The Daily Signal - Can the EPA Help Undo Virginia's Climate Mandates?

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

This week EPA administrator Lee Zeldin began the process of negating the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” that was, as President Obama called it, the ‘Holy Grail of Climate Change Regulation.’ This was where the idea that the very byproduct of Human existence, Carbon Dioxide, could be regulated as a pollutant. So, here in Viginia we have the Virginia Clean Economy Act that was passed in 2020 by the Democrat-majority General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam. If you have heard about “California-ing Virginia,” this is the act that did that. Connecting Virginia’s environmental regulations to California’s including getting to “net zero” carbon emissions by 2030. This law also put a stop to new electric generating facilities being built to replace retiring ones despite the demand skyrocketing. What does the EPA’s action mean for this law? Can it be repealed? Overturned in court? We sit down with analyst for the Thomas Jefferson Institute Steve Haner to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Lee Zeldin, EPA administrator, struck down what seems like a standing tradition, but it's only really been since 2009, unless you realize how long ago that really was, that the very byproduct of you. human life, carbon dioxide is no longer a grievous polluter, but also come August, they're going to lift the government EPA regulations on power plants. And when I was hearing about that, I said, I've got to talk to Steve Hainer about this. And so ask and you shall receive Steve Hainer on the program with us this week. Steve, how are you doing this week, sir? Joe, it's very nice to talk to you again. It's been a while. Well, you always say at the beginning. You never say that at the end, but I won't take that personally. Of course, with the Thomas Jefferson Institute, Jefferson, I-N-S-T-D-OG. Steve, so obviously we had a feeling that the Trump administration would do some radical things with some of these longstanding traditions. But this really is the tent pole that holds up all of the green.

New Deal stuff, but also all of the climate change stuff that has been going on. It was the premise behind the President Obama's Chicago Climate Exchange experiment, that kind of thing. All of this all built around the idea that carbon dioxide is pollutant and that we need to shut down all of our power plants very soon. Were you surprised that it happened or not? No, this was something that I certainly hoped the Trump administration would do. It is, as you said, the legal foundation for almost all of this nonsense at the federal level. You take away that endangerment finding, that finding by EPA, that common carbon dioxide, which, as you said, is a vital gas for life on Earth. Suddenly, by fiat, they made it a pollutant, which was ridiculous and remains ridiculous.

But again, by taking that away, then you undercut all of that giant bureaucratic regulatory mess that they created, ranging from electric vehicles to emissions from regular vehicles, to, you know, I said all the rules on the power plants to, you know, rules on buildings and construction. I mean, the potential was there to regulate the entire economy, simply because most of our activities involved emitting some carbon dioxide. You and I walking down the street amidst carbon dioxide. Imagine where they could go with that. But, you know, I mean, the good news is that they're doing it by the book, but the bad news means that it's still going to take a process. I mean, it's a regulatory process to go through what Zeldon did was announced the intention to do so. It's published.

There will be a public comment period. It is easy to predict there will be a lawsuit. There's always a lawsuit. Somewhere down the line. But I do think this is something the federal government, the administration, the executive branch has the authority to do. And Congress could override it, but right now the Democrats don't have the votes in Congress to override it. So we can actually pull this off if Zeldon follows through on the process. And I'm sure they've mapped it all out, and I'm sure they will.

And I'm sure they have talked with legislative leaders to make sure that there are bills, ready to be filed when they get back from their August break and come back to something other than rescission debates and spending plans. Steve, so my question is, what does this mean to the Virginia Clean Economy Act? Last time we talked, we were talking about closing power plants. The Virginia law says we've got to close this, you know, we can't make new ones and we're going to incentivize closing the old ones, get more into the offshore wind, which I also understand is facing challenges from the military of all things. Well, I mean, Trump's people also just rescinded all of those leases that hadn't been touched yet.

So they went back to square one on all the projects that were not yet under construction. So that was an interesting step, too, which is very, very positive development. Oh, certainly, for the whales, especially since they can't speak for themselves, the ones that have been dying off trying to get through their mating rituals there. To get to your question, again, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, of course, was adopted not by Congress, but by our own delightful General Assembly. I mean, you know, this was something we can't blame on Congress. This was the Democrats controlling the General Assembly and a Democrat governor, Ralph Northam, who happily signed this stupid bill. So, you know, the fact that the federal endangerment finding may go away, and it should go away fairly soon, that says that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, doesn't change that law, unfortunately. I mean, Virginia General Assembly is still going to have to go back and address that law if they want to make any changes.

And, again, they didn't base it on some type of claim of a scientific finding by the EPA. They just passed a bill that said we can't have natural gas. They just passed a building and said, we got to buy all this wind and solar and build it all, you know, and you cover up, you know, Brunswick County with solar farms. So, you know, it's it really, you know, unfortunately, you know, we are a federal system and states are somewhat independent, thank goodness. So, so what the federal government just did did not change the VCEA. We still need to fight that tooth and nail. Well, this is what makes your knowledge on this particularly, you know, important because you've walked those whole. always on both sides of the coin, all three sides of the coin as a journalist, but also as a

staffer and somebody who's worked on making these legislations. Yes, I was a lobbyist. What can I say? But that is an important knowledge kit now for our listeners. Oh, yes. Because I think a lot of our listeners get frustrated because of the pace that things happen at, you know, as an example, the Epstein files, although that has nothing to do with energy. We don't bring him up.

