See below for a letter that the Virginia Grassroots Coalition – representing over 40 Virginia groups and organizations and more than 10,000 voters – sent to Virginia legislators this morning in support of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), and “without crippling amendments.” The Virginia Grassroots Coalition further asks legislators to support amendments that would improve VCEA “significantly,” including moving up the mandatory zero-carbon generation goal up to 2040 from 2050; crank up energy efficiency requirements; place a moratorium on fossil fuel generation and infrastructure; ditch biomass, which the Coalition correctly describes as “neither clean nor carbon free.” All great ideas, and I strongly agree that adding them to the VCEA would greatly strengthen the bill. Now, whether such a bill could actually *pass* the legislature, particularly with a wounded-but-still-strong Dominion Energy busy trying to *weaken* VCEA even further, is another question. But there’s no question that what the Virginia Grassroots Coalition is talking about here represents the direction we should be going in, whether Dominion likes it or not.
