No, Spanberger Did Not “Embrace” Natural Gas, But Earle-Sears Does
By Steve Haner
A recent headline indicated that Abigail Spanberger, Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, had “embraced” natural gas in an interview. A reading of the text left a very different conclusion, as in reality what she embraced was the anti-natural gas Virginia Clean Economy Act.
Spanberger did tell Inside Climate News that natural gas will be “part of the energy mix into the future,” which is a statement of the obvious. The reporter noted her support was “for now.” But then the reporter quoted her saying:
“However, I think when it comes to new natural gas infrastructure, that’s where we really need to be focused and sort of thinking carefully about the lifespan of those projects and whether indeed they are the most cost-effective solution.”
Let’s break the code on that one. Dominion Energy has an application pending to build a new, 944-megawatt natural gas plant in Chesterfield County. The plant would open in 2029 and under the Virginia Clean Economy Act, it would have to close by 2045. One major argument the opponents are raising is that it would become a stranded asset, far too expensive to build with the assumption of a mere 15-year life span.
The Sierra Club and others fighting the plant read that line and knew they have an ally in Spanberger, as if they didn’t already know. The fight over that application at the State Corporation Commission is the ultimate test case on natural gas’s future in Virginia, although the law only prohibits utility-owned generation, not merchant generators.
A few days before the Inside Climate News report, Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears provided a guest editorial column to the Washington Examiner. She was quite clear in her endorsement of Dominion’s application for the Chesterfield County plant. “The Spanberger-Hashmi-Jones ticket will kill this project, and consumers will suffer. It’s not just expensive, it’s offensive,” she wrote.
The Earle-Sears column was the longest exposition on energy she or her campaign has produced, but apparently it was only distributed on social media, and that by the Examiner itself, not her campaign. It was not picked up and shared in the daily news feed of the Virginia Public Access Project, which reaches thousands of key inboxes. In fairness, VPAP might not have seen it.
Spanberger’s talk with Inside Climate News did get that extra readership boost from being linked and shared by VPAP. Both online outlets are quite ideological, but not the same ideology, of course.
Spanberger in her discussion was clear on her support for the Virginia Clean Economy Act and seemed to dismiss the growing discussion that at the least it is ripe for some amendments.
…Spanberger said she is “committed to the long-term goals” of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. She noted that 2045 is “a long way away” but “the landscape in Virginia has changed in the last few years.” There are “some opportunities” for more small-scale distributed generation at certain locations, such as shopping centers, which could alleviate demand. Small-scale energy production could help ease the strain on large centralized energy sources, she said.
“How can we be more aggressive in our pursuit of other types of clean energy generation?” Spanberger said. “I don’t think the immediate response should be, ‘Okay, we’re not 100 percent on pace with where we thought we should be, therefore, let’s just throw up our hands and walk away.”
The long-term goal of the Virginia Clean Economy Act is the elimination of hydrocarbon fuels in the generation of electricity. Period. When Spanberger talks about what she would like Virginia to do to meet the energy supply crunch we face, hydrocarbons are never part of the answer.
Here again are the links again to the two documents, Spanberger’s interview and Earle-Sears’ guest column. Some readers might hit a paywall on the Examiner link.
Republished with permssion from Bacon’s Rebellion.
