Good work by Sen. Tim Kaine and his Democratic colleagues on this, standing up for the rule of law and “forc[ing] a vote on our legislation to put all Senators on record on requiring some accountability from this lawless Administration.” As Sen. Kaine explained in his speech:
“It’s actually a pretty simple bill about VERY basic concepts. Do you believe in the constitution or not? Do you believe in the rule of law – or not? Do you believe in due process – or not? Do you believe that final orders of the U.S. Supreme Court should be respected – or not?. Those are the questions at issue…Our president…has entered into an agreement, still shrouded in some secrecy, with the president of El Salvador, President Bukele, to deport American residents into El Salvador and imprison then in prisons in a country that has been charged by the U.S. and others with gross human rights violations. The Congress that is in charge of appropriating taxpayer dollars should want to know the circumstances of this imprisonment and whether U.S. law is being followed…This is about fighting lawlessness. The 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution, to which we all pledge fealty, is pretty straightforward – no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; that was the clause that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously interepreted to mandate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia…asked if he has to uphold the constitution, just within the last week, [Trump] said he does not know…Why would anyone in this body not want to get a human rights about the conditions of that confinement, particularly given the fact that Pres. Trump has indicated that he may intend next to send U.S. citizens into those same prisons?”
The Trump Admin is illegally disappearing people to mass torture centers in El Salvador without due process. I’m forcing a vote on my legislation to demand answers about Trump’s compliance with U.S. court orders and El Salvador’s human rights record. https://t.co/p7kUHP734s
KAINE, VAN HOLLEN, SCHUMER & PADILLA ANNOUNCE TIMING FOR SENATE VOTE ON THEIR LEGISLATION TO DEMAND ANSWERS ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DEALINGS WITH EL SALVADOR
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and the lead Democrat on SFRC’s Western Hemisphere panel, together with U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), announced that the full Senate will vote this afternoon on their privileged legislation to demand answers on the Trump Administration’s compliance with court orders applicable to U.S. citizens or residents wrongfully deported to El Salvador and regarding El Salvador’s horrific human rights record.
“If President Trump is going to cut secret deals to send people to foreign prisons without due process, every Senator—and the public—needs to understand the details about those deportations, including the human rights record of the nation putting American residents behind bars. This information is critical at a time when the Trump Administration has admitted to wrongfully deporting people to El Salvador, and after Trump has said he’s also looking for ways to deport American citizens to the same terrible prisons. Today, we will force a vote on our legislation to put all Senators on record on requiring some accountability from this lawless Administration.”
Full text of the senators’ legislation is available here.
U.S. House Committees Pass Bills That Would Threaten Health Care and Food Access for Virginians
After All-Night Sessions, 3 Committees Advance Largest Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in American History to Fund Tax Giveaways for the Ultra-Wealthy; Bill Slated to Move Toward Full House Vote
A trio of key committees in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in American history yesterday while advancing a $4.9 trillion tax giveaway that will overwhelmingly benefit the ultra-wealthy. The reconciliation bill, which now moves toward a possible full U.S. House vote next week, would mean that hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia who rely on these programs would be at risk of their food and health care being taken away.
Meanwhile, late last night, the House Agriculture Committee passed a plan to cut nearly $300 billion in food assistance through SNAP. The committee’s proposal would, for the first time, mandate states to pay a portion of SNAP benefits, meaning Virginia would either face a $350 million hole in the budget or be forced to cut food access for Virginia families.
These cuts were passed in order to pass President Trump’s tax plan in the Ways and Means committee, which also passed yesterday morning, and will disproportionately benefit the ultra-wealthy. An analysis of the House GOP tax plan shows that, by 2029, people with incomes over $1 million a year would see an average tax cut of $79,620, while households in the lowest 20% of incomes would see an average tax increase of $100.
Next, the House reconciliation bill, including these provisions, will move through additional committees en route to a planned full House vote next week. The Commonwealth Institute today called on Virginia’s delegation to oppose these devastating cuts to health care and food access for Virginia families.
“Thank you to the members of Virginia’s Congressional delegation, including U.S. Reps. Don Beyer (VA-8) on the Ways and Means Committee, Jennifer McClellan (VA-4) on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Eugene Vindman (VA-7) on the Agriculture Committee who each stood up to vote no on these deeply harmful provisions,” said President and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis Ashley C. Kenneth. “These rushed, draconian cuts to Medicaid and SNAP will take away health care coverage and food access from hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia, cut off access to doctors and services for whole communities by jeopardizing hospitals, and raise costs for people in every corner of the commonwealth – all to put even more money in the pockets of the ultra-wealthy. As the bill moves toward a full House vote, we call on all Virginia members of Congress to oppose this deeply damaging bill.”
