RICHMOND, Va. — Friday marks six months since Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as the 75th Governor of Virginia. She reflected on her time so far in office, covering ground from how she said legislation passed this past General Assembly session will make life more affordable for Virginians, what she will look for in the Dominion-NextEra merger, and what her focus will be for the next six months.
But Republican lawmakers said actions from her office and Democratic lawmakers will lead to higher energy bills and less money in their paychecks.
Dominion/Next-Era Merger
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On the merger, with the two companies officially filing their petitions to state and federal regulators on Wednesday, Spanberger said that she and her administration will focus on three pillars to determine if the deal is good for Virginia: the first being affordability.
"If the idea behind such a merger is to leverage ... the scope of energy generation, et cetera, I would want to see that benefit Virginians and I want that clearly laid out in the plan," Spanberger said.
She added the impact on workers is another aspect she will be watching.
"As is sometimes the case with large mergers, when there's duplication, many people lose their jobs," she said. "So, I do want to make sure I have an understanding of what the impacts of this merger might be on employment. Both, of course, at the headquarters, but in Dominion facilities or line workers across the rest of the state."
Third, Spanberger said she is looking at the impact on expanding power generation, while working toward Virginia's renewable energy goals.
When asked if she thinks the standard six-month review process by the State Corporation Commission is enough for a merger of this size, a concern raised by Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, Spanberger said the SCC should take the time that it needs.
"I don't necessarily want to say X amount of time is the appropriate time for them to consider. But, I do think for a deal of this size, if they were to respond back in two weeks, perhaps that was faster than it should have been. But, conversely, I don't know that they need two years."
Watch: Virginia Lt. Gov. pushes for deeper review of Dominion-NextEra merger: 'We need to be careful'
Response to Recent Polling Numbers and Affordability Concerns
When asked about a new poll from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University that showed 47% of registered voters disapproved of her job performance and 30% said inflation and the cost of living was the biggest concern, Spanberger said measures of her Affordable Virginia plan that were passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by her will help bring down costs in the short and longer-term.
"If you're someone who relies on insulin, there's going to be a huge impact on you right away ... If you're someone who's kind of always teetering on potential eviction, you'll feel it real quick when you have just a little bit more breathing room to be able to kind of steady yourself and pay your rent," Spanberger said. "Some of the longer-term things that we've done related to housing supply increase, it'll take longer for people to feel that. And so, I think the priority needs to be on our administration, and frankly, the members of the General Assembly who passed all these bills, to be connecting the dots, to be communicating, to be celebrating."
But Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle (R-Hanover) said some of the legislation will add more costs for Virginians.
"One of the first pieces of legislation the governor signed was one rejoining RGGI [Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative], which is a tax on everybody's power bill. Now, there's some effort to give you portion of that back — we'll see what that happens. But you're going to pay that money. Your electric bill is going to be higher every month right out of the gate," said McDougle. "The paid family medical leave is not free. Every working Virginian is going to take home less in their paycheck."
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Lawsuits Challenging Recently Enacted Laws
Spanberger also addressed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of some of the bills she signed into law, including a ban on law enforcement officers wearing masks with some exceptions and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Spanberger said both are constitutional and said with the mask bill, they learned from other states and did not just have it target federal law enforcement and provided exceptions.
"It is extraordinarily common for federal agencies to be aware of what are some of the local standards," she added. "And it's just unfortunate that the federal government is refusing to recognize that, apart from the exceptions, choosing to just be masked on the street for no reason. It's something that actually undermines their ability to do a job with any level of community buy-in, any level of, I think, clear authority within a community."
On the assault weapons ban, she always expected a legal challenge from a private citizen as is their right, but said the Commonwealth will continue to defend it in court because it is about saving lives.
"I expected that a federal administration that doesn't share the priority of reducing gun violence or doesn't necessarily share the priority of looking at data-driven policymaking would take issue from a partisan lens, if not anything else. And so it's unfortunate that they're choosing to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia," she added of the U.S. Department of Justice suing as well.
McDougle countered, "Many of us were arguing during the legislative process that they were not constitutional, and not just one court, but multiple courts have already determined that it's unconstitutional. They were bad policy decisions that were made for hyper political reasons and I think at the end of the day, the courts are going to continue to say they're not constitutional."
Looking Forward
Spanberger covered several other topics that she plans to continue to work on, including the energy demands posed by data centers. When asked about new data centers applying with plans for their own on-site generation, including natural gas turbines, Spanberger said she is concerned.
"And so, then, what do we do about it? I think it is good that large utility users want to bring their own generation in a form other than backup diesel generation, right? So okay, hooray, we're moving in the right direction," she said. "What else do we need to do as a Commonwealth — what hurdles might stand in the way of other types of energy generation coming to Virginia that could be behind the meter, that also could be aligned with our clean energy goals ... I do not want to see us move in a place where we think as a Commonwealth we're on path towards meeting ... the VCEA goals, but that's because there's all this generation that is sort of outside of the scope of what is counted."
She said she wants to continue to work with lawmakers on legislation around data centers, the appointment process to university Boards of Visitors, and the impacts of President Donald Trump's H.R. 1 that will be taking effect in the next few years.
When asked what she knows now that she wished she knew then, she reflected on communication with state lawmakers. Several lawmakers had criticized the broad changes the governor proposed to several major pieces of legislation earlier this year and did not engage in conversations early enough.
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"It's something that I, frankly, should have clocked earlier. But making sure that over-communicating needs to be the bare minimum, particularly with a legislative body that moves at such an intense pace because it's a part-time," she said, adding that when she was finally sworn in as governor the session was already underway.
She said the goal is to be in a "totally different position" ahead of the next session.
"Bill filing begins very, very soon … I don't anticipate a whole heck of a lot of people are going to be filing their bills over the summer, but this is the place where, as people file, we can start having those conversations now," she added. "Being able to do some of that work, those conversations, the amending, where it is never even seen — that will be a shift that, because as a function of time, a fully-staffed team, and it being the second session, that we'll be able to make some significant shifts in terms of how it is that that process works."
Spanberger spoke with reporters Thursday in a meeting that did not allow video or audio recording for broadcast use. While she had a separate press event Friday, a follow-up group interview planned for later in the morning that would have allowed recording for broadcast was canceled by her office because of a scheduling conflict.
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