Every day, Piedmont Environmental Council staff engage at the local, state and federal level to shape public policy with an eye toward protecting natural resources and advancing sustainability. These efforts include the annual Virginia General Assembly, which convened on Jan. 8 for a short session during which legislators introduced and considered over 2,000 pieces of legislation.
As of this writing, the General Assembly has adjourned “sine die,” completing its work until the governor signs bills, proposes amendments or wields his veto pen. Legislators will return to consider the governor’s action on April 2. In our winter issue of The Piedmont View, we tracked four topics: data center reform, conservation, energy and climate, and land use and local authority. We detail the progress of data center reform on the front page, but how is legislation in the other categories faring?
Conservation
The Virginia’s Great Outdoors Act (HB 2059) moved farther in the legislative process than ever before, getting a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee where a broad range of voices from the conservation, tourism and recreation communities spoke in its favor. The committee voted to “gently lay the bill on table for the day,” where it remains, dead for this year. The committee chair and members agreed its components were valuable, but would not make a commitment to the program in total. However, legislators have proposed several budget amendments in the House and the Senate to achieve many of its goals, so we are hopeful for incremental progress.
A series of bills related to conservation died before they crossed over from the House to the Senate, or vice versa, including a bill to increase the land preservation tax credit from $75 million to $100 million (HB 2382) and a bill to examine the Commonwealth’s land conservation goals and highlight the need for robust funding for conservation now and in the future (SB 1198). We monitored and helped amend an interesting bill (SB 1435 / HB 1721) that would have required entities using eminent domain to take any land protected by a conservation easement to compensate the commonwealth and local governments, but it did not survive to be passed onto the governor.
Legislation to make Oak Hill in Loudoun County, Virginia’s newest state park passed the House of Delegates unanimously, but did not survive the Senate, where leaders expressed concern about the state’s future financial obligations to maintain the park. (Read more about this in our story on page 7.)
Land Use and Local Authority
This session saw several bills that would have shortened local governments’ review times on land use applications, compelled approvals if certain circumstances were met, or even taken away localities’ authority to say “no” to a variety of housing, utility-scale solar and other projects favored by the development industry. PEC has consistently worked to preserve local planning and land use control, and believes local control is the best means of ensuring that communities can determine their own destinies.
Committees in the House and Senate amended many of these bills so that they are now more encouraging and permissive in nature, allowing Virginia’s 95 counties, 38 independent cities and 189 towns to apply the flexibility their circumstances require. PEC actively worked with legislators to amend bills that would affect accessory dwelling units (SB 304), allow zoning exceptions to properties owned by faith-based organizations to build housing (SB 1178) and battle fill-dirt dumping from data centers and other large scale developments in rural areas of our region (SB 1422), among many others.
Energy and Climate
Legislation (SB 1190) that would have required localities to demonstrate contribution to their own energy needs and broader state needs, mainly through the approval of renewable energy projects such as utility-scale solar, failed in the Senate. Localities could benefit from increased technical assistance and support for utility-scale solar best practices, but removing their ability to assess these projects based on local needs could set a dangerous precedent for state authority over local decision making.
Most of our priority bills on distributed energy generation and storage in the commonwealth have passed and are headed to the governor’s desk. PEC helped author the long duration energy storage bills (HB 2537 / SB 1394) that increase long duration energy storage build requirements and include a non-binding model of best practices informed by locally based organizations such as PEC and the Virginia Association of Counties. The package of distributed generation expansion bills (HB 1833 / SB 1040) — which would triple the amount of distributed generation utility companies are required to build on parking lots and brownfields — and virtual power plant bills (HB 2346 / SB 1100) also passed and now need the governor’s approval. Bills facilitating parking lot solar (HB 2037) and easing interconnection costs (HB 2266) have also advanced to the governor’s desk.
This session began with both great opportunity and great hazard for PEC’s four broad priority areas of data center reform, conservation, energy and climate, and land use and local authority. Like all legislative sessions, we had wins and losses, and we hope that we have prepared the ground for next years’ longer session under a newly elected governor. The battles will continue next year and potentially in a special session that leadership may convene this spring.
This article appeared in the 2025 Spring edition of The Piedmont Environmental Council’s member newsletter, The Piedmont View. If you’d like to become a PEC member or renew your membership, please visit pecva.org/join.