The Bedford County School Board filed a lawsuit seeking $600,000 in damages from the father of a special needs student, claiming the man’s abrasive communications with school staff about his son’s treatment over the last three years amounts to illegal intimidation and harassment.

In court filings, Bedford resident David Rife insists he’s the one being intimidated, noting that the county school board sued him shortly after he filed a complaint with the Virginia Department of Education saying local school officials weren’t following the individualized education program, or IEP, designed to accommodate his son’s learning disability and improve his reading skills. When he filed the complaint, Rife told state officials he feared he would face retaliation locally, according to court documents.

The school board filed its lawsuit against Rife on March 26, roughly a month after Rife sent his complaint to state education officials.

In a March 29 letter responding to Rife’s complaint, state education officials ruled Bedford school officials were out of compliance in several policy areas and ordered the division to take corrective action in regards to Rife’s son by April 29.

In his answer to the lawsuit, Rife suggested the timeline “suggests the possibility” the suit may have been retaliation and argues it’s school officials who are in the wrong.

The court case highlights ongoing disputes over parents’ rights in K-12 schools, spotty compliance with special education rules and how public officials should handle unpleasant or hostile speech from critics.

Virginia adopts regulatory changes for special education amid federal review

The case was brought on behalf of the Bedford School Board by attorneys in the Richmond office of Sands Anderson, a law firm that handles a variety of local government issues. A Sands Anderson attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment on Rife’s claims about the motivations for the suit.

Bedford School Board Chairman Marcus Hill didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday. The school board itself is the plaintiff suing Rife.

In court filings responding to the suit, Rife and his attorney contend he had good reason to be frustrated with Bedford schools over the lack of consideration for state and federal special education laws. Rife’s defense contends he only used “impolite” language while “passionately advocating” for his son, who suffers from anxiety and was reading at a fifth grade level as a sophomore in high school.

“It is highly ironic that BCPS, whose School Board members have emphasized repeatedly and strongly the importance of protecting parental rights, have now sued a parent for a total of $600,000.00 because the school personnel did not like how he has advocated for his son,” said the response filed on Rife’s behalf by Bedford attorney David Whitehurst.

The civil suit claims Rife used “obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious and/or indecent language” when interacting with school staff in person, over the phone and via email. The lawsuit lists several examples of Rife threatening to call the police, have people arrested, file lawsuits or initiate investigations over what he believed to be mistreatment of his son.

The filing recounts conversations in which Rife allegedly said the school principal should “get her head out of her ass” and said her “bullshit” was putting his son at risk. Documents filed in court also suggest Rife used the terms “asshole,” “jerk” and “jerkoff” to refer to school staff members.

Bedford school officials tried to put Rife on a communications plan in early 2023 that limited his contact with staff.

“Bedford County Public Schools expects parents to be respectful and civil when interacting with school staff members,” Deputy Superintendent Karen Woodford wrote to Rife last July in a letter filed with the lawsuit. “We will no longer tolerate your profanity to staff, threats, dishonest communication about people losing their jobs, yelling and speaking badly about staff members. If you cannot abide by this plan, I will limit your interaction with staff even more than it is at this time.”

In addition to the $600,000 the school board is seeking from Rife for “personal injury, lost profits, increased operating expenses and legal fees,” the board is asking the Bedford Circuit Court to order Rife to stop using vulgar language and follow the communications plan the school division laid out for him.

“Putting an end to the abuse of government resources is plainly in the public interest,” the school board’s lawyers wrote in a motion seeking an emergency injunction against Rife.

Rife’s attorney has argued that nothing he said rises to the level of criminal conduct under the laws the school board pointed to dealing with using a computer or phone for harassment and “abusive language to another.” The communication plan the school division is asking the court to enforce states that Rife can only use email to contact the school principal and the division’s director of special education and says they “will not communicate through phone unless there is an emergency.”