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About The Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis advances racial and economic justice in Virginia by advocating for public policies that are designed in partnership with people most impacted, and shaped by credible, accessible fiscal and policy research.
Continued excellent work by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11), even as he battles cancer – and even as many of us might have thrown in the towel by now. Also, for those of you who think that letters like these aren’t sufficient, I agree, but what else exactly can/should House Democrats (who are in the minority, thanks to voters last November) be doing at this point? Also, it’s important to get this stuff on the record, if nothing else…
America is Not for Sale: Ranking Member Connolly Urges White House to Immediately Decline a $400 Million Plane, an Illegal “Gift” from Qatar
Washington, D.C. (May 15, 2025)— Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government reform, sent a letter to White House Counsel David Warrington demanding all documents and information pertaining to President Trump’s intention to accept a $400 million plane from the Qatari government and urging the White House to immediately decline this “gift.”
Accepting this gift from a foreign state without congressional approval is a clear violation of the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause and demonstrates President Trump’s desire to enrich himself while holding office at the expense of the American people.
“I write regarding alarming reports that President Trump intends to accept a luxury airplane as a gift from the Qatari ruling family—a transaction that, according to one leading ethics expert, ‘would probably be the largest gift given to a U.S. president by a foreign government in modern history.’ The gift of this aircraft—reportedly worth $400 million—to the President by a foreign state, absent congressional approval, would clearly violate the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. In addition to the profoundly irresponsible, reckless and dangerous national security concerns that this arrangement raises, this proposed deal, if executed, would be patently illegal and corrupt and would advertise to our allies and adversaries that the President of the United States simply cannot resist an opportunity to enrich himself and has placed the White House up for sale. The Trump Administration must conduct U.S. foreign policy in the interest of the American people— and not the interests of foreign governments that enrich the President. I urge you to immediately decline this corrupt, foreign gift,” wrote Ranking Member Connolly.
A January 2024 report by the Oversight Committee Democrats found that during his first term, President Trump’s businesses pocketed over $7.8 million from foreign governments— including the government of Qatar. These profits have multiplied in the second Trump term, including as recently as April of this year, when the Trump Organization announced a deal to build a new Trump golf resort in Qatar. These private business dealings reflect the Trump Administration’s blatant conflicts of interest.
“Qatar’s proposed donation of a $400 million ‘palace in the sky’ to President Trump only heightens concerns about the influence of foreign governments over the President’s actions, and has been widely recognized by the public for what it is: the Qatari government’s clear attempt for the luxury plane to exclusively benefit and curry the favor of Donald Trump,” added Ranking Member Connolly.
To adequately evaluate the extent to which President Trump has violated the Constitution, Ranking Member Connolly has requested all relevant documentation and answers to his inquiries no later than May 29th, 2025.
Click here to read the letter to Counsel to the President, David Warrington.
Trump Admin Files Smuggling Charges Against Detained HMS Researcher, Plans To Deport Her To Russia (“According to The New York Times, the lawyers said at the hearing — held in Vermont — that the government would move to deport Petrova to Russia despite concerns that it would be dangerous for her to return to the country, where she was arrested in 2022 for protesting Russia’s war in Ukraine. Gregory Romanovsky, her attorney, said returning to the country would be “suicide” for Petrova in a March interview with The Crimson.”)
How Trump’s “Emergency” Powers Could Become Permanent (“The president is declaring emergencies on everything from an “invasion” of immigrants to a mythical shortage of fossil fuel production. But it’s all just a ploy for him to act like a Roman emperor.”)
They Were Waiting for Trump All Along (“Of the endless torrent of illegal, unconstitutional — and anticonstitutional — actions flowing from the Trump administration, there are three that stand out for their contempt for the rule of law.”)
Good work by Sen. Tim Kaine earlier today (see his office’s statement to the press, below), holding crackpot/extremist RFK Jr.’s feet to the fire on his disgraceful, damaging “leadership” (as well as DOGE’s and the Trump administration’s vandalism, which RFK Jr. has done nothing to push back against) at HHS…
Today, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) pressed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the consequences of massive workforce cuts at HHS. Specifically, Kaine pressed Secretary Kennedy about how the workforce cuts have negatively impacted constituents’ ability to get questions answered by federal agencies.
