General Assembly Update -- February 18, 2010
Crossover Crush
We have reached "Crossover" at the General Assembly. This is the day by which all of the bills in the House have to be disposed of and moved to the Senate and vice versa. If a bill is left in the House at that time, it is essentially dead. Of the 26 bills I introduced, 15 have been passed by the House, three have been tabled, four have been carried over to the next Session for further discussion, two were not acted upon in subcommittee, and two were removed because they had problems that I found.
As to my energy bills which I mentioned in the last update, we are making very good progress educating the General Assembly about the importance of renewable energy. Four of my 26 bills concerned energy and, of these, two passed and two were carried over. One of these bills (HB 436) was to provide the ability of localities to donate monies to companies that are buying energy conservation and efficiency services. That bill sailed out of the House and I am reasonably confident it will be passed by the Senate.
I was also able to pass a bill that will grandfather various arrangements for renewable energy production that might have otherwise been foreclosed by the major utilities in the future (HB 442). This was a bill proposed to me by a Charlottesville entrepreneur and will protect companies that already have renewable energy operations in place.
My net-metering bill (HB 441), which would have allowed agricultural businesses to generate more renewable energy on site and for homeowners in subdivisions to join together to produce energy, was "carried over" until next year. In my view, this was a major victory. One of the big problems that we face in expanding renewable energy production in Virginia is how we might provide incentives to entrepreneurs who want to develop larger scale renewable projects that might serve more than one property. Our net-metering law does not presently permit this and utilities have not yet been convinced to support it. The Commerce & Labor Committee of the House, however, wants to know more and we will be engaged in a process to build support for this effort over the next year.
My fourth bill, which would have provided more information to consumers about their energy consumption and on how to save energy (HB 1236) also was "carried over" until next year so that we can obtain additional information about what utilities, both electric and natural gas, do at present.
We considered at least 12 separate gun bills this week. I opposed most of these, including a measure that would repeal the one-gun-a-month law passed by the Assembly in 1993 and a bill that would allow citizens to carry a concealed weapon into a bar. While I support the 2nd Amendment, many of these bills go beyond reasonable efforts to protect this constitutional right.
One bill that did not get any press but was extremely disturbing was HB 112. This anti-choice bill would not only have defined life at the point of conception, but would have provided constitutional protection to a human embryo. The constitutional issues involved in that bill were substantial and generated a three and a half hour debate in the Constitutional Law Subcommittee of Courts of Justice, on which I sit. The Attorney General's office argued vigorously in support of the bill, an indication of how that office will likely push a socially conservative agenda. We were able to locate so many problems with the bill that even conservative Republicans ultimately opposed it. Rest assured, however, this bill will be back and I hope we can muster enough votes to defeat it again.
Finally, and most importantly, February 21 is the date that the House and Senate versions of the budget will be released. To date, most of the discussions were being held behind closed doors with little if any transparency, but yesterday, Governor McDonnell finally proposed substantial and significant cuts over and above the Kaine proposals. This is not the way to run an open government, but it seems that this is the strategy of those in charge. I will write more on this soon, but it is clear that K-12 funding could be reduced another $730 million, something I cannot support.
As always, it is an honor serving as your Delegate, and I hope you will feel free to write me with suggestions or comments on legislation before us or the budget.
Please call the Charlottesville office at (434) 220-1660, send emails to deldtoscano@house.state.va.us, or send letters to David Toscano, 211 E. High St, Charlottesville, VA 22902.
Sincerely,
David Toscano
