Virginia’s legislative process continues, with Governor Youngkin having amended 159 bills and vetoed 157 bills submitted by the assembly. These amended bills now return to the legislature for consideration before going back to the Governor. 599 bills were passed, showing that bipartisan governance is not dead in Virginia. However, very disappointing was the lack of meaningful progress in (at least) two critical areas for the Commonwealth.
The vetoes and amendments did little to prevent future energy bill increases. It’s very clear, nationally and globally, that the cost of energy production is declining for solar and wind. The use of fossil fuels is buoyed only by the availability of existing (and aging) infrastructure. Our major electricity providers are in the business of producing energy for everyone, and it can be disruptive to them to be required to add individual rooftop or other small-scale electricity generation. A variety of bills designed to help with this transition were vetoed.
Yet, favoring fossil fuels now largely guarantees future increases in energy costs. Politically, it may be an issue of wanting to keep costs down as much as possible now (during my term of office) and let prices rise in the future (someone else’s problem). Conversely, it may be viewed as doing whatever possible to keep costs down now – and why worry about who it affects tomorrow?
Related to this discussion is the $50 million in disaster relief approved for those affected by Hurricane Helene. Carbon-based fuel use increases both the number and the intensity of natural disasters. Any slight lowering of electricity bills now by using existing fossil fuel generation is almost surely going to be overwhelmed by the higher bills (taxpayer dollars) needed for disaster response.
Another area in which almost nothing was done was to protect our kids, and ourselves, from gun violence. Several weeks ago, I presented in this column data documenting that this risk was quite high – particularly compared to other developed countries.
This issue is a major part of the culture wars, with one side defending almost no restriction on guns, and the other side offering a variety of ideas (many of which were passed by this legislature but vetoed). This is not the place to argue one side or the other – but it is a good place to comment on the lack of ideas. Instead of an exchange of ideas about limiting gun violence, we are only having one side of the political spectrum offering ideas, with the other side simply saying no. Where are the ideas from that side to reduce gun violence?
No one can argue reasonably that gun violence is not a threat – many too many deaths show that it is. Wonderful would be if all legislators would take seriously this threat to the people of Virginia and generate ideas. Just saying no is nothing more than stoking the culture wars and does not move us forward in making Virginia an even better place to live.
