2024 General Assembly Review

At Environment Virginia, we have big goals to protect our environment, and we work to do so wherever we can make progress. Sometimes that means convincing a locality to adopt a fee on single use plastic bags or a corporation to stop cutting old growth trees or Congress to dedicate funding to conservation efforts. 

The Virginia General Assembly is one of the most critical places that we work to protect the environment. This year we worked to reduce single use plastic pollution, secure funding for Virginia parks and wildlife crossings, defend climate progress and win creative solutions to solve our most pressing environmental issues. 

The good

Defending Clean Cars

Transportation is climate enemy number one which is why we are thrilled the General Assembly once again defeated bills that would rollback Virginia’s Clean Cars program. Virginia’s Clean Cars program requires manufacturers meet clean car standards for cars sold in Virginia leading to more low and zero emission vehicles on the road in the Commonwealth. You can learn more about defending this critical climate program here. 

Save the trees

“I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please!” ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

We, like the Lorax, love trees and were thrilled to see several bills pass that would protect trees during development, increase urban tree canopy, and create a state forestry plan to protect old growth. While all of these bills passed the General Assembly, one that would give localities more tools to protect trees from development was ultimately vetoed by Governor Youngkin. You can learn more about these bills here. 

Protecting Virginia’s foam ban

Plastic pollution is a threat to wildlife, the environment and our health. In 2021, passed a bipartisan ban on foam cups and take out containers to start in 2023. Unfortunately less than a year before going into effect, the ban was significantly delayed. 

This year, Delegate Carr introduced language to move forward the start of the ban to 2025 for large chains. The General Assembly confirmed their support for the phase out and with the Governor’s signature, the first phase of Virginia’s ban will finally go into effect next summer. 

Until next year…

Plastic pollution

Several bills that would have tackled waste and plastic pollution were continued until 2025. These bills include a study on microplastic in Virginia’s drinking water, an extended producer responsibility for mattresses, Truth in Labeling for products and a review of Virginia’s Litter Tax. 

Conservation Funding

The Wildlife Corridor Grant Fund from Senator Marsden enjoyed bipartisan support through the committee process but failed to get funding from the money committees. Without the funding, the bill ultimately failed. This was one of a handful of bills that would have better funded our outdoors. From state parks to wildlife crossings to wilderness areas, Virginia needs to find dedicated funding streams to better protect wildlife and nature. 

Forever chemicals

PFAs or forever chemicals are a concern for Virginians. While we would have liked to have seen stronger action with a larger scope, we are happy to see Virginia legislators come together and pass legislation which will require the Department of Environmental Quality to test for PFAs to determine sources of the toxic pollution. Testing is limited and the thresholds for concern are lower than experts recommend but this is a good first step in addressing this critical issue. 

The bad

Nuclear

Two bills passed that allow utilities to recover costs from small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) before ever providing any energy to the grid. Not only does this go against Virginia’s commitment to a clean energy future, it provides a dirty energy source with ratepayer funding without any guarantee that the projects will come online.

Governor Youngkin amended the bills to limit how much cost recovery utilities could charge rate payers but we still think these bills give priority in the process to nuclear energy development.

Plastics to fuel

Several attempts to advance “Chemical Recycling” or more accurately, Plastics to Fuel technology in the Commonwealth were introduced this year. We were able to amend otherwise good bills to exclude this false solution.

While we are happy to see Virginia legislators ultimately remove plastic to fuel prioritization and incentives from their bills, we were disappointed to see so many attempts to classify it as sustainable and incentivize this dirty industry’s growth. 

RGGI

The budget that passed the General Assembly included language to have Virginia rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI has reduced carbon emissions from power plants by 22% since Virginia joined in 2020 and generated over $800 million for energy efficiency and climate adaptation projects.

Governor Youngkin has worked to remove Virginia from this program and while his initial strategy is being legally challenged, he also removed the RGGI language from the budget. The budget that ultimately passed does not include the RGGI language and Virginia remains removed from the program.