The Daily Signal - Affordable Energy? Not After This Winter…And Election | Steve Haner

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Much of the electric and natural gas rate increases Virginians have been seeing—and will only continue to see increase after the recent storm—are due to the Clean Economy Act.   Gov. Abigail Spanberger “very much ran for election on those policies,” so the big question now is if she’ll do anything about the rate increases, said Steve Haner, a senior fellow for state and local tax policy at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.   “ People are about to get bills and, and it's going to shock them. And if you think the legislature's doing anything to make that cheaper, please lie down. You'll feel better. Because they're not. They're doing things that are going to make it more expensive.” Follow us on Instagram for EXCLUSIVE bonus content and the chance to be featured in our episodes: https://www.instagram.com/problematicwomen/   Connect with our hosts on socials!   Elise McCue X: https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=EliseMcCue Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisemccueofficial/   Virginia Allen: X: https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=Virginia_Allen5 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virginiaallenofficial/   Check out Top News in 10, hosted by The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjMHBev3NsoUpc2Pzfk0n89cXWBqQltHY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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CBC News. Setting down with us to talk about a great piece that he has written. And if you don't follow Steve Hainer and just get an alert every time he publishes something new, you should. I'm not even sure if there's an app for that. But Steve Maynard of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy joins us to talk a little bit about the piece that you can read. I read it at Bacon's Rebellion. The title of it is Fern v. Abigail. and how the winter storm that we're still waiting to melt off completely has exposed at very least.

I'm going to say it the nice way, but I think Steve is a little more concerned with what it shows about the governor's promises regarding affordability, especially for our electric bills. Steve, thank you for joining us. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing well. My wife just texted me. She ran out and said this is flurrying outside in Richmond again this morning. So here we go, maybe just a little flurry.

That's when, you know, what was the Pink Panther movies, whenever Inspector Cluzzo's name got mentioned, the inspector's eye started twitching. Cluzo, Closot, snow, more snow, and our eyes start twitching again from it, Steve. People are going to open up their electric bills, people are going to open up their natural gas bills in the next couple of weeks,

and they're going to be stunned. hearing from people who are getting bills that didn't really hit during the storm. I mean, these are bills talking about December and early January. So, you know, you had a major price increase from Dominion. They got a base rate increase and a couple of other things went into effect. Last year around September, a bunch of price increases for Dominion. And then you get this, it's not record cold, it is hardly record cold, but it was about, you know, 10 days of very low temperatures and still going on. So people are about to get bills and it's going to shock them. And if you think the legislature is doing anything to make that cheaper, please, please, lie down.

You'll feel better because they're not. They are doing things that are going to make it more expensive. And some of the rate increases that you mentioned, I mean, as much as it's fun politics to make it Abigail Spanberger's fault, a lot of this came, you know, from late last year where these were approved rated. increases. Correct. Correct. But again, some of the rate increases are due to this Clean Economy Act, all these policies removing the natural gas, removing the coal, moving to solar and wind. And she very much supports those policies. She very much ran for election on those policies. So philosophically, she has to take some blame. But again, the real problem is, now what are she going

to do about it? And I think the bills she's going to have on her desk will make things worse. Well, and that's the concern because a lot of folks already in this general assembly session are saying, hey, hey, hang on a second here, whether it's the myriad of new sales tax, a myriad of new places where they're going to invoke a sales tax, including, I believe, hiring an accountant to do your taxes. I'm not sure about that one, but I know even renting a storage space for the stuff you can't afford to keep in your apartment anymore. on top of what is proposed right now, I'm hearing a 13% income tax rate up from 6%. They backed off that already. Oh, they did back off that. They backed off the 13%. It still could go to 10% on the millionaires, but the bill for the extra 3.8% that went away. You know, and it's important to note, and when you're talking about income tax, and we heard this

frequently. The people whose income gets to that level are often the LLC officers, the people who run small businesses whose entire revenue stream from that business appears on their income tax because they're the officer of an LLC or an escort. And so they're the ones who are going to bear the brunt of this. It's not some mysterious guy on a yacht in the Chesapeake Bay somewhere, Steve. No, or it's the people at the very top of a big company. I mean, I'm not sure. I mean, even to me, it's kind of insane to think about a million dollars every year taxable income. It's a number that I guess I aspire to at one point, but guess what, I didn't get there. But again, there are people who have the ability to decide to move to Tennessee or Florida or Texas.