“Where does the rubber meet the road on the 20,000 RIFs and layoffs?” said Kaine. “People not getting cancer trials, … state grants being cancelled, in Virginia losing $425 million in funding to the Virginia Department of Health.”
Kaine continued, “All of our offices do casework, and we get requests from constituents all the time. CMS is the largest agency in the federal government. Its budget is nearly twice the size of the Pentagon, and people who depend on Medicaid, Medicare, and the CHIP program really, really benefit—and it’s the most consistent in the top three or four in terms of constituent requests to my office.”
“In every Administration I’ve served with—Obama, Trump 1, Biden—I get answers to questions on behalf of constituents,” Kaine said. “Let me show you what CMS is now doing to answer constituent questions.”
“A hardworking retiree—patriotic tax-paying American who’s on Medicare—wrote to CMS a very simple question about Medicare. Couldn’t get an answer. Asked us to reach out,” said Kaine. “We reached out to the Medicare Part C and D Congressional Liaison Office, and here was their answer to our basic question: ‘Unfortunately, there is not an update to provide. With the recent change of Administration, we are unable to provide any information on matters related to Mr. X’s request.’”
Kaine continued, “If you’re just an everyday, hardworking American retiree on Medicare and you have a basic question about it, you ought to be able to get an answer—and I’m just going to say I shared this with my colleagues, and many of us are having the same experience where our constituents can’t get a basic question answered. I wonder if 20,000 fewer employees is connected to this.”
Good news from Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08), who has worked very hard at freeing Dr. Badar Khan Suri since his outrageous arrest and detention by ICE two months ago. As Rep. Beyer says, “The Trump Administration punished Dr. Khan Suri for rights protected by the First Amendment, denied him due process, then whisked him out of Virginia and into Texas as quickly as it could in search of a more favorable judicial environment to further trample his rights and the Constitution.” And no, there likely won’t be consequences for the people who played a role in unjustly arresting and imprisoning Dr. Suri, but there definitely *should* be.
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Federal Judge Orders Release Of Dr. Badar Khan Suri From Detention
May 14, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) today issued the following statement celebrating a ruling by Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordering the release of Beyer’s constituent, Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Dr. Badar Khan Suri, from detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):
“This ruling is a taste of justice for Dr. Badar Khan Suri at last, hopefully the first of many. The administration must comply with this ruling with all possible haste. I am grateful that thanks to Judge Giles’ ruling, Dr. Khan Suri will be returned to be with his family as his case goes forward. His wife and children deserve nothing less, just as Dr. Khan Suri did not deserve to be taken from them and held in a distant detention center for two months.
“The Trump Administration punished Dr. Khan Suri for rights protected by the First Amendment, denied him due process, then whisked him out of Virginia and into Texas as quickly as it could in search of a more favorable judicial environment to further trample his rights and the Constitution. As the case progressed, the administration failed to offer any evidence of wrongdoing by Dr. Khan Suri, and failed to offer even basic legal justification for its actions. The administration’s claims were rife with dishonesty, and Judge Giles was right to reject them, as she said, to end the chilling impact of this and other related cases on free speech across the country.
“Dr. Khan Suri was targeted because the Trump Administration wanted to instill fear on American campuses by responding with unnecessarily and illegally draconian force to students and scholars who expressed views they dislike. The administration’s treatment of Dr. Badar Khan Suri and the growing list of others like him has been authoritarian and is a gross betrayal of American values. This persecution of dissent must end.”
Judge Giles issued an order today requiring ICE to release Dr. Khan Suri and ensure his return to Virginia as his case continues to move through the legal system. In her ruling, she denied that Khan Suri is a flight risk, and did not require bond for his release. Judge Giles made clear that her ruling was motivated by protection of the First Amendment and the right to due process, and noted that her ruling is in the public interest, to end the administration’s chilling impact on free speech across the country. She also noted that the administration has not provided documents or evidence to support its claims about Dr. Khan Suri, which includes failure to provide Secretary of State Rubio’s initial determination that Dr. Khan Suri poses a threat to American foreign policy.
Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who lives in Arlington, Virginia. He was in the country legally on a visa when he was detained without charges on orders from the Trump Administration in March by masked agents outside his home in Rosslyn, and moved to a series of prisons and detention centers, ultimately ending in Texas. He is still being held there today, over 1,300 miles away from his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three young children. According to Khan Suri’s counsel, “His son spent days crying uncontrollably following his father’s disappearance, and has now stopped speaking.” Dr. Khan Suri has never been charged with a crime and the government has never produced evidence that he did anything wrong.
Beyer met with Dr. Khan Suri’s counsel last month and attended his previous hearing before Judge Giles, which preceded this ruling. Beyer was represented by staff in the audience at today’s hearing. Beyer also previously wrote to the Acting Director of ICE seeking reevaluation of Dr. Khan Suri’s status, including consideration of his eligibility for release and alteration of his “high-risk” custody status.
Continued excellent work by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11), Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as well as his colleagues Rep. Joe Morelle, Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. In this case, they “sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanding that Treasury make available to the Committees all suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to the online fundraising platform WinRed and several political action committees (PACs), including Elon Musk’s America PAC.”
Top House Dems Demand All Suspicious Activity Reports Related to Trump Crypto Ventures, Musk PAC, and WinRed
Investigation Targets Potential Fraud, Bribery, Campaign Finance Violations, and Predatory and Deceptive Practices Targeting Vulnerable Americans
Washington, D.C. (May 14, 2025)—Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Joe Morelle, Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanding that Treasury make available to the Committees all suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to the online fundraising platform WinRed and several political action committees (PACs), including Elon Musk’s America PAC.
Based on concerns about deceptive practices targeting vulnerable Americans, potential bribery, corruption, and conflicts of interest as well as threats to the integrity of U.S. elections, the Ranking Members are also seeking SARs related to the Trump family’s recently launched crypto venture World Liberty Financial (WLF) and Trump-branded meme coins.
“The Committees seek to determine whether legislation is necessary to prevent violations of campaign finance, consumer protection, bribery, securities fraud, and other anti-corruption laws in connection with fundraising by candidates for federal office and federal officeholders and to guard against deceptive and predatory campaign fundraising practices, illicit foreign influence over federal officials, and other financial misconduct connected to prospective or current federal officials,” wrote the Ranking Members.
America PAC: Elon Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, Inc., reportedly spent $250 million to help elect Donald Trump and placed a $1 million nationwide ad campaign touting President Trump’s first few weeks in office. Musk’s financial support appears to have secured President Trump’s favor for his business activities. In the face of worldwide protests of Tesla, the President turned the South Lawn of the White House into a Tesla showroom, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News viewers to “buy Tesla [stock].”
Scam PACs: Two scam PACs operating under the names “Patriots for American Leadership” and “Campaign for a Conservative Majority” raised millions of dollars through robocalls that used clips of Donald Trump’s voice to mislead listeners into believing that the PACs were supporting his reelection efforts. According to the Campaign Legal Center, the scam PAC operators actually used the funds raised to enrich themselves and continue to support their scam operations.
Trump Family Crypto Ventures: In September 2024, then-candidate Trump and his sons launched their own crypto venture, WLF. WLF sells a non-transferable governance token that confers no ownership rights and provides “no mechanism to accrue value.” A leading expert on presidential ethics noted that “out of all of Trump’s conflicts as a businessman turned president, this ‘may be the most profound,’” particularly because the Trump Administration has adopted a strident agenda of promoting cryptocurrency and eliminating regulatory guardrails on the crypto industry. WLF reportedly fell “dramatically short” of its initial fundraising goal but was saved by a $30 million investment from Justin Sun, a Chinese-born entrepreneur then under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for alleged securities fraud related to several of his companies. In January, Mr. Sun bought $45 million of WLF’s token, bringing his total investment in the venture to $75 million. Shortly thereafter, SEC asked the court to pause its enforcement action against Mr. Sun. In March, WLF announced that it would launch USD1, a stablecoin. A fund backed by an Abu Dhabi investment firm announced earlier this month it would use USD1 to close a $2 billion investment in the Binance crypto exchange, thereby further enriching WLF.