In a competing motion asking the court to order Bedford County Public Schools to comply with the IEP plan, Rife’s side argued the injunction school officials were seeking would infringe on free speech.

“It would serve as a ‘lesson’ to other parents that advocating for their children could result in being sued,” Rife’s motion says.

The communications the school divisions objected to, Rife’s attorney argued in legal filings, should be understood in the context of a parent trying to help their child but getting little assistance from school officials. Many of the interactions school officials spotlighted involved Rife complaining about bullying by other students or behavior by teachers that he felt was adding to his son’s difficulties at school, according to court records.

“One example is that Mr. Rife has been restricted from speaking directly with his son’s case manager or the reading specialist for over three years outside of IEP meetings,” Rife’s court filings say. “As would most parents in such a situation, this has caused him to become frustrated and upset, and that frustration has at times been expressed to school employees, but never with malice or threat.”

The specific language school staff found offensive would “generally be considered fairly mild in today’s culture,” Rife’s court filings argue.

State officials ruled Bedford officials were not in compliance with several sections of the student’s IEP calling for him to receive specialized instruction and assistance. For example, the plan called for the student to receive at least 45 minutes of reading services five times per week in a special education setting, but state officials determined he wasn’t always getting that level of instruction.

The state ordered Bedford school officials to reexamine the student’s IEP, discuss whether he needed extended school year services and review what “compensatory” assistance was necessary to address the impact on the student’s “access to a free appropriate public education.”

Attorneys for the school board portrayed the lawsuit as a necessary step to safeguard the school division after less formal efforts to improve relations with Rife failed.

The courts requiring Rife to communicate with school officials in a particular manner, the school board’s lawyers wrote, won’t impede his ability to have “reasonable, good faith communications with BCPS about his child’s education.”

A hearing has not yet been scheduled in the case.

by Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

Two Virginia school divisions are slated to launch a pilot program intended to help reduce youth involvement in gangs and violent behaviors with guns but it’s unclear if the initiative will be fully funded, as lawmakers go back to the drawing board to work up a new state spending plan.

On April 2, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed legislation to create the Community Builders Pilot Program that will start with Roanoke and Petersburg City Public Schools students entering the eighth grade.  Pupils in both districts face high rates of gun violence and cases of students bringing firearms to school.

Bill carriers Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, and Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said unlike other community violence intervention efforts centered around getting weapons off the streets, their legislation takes a different approach because it centers students.

“We’re hoping by involving young people that perhaps it helps in other ways,” said Aird, adding that such a program could also have a “residual impact” on children facing disciplinary trouble in school.

“But ultimately, [this legislation] is specifically trying to make sure that when they are no longer in school, they have another outlet that’s pouring into them and they’re not getting involved in things that can be harmful to themselves and others when they are outside of the school walls,” she said.

If the program is successful, Rasoul — who serves as the chair of the House Education Committee — said he hopes it will expand to other schools and grade levels.

“This is a great way to keep students focused, especially through the summer, and to build some healthy habits with a very specific curriculum that then follows them throughout their eighth grade year,” said Rasoul.

According to the pilot program legislation, the initiative will provide community engagement, workforce development, postsecondary education exploration, social-emotional education and development opportunities to students during the academic year after regular school hours and during the summer months.

Schools will collect data and report the program’s progress to the governor’s administration and General Assembly every November for the next two years.

Public interest in youth gun violence prevention has increased, most notably after a then-six-year-old student brought a firearm from home to his Newport News elementary school last year and shot his teacher. The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, was seriously injured but survived.

The Community Builders program might have scored a legislative win, but funding for the program will remain unclear until the governor and leaders from the General Assembly determine the final budget before the June 30 deadline.

Virginia legislature will consider reworked state budget in May 13 special session

The General Assembly backed the pilot program with $800,000 in dedicated funds over the next two years. However, the governor amended the budget, cutting the request to $400,000. It’s an example of the governor’s and the General Assembly’s differing opinions on how the commonwealth should be funded for the next two years.