If they're running a business, they'll stay. But as soon as they're done running that business, they will look at one of those no-income tax states and do the math, and they may make the move. Again, we are still early in the session. That bill is still alive, the 10% income tax, but we will have to wait and see. And again, it's on the millionaire. But again, they have passed bills to add the reggie tax to your electric bill. They have passed bills. I just saw a bill come out that's going to add sales taxes, or no, I'm sorry, admissions taxes

in a couple localities. They passed the bill that allows your localities in, in your viewership area to have a referendum on adding another 1% local sales tax, ostensibly for schools, but we know money being fungible just because they say it's for schools, they'll spend it, they can spend it somewhere else too. So again, I mean, there's a whole bunch of small tax increases that are definitely coming. And the question really now is, when the budget comes out in two weeks, two and a half weeks, will there be some big ones in there?

And I still think the betting is that there will be. Well, and you mentioned some of the local authorities that, you know, they're not per se a tax increase coming from the governor or the general assembly. They are just the permission to allow your local board of supervisors or city council to vote for additional taxes, both for schools, but also congestion tax. I've also heard that. The general assembly has to take responsibility. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're the ones that give the localities the ability to do this. and they think they're passing the buck, but they're not.

They are ultimately responsible for, again, the one, it's not your, it's not your area. Williamsburg, the Colonial Williamsburg, eight years ago, the senator from Williamsburg got them an extra 1% sales tax to fund tourism. But the deal was, you could have your extra 1% sales tax for tourism, but you can't have an admissions tax. Wow. So the trade office, those counties couldn't. get an admissions tax. So the bill that passed in the house yesterday gives them back the ability

to do admissions tax as well. On top of it. And again, they have a 7% sales tax now. This other bill that just passed about a 1% option, they could have an 8% sales tax and an admissions tax. So that admissions tax on Bush Gardens, that admissions tax on water country, that admissions tax, I assume, on Colonial Williamsburg, will raise the prices for all of those tickets as well. Well, luckily, it's the small stuff that kills you, but you can't. Yeah, it's the classic, the metaphorical million paper cuts. Steve Hainer is on with us from the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Let's get back to the Virginia Clean Economy Act and what is being done in the course of this general assembly session as we're hitting crossover that are going to make it even more so.

I just saw a video from a young lady talking about a $600. electric bill. Now, I don't know how big of her house it was, but she was very shocked, pun intended, over her $600 Dominion Energy bill. Mine is redlining at nearly $400 a month, and we keep the thermostat at like 66 degrees during this, Steve. Again, it's a bunch of different things that will, they're ignoring the basic problem. They're ignoring the problem that we need more reliable thermal generation, whether it's nuclear or natural gas. I don't care. They both work. Natural gas is easier to build and cheaper to build the nuclear, but they both work. But they're still continuing down the road of eliminating all the natural gas. And they make a lot of noises about nuclear,

but they're not doing anything about it. They are basically, you know, we're in the middle of a of a bunch of solar energy salesmen. That's what they're doing. They want us all on solar energy. There are bills passing to make it easier to put it on your house to dictate how much dominion pays you for your net metering. You know, there's a bill passing to make it harder for a local government to say no to solar, which will be a big deal. That's going to be a big fight still. I don't think that bill's passed yet.

But that basically makes it hard for the zoning to block the solar. And there's a bill I just saw that said that if you have a solar plant already approved, well, you automatically get approved for batteries. Well, you know what? The solar is one thing. Those batteries catch fire. Those batteries have real safety issues. So the idea of making that something that the local government cannot intervene and prevent,

that's, again, a doubly bad idea. These folks are convinced that carbon dioxide is the greatest poison, you know, in the world, and everything they do is justified because it's moving us away from, you know, any kind of carbon dioxide admissions. Well, and it seems as if, especially with the breakneck pace, that they passed legislation. And I believe the legislation they just passed about the regional greenhouse gas initiative

clarifies the gray area that Governor Yonkin was in when he pulled Virginia out of it. So a future governor isn't going to be able to come along and say, hey, we're going to get out of this thing. It will definitely have to go through the legislative process. There was ambiguity in the language that passed in 2020. We all saw it. Most of us kept our mouth shut because we knew it would be useful one day.

But the ambiguity is gone from this bill. So it's a mandate. It's clearly a mandate. Virginia shall belong to Reggie and the power companies shall pay the Reggie tax. And when they paid the reggie tax, they will find one way or another to pass it on to their consumers. Our favorite three-letter acronym, PJM, is even spoken out a little bit about the perils of the fragile grid that they manage, given what Virginia is doing, Steve. Do they have any sway or is it just hellbent for leather in the General Assembly right now

to remake everything that was unmade in 2021? Well, again, it's not so much remake. It's doubled down on and make it worse what happened in 2020. First off, let's get PGM a shout out. I mean, the last 10 days, they have functioned well. The power has stayed on. One thing that may have helped is they did put out orders to the big data centers that they had backup generation, keep it available. I'm not sure whether they actually used it or not, but it was there as a backup.

