Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) campaigned as a centrist who promised to make Virginia more affordable for families. But her existing energy policies are poised to make electricity more expensive for ratepayers next year, and the full energy plan she released last week would make energy more expensive for decades to come.
Shortly after taking office in January, Spanberger announced to the General Assembly that she would direct the commonwealth to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state cap-and-trade program that requires fossil-fuel power plants to buy allowances for their carbon dioxide emissions. Her Republican predecessor, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, withdrew Virginia from the program in 2024, and his administration estimated that the decision saved consumers almost $1 billion over two years.
Under Spanberger’s direction, Virginia officially rejoined the initiative this July. Dominion Energy’s director of regulation, Robert Hines, has testified to the Virginia State Corporation Commission that the proposed surcharge would increase ratepayers’ electricity bills beginning next March, before separate rebates.
So much for Spanberger making Virginia more affordable.
Worse, last week Spanberger released her energy plan, which is chock-full of additional regulations, fees, and mandates that, if enacted, would continue to make the state’s energy even more expensive.
The plan locks Virginia into clean-energy mandates that force utilities to prioritize cutting emissions over keeping electricity affordable. It also promotes ratepayer-funded efficiency programs and electrification incentives. Home upgrades may save recipients money, but everyone else helps pay for them through their electricity bills. Spanberger also wants to raise or eliminate the cap on net metering, allowing more solar customers to receive credits for power supplied to the grid, a policy that has contributed to higher rates in California.
Spanberger would limit data centers’ ability to build their own natural gas power plants, leaving them more dependent on utilities to supply electricity. She would also require utilities and regulators to evaluate zero-carbon alternatives before committing to long-lived fossil-fuel plants. Virginia needs more power, but her plan makes adding it more difficult.
She would place another condition on new gas pipelines: Existing infrastructure must first be shown to be unable to meet demand reliably and cost-effectively. Making it harder to build power plants and deliver their fuel will hardly help Virginia keep electricity affordable.
A BIPARTISAN DEAL TO GET AMERICA BUILDING AGAIN
Virginia’s proximity to Washington, D.C., gives it an economic advantage, but businesses and families do not have to stay regardless of the cost. If Spanberger makes electricity more expensive, competing states such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida will welcome the investment and jobs Virginia loses.
The biggest losers will be Virginia families just trying to make ends meet.