$TRUMP Coin: On the Friday before his inauguration, then President-elect Trump launched the $TRUMP memecoin, described as “a type of joke cryptocurrency that typically has no purpose beyond financial speculation [and] whose value tends to whipsaw dramatically.” Entities tied to Mr. Trump together own 80% of the entire supply of $TRUMP coins—1 billion coins in total—and thus stand to reap the lion’s share of any profits from the venture. Trump-related entities reportedly have already made as much as $100 million on trading fees alone. On February 27, 2025, the SEC announced its determination that meme coins do not constitute securities under the federal securities laws, and therefore are not subject to regulation by the SEC. Because the identities of the coin purchasers are not publicly disclosed, there is no way to tell who is buying the coin, potentially allowing bad actors, including authoritarian governments, to enrich the Trump family and “curry favor with Trump.”
Click here to read the letter to Secretary Bessent.
Republicans Advance Bill That Hikes Taxes For Working People And Cuts Taxes For Billionaires
May 14, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), who serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means and as the Senior Democrat on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, voted against legislation offered by Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee that would cut taxes for the wealthy while doing little for regular people, and even raising taxes for many working Americans.
Beyer said:
“Democrats relentlessly fought for over 17 hours to protect Americans’ health care, lower costs, and support working people, while Republicans just as relentlessly fought to protect the wealthy.
“At every turn, Republicans voted down amendments designed to prevent the majority of benefits of their tax bill from flowing to rich people. They defeated amendments to close the carried interest loophole, and to resume pre-Trump tax rates for the highest income bracket. They voted to protect an expansion of the estate tax, a tax cut that only benefits a small number of estates worth over $25 million, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. Republicans even rejected an amendment that would simply have blocked their tax cuts from benefitting billionaires.
“At the same time, Republicans rejected Democratic amendments to protect Americans’ health care. As new, nonpartisan estimates show nearly 14 millions at risk of losing coverage from this legislation, Republicans voted against amendments to prevent these life-threatening cuts. They also rejected our amendments to stop Trump’s trade war and stop attacks on American energy, effectively voting to sustain higher prices, destroy the American clean energy industry, and raise everyone’s electric bill in the process.
“The biggest surprise of the markup came when JCT distribution tables, delayed by Republicans’ massive last-minute changes to the bill, revealed that tens of millions of working Americans will actually see a tax increase the year Trump leaves office under Republicans’ bill. This is largely because they made provisions like addressing taxes on tips and overtime pay temporary, as opposed to the cuts for the richest 1%, which they made permanent. The unavoidable truth is that Republicans’ core priority with this legislation was to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and that is exactly what their bill does.”
Beyer Opening Remarks In Ways & Means Markup Of Republican Tax Cut For The Wealthy
May 13, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) today delivered the following remarks [video here] during the opening stages of the House Ways and Means Committee’s markup of Republicans’ legislation to lower taxes for the wealthy while making the largest cut to Medicaid in history:
Top-heavy tax cuts paid for by low-income benefit cuts.
President Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress were narrowly elected – by little more than one percent – with the simple hope from the American people that they would lower costs.
The President himself declared he would “bring prices down on day one.”
Trump and Republicans are now breaking that promise.
In fact, thanks in part to the unprecedented taxes Trump has imposed on the American people through his nonsensical tariff plan, prices remain high, and consumer inflation expectations have surged.
Americans are seeing the evidence of his broken promise everywhere.
When you buy a cup of coffee, or a used car, or a dozen eggs, we’re paying more now than we did before Trump took office.
On top of that, under Trump’s reckless leadership, our economy took a nosedive in the first quarter of this year, the first time it’s contracted in years.
Many other indicators are flashing red. Economic uncertainty is at a [long] time high, and the conversations around the kitchen table and in small businesses are the same: everybody’s scared.
And that brings us to today.
My Republican friends are hoping this multi trillion-dollar giveaway to the wealthy will somehow dig them out the hole the President has gotten them into.
If history is any guide, more tax breaks for the rich won’t do much, if anything, to put the economy on firmer footing or provide lasting assistance for working- and middle-class Americans.
Their model is the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Trump and the Republicans want to extend it here, but look at it: it failed across the board.
Wages didn’t rise any faster, the economy didn’t grow any faster, and the bill definitely didn’t pay for itself. It just exploded our national debt.
And just like last time, dollar for dollar, the benefits in this bill overwhelmingly skew towards the ultra-wealthy.
It’s nice to have my friends talk about the tax cuts on tips and the tax cuts on overtime, but this is a tiny part of this bill – a distraction from what’s really going on.
They are trying to pull a fast one on the American people, by delivering massive, long-term benefits to millionaires and billionaires, while throwing a few temporary – temporary – tax breaks to working people, timed to help them get through one election cycle.