Del. Mike Cherry, R-Colonial Heights, who supported the Community Builders legislation, said during the Jan. 30 House Education subcommittee hearing that he believes it to be a “great model program” and would work well with Ceasefire Virginia in supporting communities facing high levels of crime.

In 2022, Ceasefire was launched as a multi-jurisdictional approach to address violent criminal activity among serious and repeat offenders in partnership with Virginia’s attorney general’s office, elected officials and law enforcement.

The purpose of the initiative is to reduce violent crime through partnerships and investments into gang prevention and community policing. Ceasefire has been implemented in 13 cities statewide, including Petersburg and Roanoke.

“When you ask high school students ‘When did things start to go wrong?’ many times they will point to the middle school level,” Verletta White, superintendent of Roanoke City Public Schools, said during a Jan. 30 House Education subcommittee hearing.

“We want to target our rising eighth graders and show them not only the detrimental effects of violence on a community, but their responsibility and how they can be community builders instead.”

by Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

Gov. Glenn Youngkin and lawmakers have agreed to work together on the biennium budget, after clashing for weeks over two distinctly different spending plans.

A special session will be held on May 13, Youngkin and lawmakers in both chambers announced Wednesday, to consider the revamped budget and prevent a shutdown ahead of July 1, when the current budget expires.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin was joined by Democratic and Republican leaders from both chambers in the Capitol’s rotunda on April 17. (Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)

On Wednesday, the House of Delegates voted to reject all 233 of the governor’s amendments to the budget, and agreed to seek a new budget to present to the legislature May 13, with voting on it expected May 15. They also took up the governor’s other bill amendments and 153 vetoes.

The House accepted all Youngkin’s vetoes, including bills that would have raised the minimum wage, created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board to cap drug prices, protected people who come to Virginia for reproductive health care from extradition and prohibited assault firearms in public places.

Future of skill games in Virginia still unclear as Senate rejects Youngkin’s proposal

The bill amendments up for debate included: changes to legislation that would legalize skill machines, which was rejected by the Senate; a measure that would lower the amounts Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company can recover from customers for their pre-construction costs of a small modular reactor, which was adopted in their respective chambers; and another that would require school boards to notify gun-owning parents annually of their responsibility to safely store firearms to keep them away from their children, which was also rejected by the delegates.

It’s not clear what will happen to the language the legislature included in its budget that would’ve ordered the state to rejoin the carbon market known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, that incentivizes electricity producers to emit less carbon by making them purchase allowances to do so.

Youngkin — who passed a regulation that withdrew Virginia from RGGI despite RGGI supporters saying a legislative change was needed — has opposed participation in RGGI, while calling the fee for the allowances that utilities can recover from ratepayers  a “hidden tax.” The regulation withdrawal is being challenged in court.

The budget delay also creates uncertainty for local governments trying to estimate how much funding schools will receive and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or Metro, which is seeking additional funding from the state to bridge its $750 million shortfall.

Before Wednesday’s veto session, the governor tried compromising on the budget with lawmakers by removing all tax increases they had approved — including the digital service sales tax he initially proposed — but also dropping the tax cuts he requested in December.

In the Capitol’s rotunda with Democratic and Republican leaders from both chambers Wednesday afternoon, Youngkin said all parties are close to a budget agreement after meeting over the last few days.

“We believe this is a good path forward for the commonwealth,”Youngkin told reporters. “It reflects the work that has been done from the General Assembly and from the governor’s office.”

He added that no decisions have been made yet on the specifics of the budget, including tax increases, but he looks forward to meeting with leaders.

“This was a collective decision, and you will see from the vote this morning that it is unanimous amongst all of us to press forward in this fashion,” Youngkin said.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Luke Torian, D-Prince William, added, “We agreed that there is nothing that’s off the table. Everything will be up for discussion and deliberations. No decisions have been made at this point.”

Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, told a reporter that they were “absolutely correct” that envisioning the governor, Democrats and Republicans standing together in the rotunda two months ago was unlikely to happen when there were different budget priorities on both sides, including Youngkin’s arena proposal to bring two professional sports teams to Northern Virginia and the Democratic-controlled legislature’s plan to raise the minimum wage and allow retail cannabis sales in the state.

“But I think what’s changed is that there has been a lot of collaboration,” Lucas said. ”I think nothing helps the process more than everybody getting together, sitting around the table and talking about what we can all do to help Virginia. I think we all had different ways we thought we were going to get there, but I think now we are going to work together towards something that will keep the temperature down a little bit.”

Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, who, along with Lucas, met with the governor earlier this week, said he is optimistic about the process moving forward.

“That’s how you come to a resolution,” McDougle said. “Everybody’s got to come to the table and talk and be heard and once you do that you can find solutions.”

by Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

The fate of slots-like skill games in Virginia convenience stores and truck stops remained in limbo Wednesday as the state Senate voted to reject Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s sweeping changes to a proposal to legalize and tax the gambling machines.

Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, spoke to reporters at the Capitol while surrounded by skill game supporters who back the legalization bill he’s sponsoring. (Graham Moomaw/Virginia Mercury)

The Senate voted 34-6 to reject the governor’s tougher amendments to the bill, sending the legislation back to Youngkin in its original form.

Virginia lawmakers return to Richmond as budget battle fuels shutdown talk

The bipartisan move raises the risk Youngkin could veto  the legislation, an outcome that would leave skill games prohibited throughout Virginia by a ban enacted under former Gov. Ralph Northam. But lawmakers also announced Wednesday that they’re planning a special session later this spring to reach a deal on the state budget, creating an opening to reconsider the skill game issue over the next few weeks.

“I recognize that this bill faces an uncertain future if it goes back to the governor’s desk,” said Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, the bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate. “But… I stand with small businesses in every corner of our commonwealth urging the governor to do right by small businesses and sign this bill.”

Virginia’s skill game ban — which was passed in 2020 but didn’t take effect until 2021 after lawmakers gave the industry a one-year grace period due to COVID-19 — was suspended for nearly two years as the skill game industry fought it in court. The Supreme Court of Virginia reinstated it late last year, rendering the machines illegal and prompting the industry to launch a new lobbying push to change the law.

Things appeared to be going well for skill game supporters until the bill got to Youngkin, who had signaled in February that he had “serious concerns” with the proposal. Last week, the governor unveiled amendments that would impose a higher tax rate on the machines, more regulatory safeguards and strict geographic limits that would effectively ban the machines in most of the state’s metro areas.

The governor wanted a 35% tax rate on the machines, while the General Assembly approved a 25% tax rate. Skill game supporters claim Youngkin’s amendments would create a tax rate of up to 45%, but the administration has said that’s a misread of the bill and the suggested rate is indeed 35%.

In a statement Wednesday evening, Youngkin’s office reiterated its qualms about the legislation while indicating the governor is open to revisiting the geographic limits skill game backers took issue with.

“The governor’s concerns with the bill remain and his amendments addressed those concerns,” said Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez. “He is open to continuing discussion to alleviate issues with both perimeter provisions.”

Proponents of legalizing skill games have portrayed it as a matter of fairness, arguing that since Virginia has legalized numerous other types of gambling there’s no reason the machines that generate revenue for small business owners should be treated more harshly. Opponents of the bill say the state shouldn’t allow a gambling free-for-all or reward businesses that exploited a legal loophole to profit from gambling machines that have been unregulated and untaxed for most of their existence in Virginia.

The Senate appeared to consider a second vote on the skill game bill to preemptively override a potential veto. But the body didn’t follow through on that effort, which would have required two-thirds votes in both legislative chambers. The House of Delegates, which had approved the skill game bill by a narrow 51-45 margin, didn’t take up the skill game bill Wednesday. Because the bill originated in the Senate, the Senate’s decision to reject Youngkin’s amendments sent the bill straight back to the governor.