Move on, move on. You have to. It's clickbait. But the point is that, you know, things, especially the more lawyers are involved, happen at a glacial pace. And so, you know, understanding that, okay, this happened, but that doesn't mean all these other things are going to just happen. First question, does this become a campaign issue with a month and a half, month and a couple of weeks to go before early voting begins? in the November General Assembly election cycle? Well, the answer is yes.

I mean, I think there is a growing discussion out there about the Virginia Clean Economy Act that's sort of focused on the question of whether or not we can build a new natural gas plant. You know, Dominion wants to build this new natural gas plant in Chesterfield County. And to do it, they basically have to get a waiver from the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

I have to get the SEC, the State Corporation Commission, to say, well, despite the Clean Economy Act, we still need this gas plant because otherwise our system is not reliable enough. So that's basically like a variance, you know, like getting a variance from a zoning law or something. And they need that. And that is going to be a gigantic battle. And the battle's going to hit, I think the public hearing is going to hit in September.

So it'll be perfectly timed for everybody's attention on the campaign. And it would be helpful, you know, if the two candidates for governor, you know, publicly said, where they stood on this. And I think, I think, you know, Winston Earl Sears has said she would like to see the gas plant built. She supports the idea of building the new gas plant. But Spanberger has been a little absent on that question. Nobody's really pushed her on the issue. It's time to do so. Well, and certainly, there is a lot of, pardon the phrase, Me Too, having been in Congress, but not necessarily when a lot of this stuff was written. And she wasn't there when, you know, in 2009, you know, a lot of this stuff was put into place. No, but she's voted for enough of it over the time.

There's a pretty good track record that she voted for a lot of these federal rules. And she's gone, she's on, they've got video and they've got recorded speeches. And, you know, I mean, it's pretty standard democratic stuff. She's just, you know, sort of nodding in the direction of, you know, the climate's going to kill us unless we're all very, you know, unless we all go out and buy an EV. Right. But, but. Get rid of our stoves. It's sort of become a standard talking point for those guys.

It used to be Democrats had a little more, you know, variation on the issue, but now they're lined up like ducks in a row. Well, it's funny you say that because last time we spoke, and I think you wrote about this in your column at Thomas Jefferson Institute, Jefferson, I-N-S-T.org. Steve Hainer on with us. You mentioned that there are, as we approach the questions about the Virginia Clean Economy Act, there were definitely. Democrats that had signaled their interest in perhaps revisiting that. Yeah, I think, I think there's some that is sincere in that. And I think there are also some who are kind of posturing because they hear what the voters are screaming at them. But if it works, again, yeah.

Yeah, we'll see. Again, we'll see. I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, my goal in life is to get this done. So if I need, if I need help from that side of the aisle to get it done, then great. I hope, I hope that's, I hope that's what we get. Oh, yeah. I wasn't trying to out people or get them in trouble or anything like that. I was going to say this is to be lauded. I'm not sure when we last talked, but I was at a conference last month.

And one of the senators, one of the Democratic members of the Senate, as a matter of fact, he's, well, I don't want to give it. If I say he's my senator, I might get away who it was. But he came up to me and said, well, you know, I've never actually said that I'm opposed to the idea of more natural, building a natural gas plant, to which I smiled and said, yeah, but you never publicly said that you're for it. Yeah. Yeah, I need, I need you to come out in public and before it, not just be quietly, you know, neutral. Yeah. So, so again, we need to get them on the record saying, saying this is a good idea and that we need to keep expanding.

You know, again, we've had more warnings that, you know, these systems, if you don't have the reliable backup, if you don't have the natural gas, the coal, the nuclear, if you rely on the wind and the solar, gee, you know, that just doesn't cut it. It's just, you know, you're going to have a problem. What would the governor, with a few months remaining in his term and who knows what his future brings while he's, you know, touring all the early primary states like South Carolina and Iowa, what would a legal recourse be? If he was to say, hold it, okay, so this has now happened in Congress and wanted to spend some of his time and or political capital on battling the. Virginia Clean Economy Act's legality in the courts. Do you think that that is something, I know that doesn't seem like something that is heard of a lot. Well, I mean, I, there was, I think there was litigation when it first passed, some

litigation when it first passed. I know there was litigation over Reggie when Reggie first passed. Right. And when you tried to get out of it. I don't, I don't, well, yeah, that's still pending. But I don't, I don't see an angle for a lawsuit. I mean, I think, unfortunately, the process is the General Assembly adopted it, and the General Assembly needs to either amend it or repeal it.

But again, there is this sort of small loophole dealing with natural gas and reliability. And if, you know, I would like to see the administration, again, weigh in on that application at the Corporation Commission to come out in favor. And they have, to some extent, of Dominion getting a yes on that request, that they get yes permission to build that plant because again i think it makes the point that that the wind in the solar and the battery are not reliable they just can't be counted on you know they the sun goes down the wind dies down the batteries run for four hours or eight hours and they go away and and that will not run our economy it certainly won't run these gigantic data centers we're talking

about so so we've got to have this you know i think i think that provides a platform that provides a an issue to talk about and it makes the key point. There's a difference between the two parties. That'll do it for today's show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes from The Daily Signal. Every weekday you can catch top news in 10 to keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes and every weekday afternoon catch Victor Davis Hansen's thoughtful analysis

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