Clean Energy

In Virginia, we are over-reliant on environmentally and economically unsustainable sources of energy.  Fossil fuels pollute our air and water, and nuclear power generates lethal radioactive waste that places us at risk of catastrophic disaster.

• Environment Virginia supports the creation of an energy efficiency resource standard that, at minimum, meets the midpoint mark of the recent American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy study: 19% of our needs met through energy efficiency by 2025.
  
• Environment Virginia supports adopting the most recently approved International Energy Conservation Code, which would require builders to exceed minimum standards for energy efficiency.

• Environment Virginia supports investments in new energy markets by ending the coal tax credit in the Commonwealth, and we oppose all efforts to drill off the coast of Virginia.

Clean water  

The Department of Environmental Quality has classified more than 10,000 miles of Virginia's waterways as polluted.  We have enough dirty water to flow to California and back, a pollution problem that threatens the environmental and economic sustainability of the Commonwealth. 

• Environment Virginia supports increasing the fiscal year 2010 budge for implementing agricultural best management practices to $38 million.
• Environment Virginia supports efforts to reduce point-source pollution from municipal and industrial wastewater treatment facilities.

• Environment Virginia opposes the development of uranium mining in the Commonwealth, which would threaten the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of Virginians.  

Climate change

In Virginia, we are already feeling the effects of climate change:

Our forests are more susceptible to wildfires and pests, and water levels in the Chesapeake Bay are along our coastline are expected to rise by two to five feet this century.

• Environment Virginia opposes the construction of new coal-fired power plants, which would significantly increase the global warming emissions that contribute to climate change.

• Environment Virginia supports expanding energy-efficiency programs, which will reduce our baseline generation needs and offset peak demand.

Open spaces  

If the current trend continues, over the next forty years Virginia will develop as many acres of farm, forest, and natural lands as in the first 400 years of the Commonwealth's history.  This trend threatens our environment and the economic stability of the Commonwealth by placing our two largest industries in jeopardy: forestry and agriculture. 

• Environment Virginia supports the continuation of the Land Preservation Tax Credit program, which has already helped preserve more than 500,000 acres in the Commonwealth.
• Environment Virginia supports continued funding of the Virginia Farmland Preservation Task Force's Purchase Development Rights program.

Environment Virginia's Mission 

We all want clean air, clean water, and open spaces.  But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress.  That's the idea behind Environment Virginia.  We focus exclusively on protecting Virginia's air, water, and open spaces.  We speak out and take action at the local, state, and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.