The policy specifics of what the governor recommended drew little discussion in the Senate, which completed its action on the skill game bill Wednesday in about five minutes.

Rouse, the only senator who spoke on the bill, said the “most egregious” elements in Youngkin’s proposal were the geographic limitations that would outlaw the machines in the state’s most populous regions. Youngkin’s version of the bill would have prohibited skill games within 35 miles of licensed casinos and Rosie’s facilities affiliated with the Colonial Downs horse racing track. The governor also suggested banning skill games within 2,500 feet of schools, day cares and places of worship.

In a seemingly less controversial amendment, Youngkin proposed giving cities and counties the ability to ban skill games locally. The bill sent to him had no provisions for local control, legalizing the machines statewide with no ability for communities to opt out.

The governor had also suggested tougher regulations requiring the industry to verify the identity of players before they put money into the machines, a system that could help prevent minors and people seeking help for gambling addiction from playing skill games. The bill the legislature passed also bars people under 21 from playing and has provisions for gambling addiction, but was less clear on how those rules would be enforced since skill games aren’t as closely supervised as slot machines on a casino floor.

Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, a skill game critic who has pushed for tougher regulations on the industry, said the legislature could have avoided a veto by rejecting the 35-mile rule while leaving the rest of Youngkin’s suggestions.

“I’m a big believer that half a loaf is better than no loaf,” Krizek said. “I’m sure there’s things that the governor could meet them halfway on.”

A large group of convenience store owners gathered at the Capitol Wednesday morning to applaud lawmakers seen as skill game allies and criticize Youngkin for amendments they felt were overly harsh and not in tune with reality.

Convenience stores shut down Virginia Lottery sales in protest for skill games

Munir Rassiwala, who owns several convenience stores around Virginia, said he voted for Youngkin but was disappointed the governor seemed to think protecting the investments casinos have made is more important than helping smaller entrepreneurs like him.

“There should be a compromise,” he said. “There are lives at stake.”

Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, a skill game supporter, encouraged the crowd to keep up the fight.

“Hopefully cooler heads prevail both in the governor’s office and here in the legislature,’ said Stanley, a lawyer who has done work for Pace-O-Matic, a major skill game company lobbying for the legalization bill. “I think ultimately a solution for the budget and for skill games is in the works.”

Virginians Against Neighborhood Slot Machines, an anti-skill game advocacy group funded by casinos, urged Youngkin to veto the bill.

“That is the only course of action to ensure public safety, protect vulnerable communities and to prevent every neighborhood in Virginia from becoming a mini-Las Vegas,” the group said in a statement. “It should tell Virginians everything they need to know that ‘skill games’ proponents threw a tantrum at the mere prospect of modest regulatory protections.”

by Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

In a state budget amendment, Gov. Glenn Youngkin pledged to support Metro with an additional $133.7 million amid a projected shortfall for the transit agency. The pledge came with a caveat: It would strip funding from a transit investment fund used by Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

Leaders from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the regional body of jurisdictions responsible for funding Metro, urged lawmakers to reject the amendment.

“The General Assembly worked hard and came to [a] compromise, and we believe it’s the right thing to do to reject the amendment and then re-engage with the administration to find common ground and this is not something that we believe the governor is ideologically opposed to,” said Matt de Ferranti, commission chair.

Last week, the governor announced his pledge after the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates Metro, projected a $750 million shortfall next fiscal year, starting during the summer. In Youngkin’s initial budget proposed in December, he did not include any additional funds for the transit agency.

Since then Virginia’s jurisdictional partners Maryland and the District of Columbia have committed millions to Metro. D.C. has committed up to $200 million, and Maryland is pledging $150 million.

In 2018, the three jurisdictions established a dedicated funding source for Metro to help address any maintenance issues. The Virginia General Assembly created the WMATA Capital Fund to uphold its portion of the agreement.

In December, the governor told reporters that Metro must create a plan to address the change in ridership and service demand before any additional funding is appropriated.

