Environment Virginia’s 2024 Priorities

Environment Virginia is a policy and action group with one mission: to restore and protect the natural world. Our staff works for clean air, clean water, clean energy, wildlife, open spaces, and a livable climate. Our members across the state put grassroots support behind our research and advocacy. Environment Virginia is part of Environment America, a national network of 30 state environmental groups.

Our program agenda for 2024 lays out our vision for what we hope to accomplish in the coming year to make Virginia greener this year. 

Wildlife Over Waste

Pollution is a major issue for Virginia’s waterways and the iconic Chesapeake Bay. Every day people are throwing away tons of single-use cups, containers and other plastic “stuff.” Among the most common and hazardous forms of plastic pollution are polystyrene foam containers (the stuff most of us call Styrofoam) and single-use plastic bags, which persist in the environment for hundreds of years. Nothing we use for a few minutes should be allowed to pollute our oceans and rivers and threaten wildlife for centuries.

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Adopting producer responsibility policies, which hold companies financially responsible for the waste their products create and incentivize less and better packaging design in the first place.
• Establishing incentives to increase proper recycling by adopting a beverage deposit program. Beverage containers are among the most litter items in Virginia and “Bottle Bills” are proven to reduce litter and improve recycling efforts. We support Virginia pursuing this solution. 
• Continuing action to reduce the most harmful single use plastics. In the short term, we support cities and counties putting fees on plastic bags and reinstating a quicker timeline to ban foam. In the long term, we have a goal of revisiting statewide action on plastic bags and other harmful single use plastic.
• Restricting the chemical “recycling” industry by disallowing chemical recycling or any form of incineration to be counted towards recycling minimums and by prohibiting state funding towards this harmful industry. 
• Reducing electronic waste through “right to repair” policies. From farm equipment to everyday electronics, companies make products that are not meant to last while also making it near impossible or illegal to repair. This ultimately means more energy, pollution and waste. We support Right to Repair laws that increase durability and repairability of our stuff which will ultimately reduce waste. 
• Protecting Virginia’s progress reducing single use plastics. In 2021, Virginia became the 6th state to pass a statewide ban on polystyrene, banned intentional balloon releases and has taken significant action eliminating other single use plastics. In 2022, the foam ban was delayed and state agency efforts were halted. We will work to reverse rollbacks, protect remaining victories and ensure they are implemented and enforced properly.

Clean Energy for Virginia

From severe storms to unhealthy air days and rising seas that put our coastal communities at risk, Virginia is already facing the impacts of global warming. These consequences, and others, will only grow worse unless we cut the carbon pollution fueling global warming and continue Virginia’s transition to 100% renewable energy. 

In 2024, Environment Virginia supports: 

• Proactively fulfilling Virginia’s commitment to capping carbon emissions and transitioning 100% clean energy. In order to reduce pollution that harms our environment and our health, we oppose any attempts to roll back the Virginia Clean Economy ACT (VCEA) or participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
  • The VCEA commits Virginia to 100% clean energy by 2045 and requires utilities in Virginia to develop the renewable energy needed to get there. We support proactively pursuing policies to ensure Virginia hits its targets and benchmarks.
  • RGGI puts a cap on carbon and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through carbon auctions with other participating states. This allowed the Commonwealth to invest a significant portion of auction revenue in projects that directly benefit Virginians, such as energy efficiency, flooding resilience, clean transportation, and renewable energy development. In 2023, Gov. Youngkin began pulling Virginia from this program. We support efforts to halt this rollback and to secure funding for carbon reducing projects through RGGI or new policy.
• Electrify Virginia’s buildings. Virginia lags behind when it comes to modernizing and electrifying our buildings. Updating our building codes and providing rebates and incentives to electrify and make our buildings more efficient, can have a big impact on how we use our energy and how much we use.  
• Saving energy through efficiency by extending and strengthening the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard targets beyond 2025 and allowing localities to pass even stronger standards.Virginia needs to update our efficiency standards and take steps so that we are not wasting the clean energy we are developing. With the loss of critical funding for energy efficiency through RGGI, Virginia needs to develop a comprehensive plan to secure funding.

• Expanding distributed solar in Virginia. In 2022, Virginia generated 317 times as much solar power as it did in 2013, enough to power 477,720 typical homes. While solar has seen success at the utility level, the barriers to distributed solar have hindered its full expansion. Currently the Renewable Portfolio Standard only requires 1% of small scale solar. We support expanding distributed solar and breaking down the barriers that limit customers’ access to small scale as well as utility scale solar. From solar on rooftops to solar along our highways, we support Virginia doubling down on solar
• Becoming an offshore wind leader. Virginia is making history in offshore wind with Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and the recent announcement of the first wind turbine blade facility in the US. We support the development of wind farms off the coast of Virginia and the adoption of measures that expedite the development and launch of an offshore wind industry in Virginia while prioritizing conservation of our protected lands on the coast.