The folks getting the most help in this legislation are the same folks who don’t bat an eye when prices go up at the grocery store or they buy a new car or they go on vacation, or they’re affected by the tariffs that cost average Americans at least $2,800 a year, according to Yale.
The ultra-wealthy are the very last people that need a boost on their tax returns.
And yet, my Republican colleagues closely attend to their needs in this bill, ensuring that their rates stay low, and estates worth tens of millions of dollars don’t get taxed, and the folks who manage hedge funds keep their special carried interest tax loophole.
Making the legislation even worse is how my Republican friends plan on offsetting its eye-watering price tag.
They want to undermine America’s fastest-growing, most affordable energy sources, and jack up utility bills for working families, and do their friends in Big Oil a big favor in the process.
They want to cut food assistance programs for the poorest Americans, and they’re planning on ripping health insurance away from 14 million Americans, including kids, seniors, and people with disabilities.
I have a constituent, Chris McCauley, with spastic quadriplegia, and he uses a wheelchair.
Medicaid pays for his equipment and support programs during the day.
Without the help of his dedicated caregivers, and the support Medicaid provides his mother, she wouldn’t have been able to work full-time and support her family as a single mom for the past 20 years.
These are the kinds of families that this legislation will harm.
All to help give their rich donors a tax break they don’t need, and that won’t change their lives at all.
Trump and the Republicans have shown what their priorities are.
At every turn, they choose to the help the rich, often by taking money directly out of the pockets of working Americans.
This bill will be a disaster for the American people, and will further divide our society between the thoughtlessly-comfortable and the yearning discouraged.
Top-heavy tax cuts paid for by low-income benefit cuts.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote no.
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UPDATE 9:08 am – Also, see below for Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA04) as she “Slams Republicans’ Efforts to Gut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.”
Trump’s maximalist agenda finds its limits (“The president’s domestic and foreign policy agenda has run headlong into immovable objects, triggering market reactions and harsh responses that have forced him to recalibrate.”)
How Qatar Bought America (“The tiny Gulf nation has spent almost $100 billion to establish its influence in Congress, universities, newsrooms, think tanks, and corporations. What does it want in return?”)
America Is the Land of Opportunity—For White South Africans (“Trump has frozen refugee admissions and cut off resettlement funding, but he has made an exception for white South Africans, who he says are victims of racial discrimination.” Trump is a white supremacist for sure.)
FDA targets prescription fluoride tablets for children (“The agency wants manufacturers to remove them from the market, contending they harm the gut microbiome, could cause thyroid dysfunction and lower IQ. Two states have banned the mineral in drinking water.”)
Resisting Trump’s Authoritarian Creep (“As the administration pushes its ‘invasion’ fantasy, the courts are providing a real-world check on presidential power.”)
The End of Rule of Law in America (“The 47th president seems to wish he were king—and he is willing to destroy what is precious about this country to get what he wants.”)
Democrats just flipped Nebraska’s biggest city (“Democrat John Ewing unseated Republican Mayor Jean Stothert in Tuesday’s officially nonpartisan election to lead Omaha, a victory that ends the GOP’s 12-year hold on Nebraska’s largest city…Ewing, who will be Omaha’s first Black mayor, overcame a large fundraising disadvantage in his campaign to deny Stothert what would have been an unprecedented fourth term.”)
Great stuff as always by Ivy Main; cross posted from her consistently excellent blog, Power for the People VA
Virginia’s investor-owned utilities thought 2025 would be the year they put an end to net metering – and with it, rooftop solar installers’ modest competition with their monopoly.. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) removed many barriers that residents and businesses installing solar panels under the state’s net metering law had faced, but it also called for the State Corporation Commission to reevaluate the program, beginning right about now.
Not surprisingly, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power are seizing this opportunity to push for changes that would undermine the economic calculus supporting customer-owned solar.
Since at least 2007, Virginia law has required that customers of Dominion and APCo who have solar panels on their property be credited for surplus electricity they supply to the grid at the same retail rate they pay for electricity. The credit is applied against the cost of the electricity the customer draws from the grid at times when the panels aren’t generating, reducing what they owe on their electric bill.
But now that they have the chance, both utilities have filed proposals to end net metering. Both essentially propose to charge new solar customers the full retail rate for the electricity they draw from the grid (with Dominion using a more complicated half-hour “netting”), but compensate them for electricity fed to the grid only at the utility’s “avoided cost,” or what it pays to buy electricity from other generators. By law, existing customers and new low-income customers with solar would be unaffected.
