On Saturday, the Virginia state legislature concluded its business. For the last six weeks, members like you have helped us get climate priorities over the finish line – often with bipartisan support. As you know, the Trump administration has effectively declared a War on Climate. That makes our work at the state level more important than ever.

Thanks for sticking with us. Read on to learn about your accomplishments in Virginia this year!

Climate Wins

Clean energy

• Community Energy Act: Led by Senator Hashmi (SB1100) and Delegate Hernandez (HB2346), this bill creates a pilot program for utilities to coordinate many different distributed generation (DG) resources to help meet peaks in energy demand on very hot or very cold days. Robust programs can obviate the need for gas peaking resources.
• The DG Expansion Act: Led by Delegate Callsen (HB1883) and Senator VanValkenburg (SB1040), this bill significantly increases our DG goals, as well as tripling state goals for building solar on previously developed land.
• Senator Bagby and Delegate Sullivan passed important bills (SB1394 and HB2537) to increase energy storage goals, including both short- and long-duration energy storage.

Electric vehicles

After three years of advocacy from members like you, the Rural Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Program and Fund from Delegate Sullivan (HB1791) – and initially introduced in the Senate by Senator Aird – is headed to the Governor’s desk with funding in the budget. The program will help fill the gaps in “charging deserts” so that no one gets left behind in the transition to EVs.

Clean energy jobs

• Clean Energy Apprenticeship Act: introduced by Senator Rouse (SB853) and Delegate Mundon-King (HB2356), this bill ensures workers are paid the prevailing wage while bolstering apprenticeships in the clean energy industry.
• The Offshore Wind Energy Workforce Program (HB1616) from Delegate Feggans will direct Virginia’s Department of Energy to develop training resources to boost our offshore wind industry workforce.

Energy efficiency

Often, lower-income communities pay disproportionately more for electricity. Lifting more Virginians out of poverty means investing in energy efficiency, simultaneously lowering bills and reducing pollution. Senator Locke and Delegate Levere-Bolling passed bills (SB777 and HB1935) to set up a state taskforce dedicated to identifying existing programs and resources for low-income energy efficiency and proposing policy solutions to fill in gaps.

More Work To Do

As you know, it often takes more than one year to pass the policies we know we need to meet this moment. Below, you’ll learn about what bills will take more work to get over the finish line.

Solar siting reform

Large-scale solar is an integral part of the clean energy transition. Every solar farm we build in Virginia directly displaces fossil fuels in the electricity mix. That’s why we are gravely disappointed that progress was not made on this issue this year.

The state considered several measures to address solar bans and give localities tools to plan for a clean energy future, but none of them were able to make it over the finish line.

• SB1190 from Senator Deeds and HB2126 from Delegate Sullivan would have kicked off regional planning processes to meet our clean energy needs, provided technical assistance to localities reviewing applications, and created a state Board to issue advisory opinions about proposed projects.
• HB2438 from Delegate Mundon-King and SB1114 from Senator VanValkenburg would have standardized local ordinances, which are policies that dictate what kinds of solar projects can be proposed in a locality.

To be clear, there was a lot of support for both initiatives and many lawmakers understood the urgency – we were just a few votes short of getting to the Governor’s desk. And CCAN Action Fund is not going to give up. In the spring, we’ll launch grassroots campaigns to keep pushing for fair clean energy policies that allow us to meet our climate goals.

Extreme Weather Relief Act

Unfortunately, the Extreme Weather Relief Act from Delegate Cousins (HB2233) and Senator Boysko (SB1123) was killed early in session. The bill would have made Big Oil companies take responsibility for climate damages they have caused to the state, and used those funds for disaster relief. This is a movement taking off country-wide and you can be sure that we’ll be back next year to ensure it passes in Virginia.

Data center accountability

At the beginning of the legislative session, there were dozens of bills – too many to name here – to incentivize data centers to lean on clean energy and energy efficiency and protect ratepayers from ballooning energy costs associated with Big Tech’s astronomical energy needs.

We will give it to you straight – the state, once again, completely punted on this incredibly urgent issue. Although a large and growing bipartisan group of lawmakers is sounding the alarm, state leadership continues to quash efforts to ensure data centers operate sustainably and shoulder their own costs. There is a silver lining – advocates like you did prevent the state from extending no-strings-attached tax breaks for the data center industry. But there’s no denying that we will have to work even harder and get even louder to stop unstrained data center growth.

Gas infrastructure funding