by Tyler Arnold
A power company that intended to build a natural gas power plant in Southeast Virginia will move the project to either West Virginia or Ohio, citing regulatory issues and opposition from environmental groups in the commonwealth.
Chickahominy Power LLC, which planned to build the plant in Charles City County, had been working on the project for more than five years, according to a company statement. The company has officially terminated its project.
“Meanwhile, we wish to thank the many Charles City County citizens and officials that supported our 5-plus year effort to bring this project to a successful conclusion,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, opposition from outside interests and regulations, largely advanced by the renewable energy industry and state legislators that supported them, made it impossible to deliver natural gas to the site.”
The company said it hopes the residents of Charles City County ultimately get economic activity and growth, but said that, with current events unfolding in Europe, that renewable energy cannot meet the needs of consumers.
Less than two years ago, former Gov. Ralph Northam signed the Clean Economy Act, which will force all natural gas energy sources and any other energy source that emits carbon to shut down by 2050. The act sets guidelines to gradually move the commonwealth toward getting its energy exclusively from renewable energy. The former governor also joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which establishes a carbon credit program that limits carbon output and requires companies to buy carbon credits based on the amount of carbon they produce.
Stephen Haner, a senior fellow for state and local tax policy at the free-market Thomas Jefferson Institute, told The Center Square that Virginia has been openly hostile to fossil fuels in recent years.
“In the case of this plant, it faced headwinds from the environmental groups that want to end any and all natural gas use and also from the dominant utility [that is] hardly eager for an independent low-cost competitor in its territory,” Haner said. “The full scale hostility peaked under our prior governor, and frankly any change of attitude also must come from the top. To their credit, the Republicans in the House of Delegates passed several bills to back off from the full ‘Green New Deal’ approach, but all failed in the Democratic Senate.”
Current Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who came into office this year, has been critical of the previous administration’s energy policies. During the campaign, he said he would work to give Virginia a diverse energy sector, which included natural gas. Although House Republican leadership has tried to work with Youngkin to roll back regulations, those attempts have been halted in the Senate, which has narrow Democratic control.
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Tyler Arnold reports on Virginia and West Virginia for The Center Square. He previously worked for the Cause of Action Institute and has been published in Business Insider, USA TODAY College, National Review Online and the Washington Free Beacon.