And so PJM deserves credit for getting us through this last 10 days. And of course, we got more cold weather to come. We'll see. But PJM has done it. It has been very clear, very, very clear that we are retiring too many reliable plants and replacing. them with unreliable plants. Solar is unreliable. Solar crashed. No fault of the developers, no fault of the facilities. A snow-covered solar panel in winter does not produce much electricity, if any. And there were days when there was like 2,000 megawatts of solar in the entire PJM. That's ridiculous.

So PGM needs 135,000 megawatts. I was going to ask, you made me think of this. What was, you know, at the peak of the winter storm fern, you know, what do we have any grasp on what the peak load was during that period? Sure, I'm sure. PJM tracks all that. You can find it. It peaked it around, for PJM, it peaked it around 135 to 140 gigawatts. Well, 140,000 megawatts. And of that 140,000 megawatts, during the day, less than 10% was coming from solar wind, occasionally hydro. at night, it was about 5%. And, you know, you kind of want the heat on at night. That's the point. It's like 6 degrees outside, 16 degrees outside.

That's when you want the heat. And that's when the solar is, what's the word? Oh, yeah, useless. It's useless. So, you know, and it's time people just sort of look at these guys and smile and say, but solar is useless. Stop sending me solar when I need something that will keep me warm. Well, yeah, I understand there's also legislation.

that's going to tidy up the loophole that Dominion used to get permission to build a new gas-powered, new net gas-powered electric generation facility. We spoke about it a few months back, that they were given permission to do this in this critical loophole where, if the grid was in peril, they would have an ability to build this. I understand they're trying to close that loophole. I wouldn't call it a loophole. I would use the term safety valve. Okay. You and I would. It's a safety valve that says when reliability is truly in danger, you can get permission to build a new natural gas plant.

I've not seen a bill yet that specifically closes that reliability, that ends that reliability off ramp. I have seen bills that make it much, much harder to qualify for it. that create new barriers to qualifying for it. One of them, I think, died last night. I need to check in a subcommittee, but there's no question. They were working hard to find ways to make it harder. And, again, this is the Virginia legislature.

You don't know what a bill's going to say till the very end. They do substitutes. They do amendments. And at the end of the day, the governor can send down an amendment. So I think we still need to keep watching that. And again, it doesn't matter. It won't matter if the lawsuit. I mean, there's going to be a lawsuit over that plant, and the Chesterfield plant may still go away if the environmentalists win their lawsuit.

Well, we just watched it in Fluvana County where they wanted to just to expand an electric facility that was already there. Right. And the public rallied around, apparently they wanted to not have noise, but there's already noise coming from the plant already. and so we were crimped on that. So what do you think the lesson is? Your column is about how Fern trumped Abigail in exposing the problems with her energy. But we're facing four more years of this. Is there a lesson?

Has there been a lesson learned in Richmond? Will Governor Yonkin's veto pen still be on the desk when these bills get to Abigail Span? I am not expecting a lot of vetoes. We'll just have to wait and see. She hasn't really added a whole lot to what she said during the campaign. So she's been unclear on some of these issues. She will definitely sign the reggie. She talked about that.

You know, I think the lesson is we need to be smart about maintaining a base load, reliable generation. We can't give up the gas. You know, you want some more solar, you want some more wind. But we've got to keep the natural gas. I'm sorry to see that decision in Fluvana. That was a terrible, terrible loss to that county, to PJM and to Virginia, because that was going to be a very reliable asset. We cannot build solar because everybody shows up to stop a solar plant.

We cannot build the batteries. They're going to find out the battery opposition is going to be huge. We can't build natural gas because the natural gas is, you know, so controversial. And we can't, you know, the offshore wind, you know, is under attack at the federal level. And I'm not a fan of offshore wind, but it will produce electricity. Come on, Mary. We've got to build something. But we only have the one turbine right now.

We're decade away from seeing any more. Well, no, I think, again, Dominion will finish that. If they're left alone, they will finish that offshore wind project a year from now, basically. Okay. And it will be producing electricity 40, 45% of the time. but how many years will produce and how it will survive a class four hurricane, I don't know. But it'll be out there. But again, you know, it's not reliable.