The governor’s proposal

Youngkin’s proposal is less than the $149.5 million proposed by lawmakers, who did not intend to use funds from NVTC.

According to the budget amendment, Virginia would provide $35.7 million from the general fund to NVTC in fiscal year 2026 to support operating assistance for Metro, in addition to the $98 million supplemental allocations held by NVTC.

The commission said in an April 12 letter to lawmakers that the $98 million was given under previous Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration for the localities to use to address the immediate Metro payments as the country emerged from the pandemic.

Under the governor’s amendment, the letter said, the commission would be required to pay its normal Metro operating bill, which is approximately $340 million, and an additional increase of $119 million in fiscal year 2025.

The funds would have helped with matching the General Assembly’s allocation to address the projected two-year, $263 million increase in Virginia’s Metro bill: $119 million in fiscal year 2025 and $144 million in 2026.

The letter states that the governor’s intended action would place an overly “disproportionate burden” on local budgets in the counties of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, who would “need to look to taxpayers a second time, beyond the existing local investments already being made in Metro.”

If the NVTC Trust Fund was exhausted, de Ferranti said, it would delay funding road and bike lane projects in the region.

As part of the governor’s plan, additional funds to the transit agency could increase depending on whether Metro meets the administration’s proposed criteria, including hiring a consulting firm to help the transit agency save money and to review how it is managing funds.

The firm would be required to submit its findings to WMATA by Nov. 30, as well as to the governor, and the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations committees.

Metro will also be required to provide a management plan to the state for approval by Jan. 15, 2025.

The commission wrote it is concerned about the “procedurally complex and overarching reporting and approval conditions” for the agency Metro on top of other regional efforts.

“Adding more steps beyond the oversight requirements contained in [the] existing code would undo efforts to have clear lines of authority and add financial uncertainty to the flow of funding, disproportionately affecting NVTC and its jurisdictions,” the letter reads.

Helping Metro

Last week, Metro joined the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in announcing the launch of a new joint initiative to create a “unified vision” for transit service in the region as Virginia lawmakers weigh the governor’s proposal and conditions.

The initiative comes after the jurisdictions learned more about Metro’s financial challenges to maintain services. Council members also expressed interest in identifying funding and accountability solutions, both in the near and long terms.

“Our public transit network is our region’s most significant, shared asset,” said Clark Mercer, executive director for COG, who added he was pleased leaders are “seizing this valuable opportunity to collaborate and ensure the region’s public transit is positioned for long-term success.”

Council suggests Virginia reset subsidy payments to Metro amid budget shortfall

Randy Clarke, Metro’s general manager and chief executive officer, said on Friday’s The Politics Hour radio show that he expects the Board of Directors to vote on its budget next week, which avoids those “draconian” service cuts.

According to Metro, some of the agency’s proposed changes include eliminating bus service on 67 of 135 lines, reducing bus service on 41 of 135 lines, a 20% general increase in fares and parking rates, reducing rail service and closing 10 stations.

Nearly two dozen groups, including the Coalition for Smarter Growth, Virginia Bicycling Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, signed a statement urging lawmakers to reject the governor’s amendment and restore the funding approved by the General Assembly.

“Failure to provide additional state funding will have dire consequences for the workforce and economy of Northern Virginia and the D.C. region,” the April 12 statement reads. “It would mean massive service cuts and fare hikes at Metro, higher transportation costs for workers, and more congestion on the roads, and discourage next generation companies and workers from locating in the D.C. region.”

While Clarke shied away from commenting on the governor’s decision to pledge less than what the General Assembly voted on, he did say that the current funding model is “complex” and “non-traditional” in the transit industry, which prevents the agency from being able to fully predict its ongoing service needs in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.

“The fact that we kinda go through this every other year is unhealthy for Metro. [Metro] can’t do good service planning, workforce planning, capital fleet planning,” Clarke said.“It’s also is not good for our jurisdictional partners.”