Destination: Zero Carbon

Transportation is now the top contributor of carbon pollution in Virginia resulting in increased dirty air days, health risks and global warming. We need to protect  progress that has been made and continue to pursue opportunities and funding to transform how we get around if we are going to starve off the worst impacts of climate change. 

In 2024, Environment Virginia supports: 

• Implementing Advanced Clean Car standards. Virginia became the 11th state to pass stronger clean car standards for new vehicles and adopted the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) program which requires manufacturers to increase the number of electric vehicles sold here in Virginia. We must protect this program and ensure implementation by investing in charging networks and infrastructure consumers need.
• Electrifying Virginia’s transportation. We support adopting requirements to electrify state vehicle fleets, providing funding and incentives for cities and counties to purchase electric vehicles including transit and school buses. We also support incentives for individual consumers to purchase EVs, including rebates and expanded charging infrastructure.
• Expanding high speed rail in Virginia so people from across the Commonwealth have easy, reliable access to travel east to west, north to south by train.

More Wildlife and Wild Places

From the Chesapeake Bay to the Blue Ridge Mountains our state is home to an array of priceless green spaces, waterways, and wildlife. And yet, pollution and development threaten even our most pristine places.

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Protecting 30 percent of nature by 2030 through federal, state and local leadership and action. 
• Establishing permanent conservation funding such as a state Land and Water Conservation fund to increase conserved land and trails as well as fill gaps in current park system funding for staffing, maintenance and protection of new land.
• Protecting the Chesapeake Bay and improving the health of its ecosystems. Virginia has made a lot of progress to clean up the Bay, there is much more to do. Ensuring monitoring, resources and coordination as well as addressing agricultural runoff is essential to improving the health of the Chesapeake Bay and meeting our 2025 clean up goals. 

Reconnecting Nature 

Our roads, cities, shopping malls and more have fragmented key habitats, separating species into disparate populations. This makes it harder for species to roam, migrate, mate and forage. Further, animals that try to cross roads that cut through their migratory routes cause increased animal-motorist collisions. The solution is to reconnect habitats.

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Ensuring Virginia’s Wildlife Corridor Act creates and​​ protects habitat connectivity throughout the Commonwealth and there is sufficient funding to study, identify and establish locations.
• Pursue federal funding opportunities from the Inflation Reduction Act and Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program to reconnect nature. 

Save the Bees

Bees are dying off at an unsustainable rate, with serious consequences for our natural world. They play a vital role as pollinators, and losing them would have a devastating ripple effect across all ecosystems. A UN report found that 90 percent of wild plants and 75 percent of all food crops need animal pollinators  and of those pollinators, bees are nature’s best. That’s why we’re working to establish and expand bee habitats through tools like roadside pollinator strips and stop the use of bee-killing pesticides. In 2023, Virginia passed legislation to require agencies to prioritize native plants. We will work to expand this effort through pesticide restriction, native planting funding and further policies. 

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Protecting our bees and other pollinators by banning neonicotinoids, a bee killing pesticide. 
• Incorporating pollinator friendly gardens, native plants and infrastructure in planning for new and existing development. 

Get the Lead Out

Lead is a potent neurotoxin and it affects how our children learn, grow and behave.  Our children’s drinking water is at risk because most Virginia schools wherever we have faucets, fountains, or plumbing made with lead. We must take the necessary measures to ensure safe drinking water in schools.

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Replacing lead-bearing fountains, faucets, and other sources of contamination.
• Immediate shut-off of taps where water contains more lead than one part per billion, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
• Installing filters certified to remove lead on all outlets used for drinking or cooking at schools.

No Toxics on Tap 

Everyone deserves clean water to drink. But across the country, the drinking water of millions of Americans is tainted by toxic chemicals called PFAS, which are linked to cancer and other severe illnesses. We’re working to stop the use of PFAS in consumer products, clean up contamination in our water and communities, and to hold industry accountable for damage they have caused.

In 2024 Environment Virginia supports:

• Requiring industrial users to disclose, control and report PFAs spilled into our environment and waterways. Industrial users should be required to pay for the complete clean up of their contamination.
• Establish new drinking water standards through VDH and provide necessary DEQ testing funding for PFA contamination.