APCo calculates avoided cost as the wholesale cost of energy and capacity, plus transmission and ancillary services, for a total of less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Thus, a homeowner with solar panels would now pay the full retail rate of about 17 cents/kWh for electricity drawn from the grid, while being credited at less than one-third that amount for electricity put back on the grid.
Dominion’s approach instead pegs avoided cost to what it pays for solar generation and associated renewable energy certificates (RECs) bought from certain small producers under power purchase agreements, an average of about 9.5 cents/kWh. Dominion’s residential rate currently averages about 14 cents/kWh, but would go up to more than 16 cents if its latest rate increase request is granted.
The VCEA gave APCo the first swing at the piñata. APCo filed its proposal in September, and the SCC will hold an evidentiary hearing on May 20. Dominion only filed its petition last week, and no hearing date has been set yet.
Not surprisingly, APCo’s proposal generated fierce opposition from advocates and solar installers. They point out that it’s hard enough to make the economics of home solar work with net metering at the retail rate; slashing the compensation for electricity returned to the grid by more than one-third, as Dominion proposes, or two-thirds, as APCo wants, would make solar a losing proposition for most homeowners. Maybe economies of scale and other factors would allow the market for commercial solar to survive under Dominion’s program, though Dominion’s insistence on confiscating customers’ RECs won’t make anyone happy.
If solar owners definitely lose under APCo’s plan, advocates say other ratepayers don’t necessarily win. A homeowner’s surplus generation travels only the short distance to the nearest neighbor, lessening the need for the utility to generate and transmit power to meet the neighbor’s demand. Since the utility charges that neighbor the regular retail rate for the electricity, without having to bring it from somewhere else, the utility saves on transmission costs. On top of that, the surplus solar comes in during the day, when demand is typically higher than at night and electricity is more costly, making solar more valuable to the utility. Plus, it is clean and renewable, and the customer bears all the cost and risk of the investment.
Utilities do not share this rosy view. By their way of thinking, solar customers use the grid as free energy storage and backup power, without paying their fair share of grid costs. Not only does this deprive the utility of revenue, but those grid costs now have to be spread out among the remaining customers. This, they say, creates a cost shift from solar owners to everyone else.
More than a decade ago, Virginia took tentative steps towards resolving the dispute, with the Department of Environmental Quality setting up a stakeholder group to work towards a “value of solar” analysis. The process was never completed — the utilities walked away from the table when it appeared the results weren’t going to be what they wanted, and the group’s work product did not include numeric values or policy recommendations.
Virginia is hardly alone in navigating these clashing narratives.
Other states and regulators have arrived at very different conclusions as to the “correct” value of distributed solar to utilities, ratepayers, and society as a whole. States like Maryland kept net metering after a value of solar analysis concluded the benefits outweighed the costs. On the other hand, California famously ended its net metering program in 2022 when solar comprised almost 20% of electricity generated in the state and created a mid-day surplus without enough storage to absorb it; at the time, 45% of that solar was distributed. That same year, however, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed an unpopular bill that would have phased out net metering in the state.
The experience of other states, combined with an abundance of research and analysis conducted over the years, gives the SCC a lot to work with as it considers the fate of net metering for APCo’s customers this year, and later for Dominion’s.
Countering the arguments of the utility’s hired witnesses, solar industry and environmental organizations have weighed in on the APCo docket with testimony from experts with nationwide experience. The experts pointed out a range of errors and omissions in the utility’s work product. They also presented their own benefit-cost analyses demonstrating a value for distributed solar in excess of the retail price of electricity, using tests often applied to energy efficiency and demand-response programs.
Perhaps even more significantly, SCC staff also filed an analysis that found many of the same problems with APCo’s proposal, including failures to comply with statutory requirements. The staff report did not include a quantitative analysis, but it urged the importance of considering benefits that APCo had ignored. Like the intervenors, staff recommended the commission reject APCo’s plan and retain its net metering program as it is, at least for now.
Although the staff report would seem likely to carry weight with the commissioners, it’s never easy to predict what the SCC will do in any case before it. But in Virginia, unlike California, distributed solar makes up vanishingly little of total electric generation. Even taking the utilities’ arguments at face value, it seems foolish to upend this small but important market to remedy a perceived harm that is, at least for now, more theoretical than real.
This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on May 8, 2025.