According to NVTC, Metro has continued to be a “key economic driver” for the commonwealth, generating $1 billion in state tax revenue annually.

by Nathaniel Cline, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

The nation’s largest public power company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which serves 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six neighboring states, has put forward plans for eight new natural gas plants since 2020.

In South Carolina, Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper are pushing the state legislature to pave the way for a 2,000-megawatt natural gas power plant. Farther north, Dominion also plans new gas generation in Virginia. In its most recent plan filed with state regulators, Georgia Power is looking to add new gas turbines. Likewise, Duke Energy in North Carolina is proposing new gas plants and delaying coal power retirements.

The companies point to spiking electric demand, driven by data centers, new manufacturing facilities, increasing transportation electrification and other sources.

Georgia Power’s CEO said new businesses are creating a thirst for new power at “both a record scale and velocity.” Duke and TVA both cited “tremendous” economic and population growth in their service areas.

But a new report by an energy and climate policy think tank warns that some utilities, particularly in the South, are making a “panicked rush to gas” and calls on state officials to explore cheaper options and carefully vet plans that could saddle electric customers with billions in costs.

”What we really want is for policymakers to ask good questions,” said Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at Energy Innovation, and one of the authors of the brief for utility regulators, in an interview with States Newsroom.

‘Less risky alternatives’

After about 15 years of stagnation, U.S. electric demand is growing. A December report by an electric sector consulting firm noted that the utilities and regional transmission organizations that run the North American electric grid had almost doubled growth projections. At the same time, transmission line construction has nearly ground to a halt and there’s limited ability to move power between regions as the generation mix increasingly shifts to renewables and batteries in many parts of the country.

That’s been coupled with a growing dependence on natural gas power plants, which have taken the role coal used to play in the nation’s power mix but which have also failed in large numbers during recent severe weather.

Gimon said gas plants are often treated as a magic bullet solution to resource adequacy — an electric industry term for having enough power to meet peak demand. If the vision of the utilities pushing for lots of new gas power comes to pass, one of two things will happen, Gimon contends.

“Either they don’t get used very much,” he said, and thus become a stranded asset customers are stuck paying for anyway. “Or they get used a lot and they’re busting through their climate goals and EPA regulations.” In a post Thursday, two Natural Resources Defense Council staffers warned that the huge planned Southeastern gas buildout will jeopardize emission reduction targets and hike electric costs, “leaving customers on the hook for potentially expensive, dirty and ultimately stranded assets that may or may not be usable for their typical, carbon-intensive lifespans.”

Gimon and one of his co-authors, Mike O’Boyle, Energy Innovation’s senior director for electricity, also pointed out that gas plants can’t always be counted on when they’re needed most. In the region run by PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, gas plants accounted for 70% of the power plant outages it suffered during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022.

“We’re not talking about a capacity resource that is dependable for 100% of its nameplate capacity during a winter peak either,” O’Boyle said. “I think regulators’ jobs are to help ensure that utility investments are prudent and part of that means have they considered more affordable alternatives and less risky alternatives.”

Sarah Durdaller, a spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities like Dominion Energy, Southern Company and Duke Energy, said its member companies “are committed to delivering reliable, affordable and resilient clean energy to their customers.”

Durdaller said carbon emissions from the power sector are at their lowest point in almost 50 years, despite electricity generation doubling in that time frame. Natural gas power, she said, “is an essential partner for deploying renewables and maintaining grid reliability.”

As far as the thousands of megawatts of gas plants companies are proposing, she said that utility plans “always evolve as new technologies emerge, as costs decline, as demand forecasts change and as new policies are fully implemented.”

‘Better solutions’

One aspect for policymakers to consider is the reliability of the demand projections themselves.

“Utilities consistently over forecast,” said Gudrun Thompson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has been tracking southeastern utilities’ gas plant proposals. “I would not be surprised if that is happening now.”

