Virginia

Glenn Youngkin withdraws Virginia from California's electric vehicle mandate

Published

3 weeks ago

June 5, 2024

Glenn Youngkin withdraws Virginia from California's electric vehicle mandate

On Wednesday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, announced that at the end of the year, the state would no longer comply with California’s electric vehicle (E.V.) mandate.

“The idea that government should tell people what kind of car they can or can’t purchase is fundamentally wrong,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Virginians deserve the freedom to choose which vehicles best fit the needs of their families and businesses. The law is clear, and I am proud to announce Virginians will no longer be forced to live under this out-of-touch policy.”

California first adopted its Advanced Clean Cars (ACC) standard in 2012. The rules required automakers to gradually increase sales of zero-emission vehicles as a percent of total sales in California, culminating in an 8-percent share in 2025. Plug-in hybrids, which use both electric and gas-powered motors, counted for partial credit toward the total.

The Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 1965 in 2021, which directed the State Air Pollution Control Board to adopt low-emission and zero-emission vehicle standards equivalent to California’s. The bill was signed into law by then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, whose support helped guarantee the bill’s passage. Virginia is among 18 states and the District of Columbia that have adopted some or all of California’s regulations.

But the following year, California adopted Advanced Clear Cars II, which greatly expanded the requirements of the original standard. Under the new rules, the zero-emission requirement would jump from 8 percent of automaker’s sales for model year 2025 all the way to 35 percent in 2026, increasing each year until 100 percent of all new vehicles sold for model year 2035 must be electric.

The following day, Youngkin and the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates indicated their intent to repeal H.B. 1965 and uncouple the state from California’s rules, but the Democrat-controlled state Senate squashed their efforts the following year. In the 2023 elections, Democrats regained control of the House of Delegates while keeping control of the Senate, and the state Senate once again defeated efforts to repeal the law in January 2024.

Ultimately, California’s more aggressive rules provided the legal justification for Virginia’s withdrawal. Youngkin’s press release claims that H.B. 1965 merely authorized the state to follow Advanced Clean Cars I, the rules in place at the time that went through 2025. “An opinion from Attorney General Jason Miyares confirms the law, as written, does not require Virginia to follow ACC II,” the press release continues. “Therefore, the Commonwealth will follow federal emissions standards on January 1, 2025.”

“We are alarmed that Governor Youngkin thinks that he is above the law,” Nicole Vaughan, communications director for the Virginia Conservation Network, tells Reason in a statement. “Legislation passed in 2021 directs Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board to adopt Advanced Clean Cars and subsequent updates to the program. In doing so, Virginia exercised an option under the federal Clean Air Act to follow the more stringent standards adopted by California and several other states to address tailpipe pollution.”

“Virginia’s legislature chose to adopt Clean Car Standards in order to increase consumers’ access to electric vehicles, improve our air quality, and save lives,” Wyatt Gordon, senior policy manager for land use and transportation at the Virginia Conservation Network, told Reason in a statement. “To unilaterally pull our Commonwealth out of these shared standards is undemocratic, short-sighted, and wrong for Virginia.”

The federal standards, released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March, are less stringent than California’s but still anticipate that by 2035, more than 70 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. would be all-electric or hybrids. Even this is a daunting prospect, as E.V.s currently account for only 6.5 percent of all vehicles sold in the U.S.

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Virginia

Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program

Published

5 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program

RICHMOND — Virginia’s House of Delegates voted unanimously Friday to repeal restrictions recently imposed on a college tuition program for military families, but Senate leaders do not intend to take the bill up when that chamber meets Monday, saying they want to limit any repeal to one year.

The House, Senate and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) all agreed to a state budget in May that included language to rein in the fast-growing program, which waives tuition and fees at public colleges and universities for the spouses and children of veterans who were disabled or killed in the line of duty.

Created in 1930 to aid the families of World War I veterans, the program has expanded over the years to include out-of-state residents, graduate students and relatives of service members with non-combat-related injuries. The price tag has risen exponentially in recent years, from $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year. Universities have borne the cost or passed it to other students.

Amid warnings that the program was unsustainable, legislators and Youngkin agreed to new restrictions, which require participants to tap federal aid, such as Pell Grants, before accessing the state program, and limit eligibility to Virginia residents pursuing undergraduate degrees.

They also require military families to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which uses a formula to calculate how much families can afford to pay for higher education. The wealthiest participants would pay a portion of the “expected family contribution,” expected to be capped at about $3,750 a year.

Current participants were grandfathered in, as was anyone who applied to college before May 15 under the budget language, which also provides $20 million to colleges and universities to offset waiver costs.

Those changes drew swift and vocal pushback from military families, leading Youngkin and the Democrats who lead the House and Senate to promise fixes. But they have not been on the same page about just what to do.

Youngkin and the House have favored fully repealing the restrictions until the issue can be studied, while Senate leaders have leaned toward more limited tinkering.

The House gathered for about an hour Friday to pass a bill to repeal the changes and provide $20 million a year for the next two fiscal years to cover some of the cost.

“It’s often been said if you find yourself in a hole you don’t want to be in, stop digging. Mr. Speaker, today I’m glad that we stopped digging,” Del. Mike A. Cherry (R-Colonial Heights) said on the floor ahead of the vote, praising Democratic and Republican leaders who’d pledged to “not weaponize” the issue.

But Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said that the measure will not move forward in the Senate, which on Monday will meet for a second time to try to advance its own fix.

“It will not be considered,” he said.

Senate leaders are backing a new bill to postpone the restrictions until July 1, 2025, provide $65 million over the next 12 months to cover the cost, and require the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission to review the program and make recommendations by Sept. 1.

“We’re willing to repeal the new restrictions for one year … and use the surplus to take the burden off other students who are currently funding the program,” Surovell said.

House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said he was confident the two sides will eventually work out their differences.

“Regardless of what happens on Monday, we’re very, very close in concept,” Scott said. “I think everybody recognizes that the way the program is designed now, it can’t go on like that. But we want to make sure that we get it right.”

Scott said he would support means-testing and other restrictions once the issue has been fully studied.

“I’m a disabled veteran as well. I can afford to pay for my daughter’s tuition,” he said. “So I think we need to do some means-testing. We need to get some residency requirements. I think we need to take a look at it and see what’s doable.”

The Senate initially met June 18, when Democratic leaders hoped to pass a bill to lift the Pell Grant and FAFSA requirements for relatives of veterans killed in the line of duty or disabled in combat, but not those with non-combat disabilities. They met for more than five hours that day but did not advance the legislation.

Youngkin praised the House’s action Friday and leaned on the Senate to fall in line with that plan.

“Our veterans, first responders, and their families have spoken, and we have heard them,” he said in a written statement. “Now it is time for the Senate to pass the bill on Monday, so I can sign it immediately. … If the Senate Democrat Leadership does not support a repeal of the language, they are holding our veterans, first responders, and their families, hostage.”

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Virginia

Data centers transformed Northern Virginia’s economy, but residents are wary of more expansion

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Data centers transformed Northern Virginia’s economy, but residents are wary of more expansion

Julie and Chris Borneman signed petitions, wrote to their local officials, put a sign in front of their house, and joined a campaign against putting the power line through their property.

The recent expansion of data centers and associated power infrastructure is unprecedented, according to Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, a local environmental nonprofit. She has worked at the nonprofit for 15 years.

“Prior to 2021 I had only worked on two or three transmission line proposals … Within the last three years, I’ve been a participant in stakeholder meetings for at least a dozen transmission line proposals,” Bolthouse said. “We’ve never seen this many transmission lines at once.”

The Piedmont Environmental Council has been keeping track of all these data centers and associated power infrastructure.

Bolthouse said the power company and state regulator have been approving many of these projects, but there is not enough public information about how much energy the data centers use, and their impact on air and water quality.

“We need transparency so that we can proactively plan ahead,” said Bolthouse. “Right now, what we’re doing is basically like our utility is handing out blank checks that we, the rate payers, are on the hook for paying for.”

To that, Aaron Ruby, spokesperson for Dominion Energy, the largest utility in Virginia, said, “as a public utility we are the most heavily regulated industry in Virginia.”

He said the state regulator reviews the energy costs to make sure everyone is paying their fair share, and the share of energy costs that households pay for has gone down, whereas the share for data centers has gone up.

He also added that Dominion Energy expects the power demand from data centers to nearly quadruple over the next 15 years.

The demand for power has never gone up by so much, so quickly.

Some of the electricity will come from natural gas plants, but Ruby said most of that will be from renewable energy like wind and solar power.

In a statement, Amazon pointed out that their company has been the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for four years, and that 90 percent of the energy the company uses comes from renewable sources.

Local officials say data centers saved their economy during the Great Recession of 2007. Buddy Rizer helped bring data centers to Loudoun County in northern Virginia, as the executive director for economic development for the county for the past 17 years.

He said they brought in data centers because during 2007, the local economy took a big hit when the housing bubble burst. The county lost a third of its tax revenue.

“Data centers have such an inordinate return on investment for a community that there’s nothing else that comes close,” Rizer said. “As an example: for every dollar a data center uses in services in our community. We get $26 back. There’s nothing that comes within $24 of that.”

He said the revenue from data centers helped transform their local economy, so they could invest in their schools and roads. He added that the tax revenue from data centers is almost a third of the county’s budget, and completely funds their operating budget.

But Rizer has also heard the concerns about how quickly the industry is growing in their area.

“When you’re in any job 17 years, in your community, you become your job … especially a fairly public facing job like mine,” Rizer said. “I have a lot of conversations at the grocery store or when I’m filling my car with gas.”

He expects the demand for data centers to continue to grow.

Rizer said cloud computing led to a big wave of data centers, then it was the demand for online services during COVID-19. Now, the big driver of growth is artificial intelligence.

He said data centers actually do not have a lot more room to grow in Loudoun County anymore. The more recent proposals for new data centers have been in the surrounding counties, Maryland, states like Kansas and Mississippi, or other countries, like China, India, Japan, and Malaysia.

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Virginia

Online predator may have abused additional victims in Virginia

Published

19 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Online predator may have abused additional victims in Virginia

Police in northern Virginia are warning parents about predators on popular social media platforms. This comes after a Fairfax County man was arrested for attempting to meet up with a child. FOX 5’s Nana-Sentuo Bonsu is in McLean with the latest.

Posted June 27, 2024 11:23pm EDT

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