It's a 40% power source at best. You need the gas to back it up. And every time you try to build the gas, these folks go crazy. What's interesting to me as a political observer, I know you've kind of worked both sides of the spectrum, both inside, the halls of government and outside there. But as somebody who's been observing this for a while, certainly the conservative voices that were running for both the House and the statewide offices failed to tap into the issues of affordability and the, what do they call it, the kitchen table stuff that seemed to hammer home. Yet now it seems that they're in office, the people who

won those seats and won those elections have abandoned those real kitchen table issues for a political agenda, Steve? Is there a repercussion, a blowback from that, possible? Again, if you are in the majority party and you're giving this speech about affordability, what you mean is affordability for some. And what they're not telling you is that they have a number of initiatives that will indeed make life easier for a subset of Virginians that will increase their ability to pay their bills or relieve them of some burdens. A good example would be the minimum wage. There's a lot to be

said. I understand people can't live on seven. I mean, nobody gets paid $7.25 anymore. But, there are people being paid the $13 or $14, the current state minimum wage. And $15 for them is a raise. but again, the price of that is that prices we pay will go up to cover that. There's no question that's inflationary. And there's no question that the unions, the guys making $40 an hour, we're the ones testifying for the bill because they know it will raise their pay too. So again, you can pass a tax policy that, you know, that provides all kinds of benefits, but then the millionaire pays the tax.

So again, I mean, it's affordable. Affordable for all is not what they're after. it's affordable for some. Well, and if it doesn't raise the prices in these industries where the minimum wage is going to push people up, it might actually cost jobs there, which will put more people on the... Well, again, there's the one that nobody's really thought about. They need to pay attention to is this paid family medical leave. So the state is going to take over that process.

If you need to take six weeks off after birth or 10 weeks off because your spouse is recovering from major heart surgery, instead of your employer paying for that, or instead of you being not paid, you will get this check from the state. Well, this check from the state will come because everybody's going to pay a payroll tax. And they don't use the term payroll tax. They talk about a premium. It's a premium. Well, if it was AFLAC, it would be a premium. It's the state, it's a payroll tax. And it's going to be basically 1% of pay. And it's going to be 1% of pay if you make $30,000 a year, that's $300, and it's going to be 1% of pay if you make $100,000 a year, that's going to be, oh, that'd be $1,000.

Yeah. And you're going to pay that, you know, and that's going to, that's going to, and it's just like unemployment insurance, just like workers comp, but those things have caps. This has no cap. So again, this is a bill that has passed the House of Delegates, I'm sorry, passed a committee, and they don't even have a fiscal impact statement on it yet. That's the amazing thing. The lack of a fiscal impact statement on some of these bills in Virginia is stunning to me because it seems like that's the point of groups like J. Lark is to look at these things and score them and say, here's what this is going to do if you enact it.

J.LARC has a very nice job on those things, but you know what? The legislator has to like ask them for it. They don't volunteer it. Now, the planning and budget is supposed to do these fiscal impact statements. Department of Taxation does a very nice job with fiscal impact statements. There was a fiscal impact statement on last year's paid family leave bill, and this is pretty much the same bill. But again, there should be a fiscal impact statement.

You know, how is this going to work? How much money are we talking about by 2030, 2035? You know, it's going to be a $2, $3 billion. And again, the burden. on employers, the burden on a small employer, like a radio station or a retailer, who's only got five or six employees, well, that employee announces, I'm leaving for 12 weeks. Goodbye. And by the way, when I'm done in 12 weeks, you've got to give me my job back. Right. That's, that's, you know, and the employer has no money from this fund to replace that employee for 12 weeks. No. So again,

this is, this is, this is, it's amazing. I mean, there's, there's, There's a lack of understanding of the basic concept of how a business operates. Among a lot of these younger members who've never operated one, in many cases, don't even have private sector jobs. Governor Spanberger, to my knowledge, has never worked in the private sector. She has always been on a government paycheck. I'm not sure what you did right after UVA, but I think that's been the case. Well, I know her family also during the campaign, she talked about her dad being in law enforcement.

And not to disrespect any of those. folks. No, absolutely not the same as actually having to make the payroll deal with personnel issues. You know, if you're a senior officer in the police department, then yeah, you get to deal with personnel issues. But if you're just, if you're just aligned employee, you're not, you don't learn much about how the business world works. Is this politicking from a public policy perspective, you know, these are politicians and they're, they're sort of keeping campaign promises without really looking at the real world impact of those policies, it just sounds good to go up onto a stump and say, I'm going to raise your wages and I'm going to make your electric bills more affordable,

even if it means subsidizing them on the, you know, probably on the supply side. So the electric utilities aren't going to mind because it'll, you know, it's better than no money. And, and so they, they, you know, they, well, it's not exactly a new phenomenon. that politicians make promises that they can't actually keep. Nor is it, in all fairness, you know, one party or the other. You know, it can happen in both parties that they make these promises that they're actually not going to be able to keep. Yeah, dog chasing's cat.