Transparency is also a concern, she added, noting that a single data center project could be in negotiations with multiple utilities and get counted by all of them in their load projections.

In 2007, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted 1.5% annual growth in electric demand, which would have been a 21% increase over 15 years. It never materialized, mostly because of energy efficiency programs, federal and local building codes and appliance standards and voluntary industry efforts, the Energy Innovation report says.

“Efficiency was a primary cause of flat demand after 2008 and could be a major factor in

mitigating the pressure that new demand growth puts on the electrical grid,” the report notes.

Coming electric load increases aren’t illusory but the report’s authors argue that “better near-term and long-term solutions exist and should be deployed first.”

For example, Gimon said, battery storage is growing by leaps and bounds in Texas and California, and it’s already playing a growing role in helping to meet peak demand. However, in their planning some Southeastern utilities are treating battery storage “like it’s some new technology from Mars,” Gimon said.

The Energy Innovation report’s other recommendations include:

Taking advantage of existing locations with power infrastructure onsite to build renewable power and battery storage, skipping the long wait times to connect to the grid plaguing many new power projects across the country. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a green energy nonprofit, calls it “clean repowering” and says there’s 250 gigawatts (the rough equivalent of 250 large power plants) of new renewable potential at former fossil sites scattered across the country that could be harnessed to create billions in savings and cleaner power generation.Look to meet large customer demands with onsite power, such as solar panels, and take better advantage of demand response programs, which enroll large customers who voluntarily agree to reduce power consumption in exchange for savings. Many of those customers include large corporations that have their own carbon reduction targets. Shaving that large customer demand could avoid some or all new peak gas capacity, the report says. “The utilities’ responses to load growth are coming into conflict with the explicit goals of their own customers who are driving that load growth,” O’Boyle said.Improve how the existing electric system is used by implementing grid-enhancing technologies like dynamic line ratings, power flow controllers and other systems. They’re common in other countries but have been slow to take root in many parts of the U.S. where utilities make the most money by building the most expensive solution they can get approved, not necessarily the one that’s most cost-effective for customers. “The fact is any data center is hooking into a system,” Gimon said. “That system is remarkably underutilized.”Improve regional connections, particularly in the Southeast, which is fast becoming one of the few remaining parts of the country without any real regional wholesale electric market. In 2022, Southeastern utilities created the Southeast Energy Exchange Market, but it’s been criticized as a market in name only, since the volume of actual trades has failed to amount to much. “Research from Energy Innovation and Vibrant Clean Energy found that sharing capacity between non-RTO states in the Southeast would yield more than $10 billion in cost savings annually, revealing a region replete with spare capacity if utilities can figure out how to share it,” the report says.

It will fall to state utility regulators and policymakers to gauge how desperately their residents actually need all the new gas power being proposed and whether there are cheaper ways to meet climbing demand.

Adding more rooftop solar, energy efficiency programs and residential batteries, known as distributed resources, which can be aggregated into what’s known as a virtual power plant, might mean lower electric sales, the report noted.

“In some states, the electric utility is also the gas utility and can benefit from rate-basing new gas infrastructure. These circumstances create incentives that can skew utility decisions toward well-worn solutions like gas plants and typically disincentivize regional coordination,” the report says. “Ultimately, policymakers need to demand more from their utilities and be skeptical of the ‘usual suspect’ solutions.”

Thompson, the SELC attorney, called the amount of new gas southern utilities are proposing “staggering.” The organization estimates that if all the new gas plants proposed get built, it will eclipse the amount of coal generation southern utilities plan to retire over the next 15 years by roughly 8 gigawatts. Regulators, she said, need to “look very hard at the load growth projections and take a hard look at choices that the utilities are making,” including pending EPA carbon regulations that could require expensive carbon capture technology or co-firing with hydrogen and whether the plants will require new pipeline infrastructure. “If all of these plants get approved and built we’re just not going to achieve the carbon reductions that we need to be on a path to averting the worst effects of climate change.”

by Robert Zullo, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.