force candidates to state whether they would amend or repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act and whether they would support returning natural gas to the list of electricity choices allowed.
Steve Haner is a Senior Fellow for Environment and Energy Policy. He can be reached at [email protected].