And our beloved president, you know, at 3 o'clock in the morning on true social, you know, gets out there and makes all these promises that, you know, most of us know he's not going to be able to keep. So, you know, I, whatever. It's just, it is frustrating at times. But again, once they get down to the general assembly, they get down to, you know, the actual business at hand, you would expect a little more adult behavior. And you're seeing some of it. I mean, some of these bills are falling by the wayside quietly.

But, you know, it's, it's, it's somewhat depressing. It's, you know, this is the first year I've actually been back down there. Matter of fact, I need to get going and get back down there again. Because today's the first day, 10 days I've gotten down there. But, but it's just, it's just, as you said, it moves at this breakneck space. speed, which is especially dangerous when you've got probably 40 or 45 members of the Assembly who are in their first session. Yeah.

You know, it's just frightening. Well, and as one of the members of the General Assembly said to me in confidence, he didn't, you know, the quote isn't in confidence. I won't tell you who it was, but he said, you know, the state could save a fortune in per diem, just elect one Democrat from the Senate and one Democrat from the House, give them, give them the requisite number of votes because no. is breaking ranks from any of the parties. It's pretty rare.

They are voting on a lot of these big issues, they're voting along party lines. And again, like you said, I've been down there, sadly, 42 years. I've been around the Capitol. 80% of the issues are not partisan. 80% of the issues cross party lines. They'll be rural versus urban.

They'll be Northern Virginia versus Southern Virginia. There'll be UVA versus Virginia Tech. I mean, there are all kinds of divisions down there that have nothing to do with political parties. but but uh and especially in the first session after an election it does time of kind of kind of and again the democrats i'd say 75 percent of the bad bills they're passing in my opinion they're bad bills are bills that young and vetoed i mean yonk and vetoed these bills we've seen them before right in some form and and frankly that's all they need to stand up and say in

committee is well this is a bill yon vetoed yeah let's all vote for it you know it's just that's it's it you know sometimes he vetoed bills that needed to be vetoed There was a question, and because I'm cynical and maybe because I grew up in New York City and you see this kind of stuff sometimes, a lot of folks right after the election immediately rushed to the idea that, you know, they dropped Governor Newsom and they dropped Governor Pritzker like a bad habit. Oh, hold it. A Democrat got elected in Illinois. No, really, you know, tell me another story. But became, you know, fans, if you will, of Governor Spanberger. And I started to start. to read more and more column inches given to the possibility of Abigail Spanberger running in 2008 for the presidency because the Democratic Party likes she beat a Republican. It was a Republican seat, all of this other stuff. Wouldn't it help her in the image making of a moderate, a centrist, whatever,

if she took out the veto pen and vetoed a lot of this stuff, or amended it heavily, almost to the point where Governor Yonkin did, and then let that be the image that she paints for herself of, look at me, I'm not a partisan, you know, and I've taken all these crazy job-killing bills, and I've vetoed them or I've amended them, Steve. Am I reading too much into the tea lease? Well, again, I think you and I may be engaging in some wishful thinking in that regard, but she has kept the opportunities open. Again, by being quiet on a lot of these things, and she certainly did say she wasn't going to sign a bill to repeal right to work.

She's been quiet on a lot of these issues, and we'll just have to wait and see what she does. I mean, the opportunity is there. I think she's also being very deferential to the assembly. Again, a freshman governor who does not have a lot of Virginia experience would probably start off being very deferential to the assembly and not wanting to meddle in their business and not wanting to dictate from, you know, try to dictate from the top. they tend not to respond to that very well sometimes, especially some of the more senior and people with the stronger egos in the General Assembly, and their egos on both sides. Really?

Yeah, she's being very careful. But in the long run, I think she's going to be more of a Ralph Northam than she's going to be Terry McCullough. I think she's going to be signing some fairly progressive things that people will be somewhat dismayed at, although again, the people who voted for her are going to keep sharing. You know, that's true. Steve Hainer from the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy on his way back to the Capitol building today. I appreciate you're taking some time in visiting with us. Travel safely. Watch out for ice on the sidewalk.

The sidewalk is what worries me. I have not seen those sidewalks yet. You have a great time, and thank you for joining us. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate it very much. Anytime.