Congratulations to Our 2026 Virginia Climate All-Stars Award Winners
Real progress on climate depends on leaders who are prepared to challenge the industries standing in the way. At a time when powerful corporations continue to profit from pollution, CCAN Action Fund’s 2026 Climate All-Stars Awards recognize the state lawmakers who have stepped forward to protect their communities and build a cleaner, fairer future.
These honorees have done more than cast key votes. They have used their voices, influence, and leadership to advance affordable clean energy, safeguard public health, curb climate pollution, and ensure major polluters are held responsible.
House of Delegates Winners
Our House MVP this year is Majority Leader Charniele Herring, a very deserving lawmaker who took on two huge priorities. For the last several years, we’ve seen carbon emissions go up. We’ve had serious difficulty putting steel in the ground to build the cheap, local clean energy infrastructure we need to decarbonize. We rejoined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the programs it funds to do amazing, necessary work.
“I’m really honored by this [award]. It was an honor to pass RGGI the first time and talk about the benefits of not only lowering our carbon emissions, which we did by 22%, helping low-income households, and having flood mitigation, which is so important. To be illegally taken out of RGGI was really horrible. I’m glad that the courts realized that the power lies with the people in the legislature, the people, the Virginia voters who elected us and wanted RGGI in place.”
Delegate Betsy Carr is beyond a local legend here in Richmond, a strong voice for the environment on the budget conference committee, and a co-patron of many of our top priorities this year.
Delegate Rae Cousins is the patron for the Extreme Weather Taxpayer Relief Act, which assigns the costs of climate change to the companies responsible. A policy very popular with people and less popular with certain trade groups for some reason. My Delegate, Delegate Rae Cousins.
Delegate Elizabeth Guzman is a lawmaker who has been clear-eyed about the impacts of the data center industry since day one; someone who is an advocate not just for a clean energy future but a just clean energy future where people are prioritized over corporate profit and are given equal opportunity to prosper.
Delegate Rip Sullivan is always thinking ahead about what is needed to take the next big step forward for climate, and he’s just an excellent patron. He really put in the work this year to make the storage expansion act the strongest it could be.
Virginia Senate Winners
Our Senate MVP this year was Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg. He has answered the call to bring more clean energy of all scales online quickly – both rooftop and utility-scale and everything in between. He’s also well known to be an excellent patron who is going to put in the time to deeply understand the issue and really work the bill with his colleagues. His dedication to expanding clean energy in Virginia earned him our Senate MVP award two years in a row.
“I went into this session not knowing what to think, and I carried seven energy bills this year, and we passed six of them. It was utility-scale. It was distributed. It was maximizing the grid. We have surplus interconnection, and we’ve got so much momentum for this stuff that we gotta keep our foot on the gas, and we gotta keep going. Because there is so much more we can do, and it’s really good to have momentum.”
Senator Creigh Deeds takes on major priorities, such as clean energy standards for data centers. We are so grateful for his leadership and to have him at the helm of Commerce and Labor. We are hoping for at least five more years in that position!
Senator Mamie Locke couldn’t attend the ceremony, but she was recognized for her work on RGGI and for being the Senate patron of the energy efficiency task force. Senator Locke is a long-serving lawmaker and traveled the state to hear from people on data center impacts.
Senator Kannan Srinivasan couldn’t attend the ceremony, but he was recognized for leading the pack on one of our top priorities: establishing state oversight over the interconnection of large new loads that have statewide impacts.
Photo: Senator Srinivasan at 2025 Climate All-Star Awards
Senator Russet Perry couldn’t attend the ceremony, but she was recognized for pushing to ensure costs created by data centers are borne by data centers. Senator Perry was the patron or a co-patron on all three priority Senate data center bills for CCAN, oversight, cost allocation, and clean energy standards.
About the author: Victoria Higgins is the Virginia Director for CCAN Action Fund. Her career in environmental advocacy began with Green Corps, a rigorous training program for environmental organizers.
She worked on campaigns with Mighty Earth, Conservation Colorado, and Environment Virginia to hold corporate polluters accountable, pass state climate policy, and limit plastic pollution in Virginia’s waterways.
She received a Master of Science in Energy Policy and Climate at Johns Hopkins University.
