Are Local Reps Dragging Feet On Environment?

Are Local Reps Dragging Feet On Environment?, Joy Loving
Daily News-Record, February 13, 2015

A recent editorial in the Virginian Pilot reported on the defeat of the Virginia Coastal Protection Act put forward by Republican Del. Ron Villaneuva, R-Virginia Beach, and Democratic Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico. Virginia would have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

This “East Coast cap and trade program lets states sell carbon allowances to utilities, with a goal of reducing emissions,” the Pilot reported. Money raised through the program would have prepared for sea-level rise and sinking land along our coast, bolstered our renewable energy industry, and assisted coal miners whose jobs are shrinking rapidly.

Too bad my local legislators did not support this market-driven way to create jobs and retrain workers whose jobs are going away. Are Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, and Del. Steven Landes, R-Weyers Cave, among state lawmakers who for years, the Pilot claimed, “have dragged their feet rather than addressing the threat, sacrificing the long-term security of critical assets and communities to partisan crusades and gamesmanship”?

Joy Loving
Grottoes