Floyd County court suspends earlier ruling against state in RGGI case

A Floyd County judge has granted the request of Attorney General Jason Miyares to suspend a November ruling that found Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s effort to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to be “unlawful and without effect.”

The AG’s office had filed a request with Floyd County Circuit Court following the earlier ruling to stay or suspend the judgment while the state appeals the judicial finding.

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ICYMI

• Judge rules Youngkin move to pull Virginia out of RGGI was ‘unlawful’

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At a hearing on Wednesday, the court denied part of the AG’s motion, but granted the request to post a bond, which will suspend execution of the court’s prior judgment.

“We’re disappointed to find ourselves at this point despite the November ruling,” said Chase Counts, the executive director of the Association of Energy Conservation Professionals, which is leading the legal challenge, with representation from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

“We, and a great number of other Virginians, see the benefits of being part of RGGI and want to be back in the program,” Counts said.

Virginia joined RGGI in 2021 under Youngkin’s predecessor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, after the General Assembly passed a 2020 law to require the state’s participation in the pact.

Advocates point out that the carbon cap-and-invest program, in three years of implementation in Virginia, had brought nearly $830 million to the state to fund flood resiliency projects and energy efficiency programs for low-income Virginians, while also cutting power plant pollution by almost 25 percent.

Virginia dropped out of the RGGI on Dec. 31, 2023, after the Youngkin-majority Air Pollution Control Board had voted to repeal the regulation earlier in 2023.

“The only body with the authority to repeal the RGGI Regulation would be the General Assembly. This is because a statute, the RGGI Act, requires the RGGI Regulation to exist,” Judge C. Randall Lowe wrote in a ruling handed down on Nov. 20.

“This may be a long battle, but we are ready for it,” said SELC Senior Attorney Nate Benforado. “Virginia should get back in RGGI. The state’s unlawful removal is already harming its clean energy transition and putting the most vulnerable communities at even more risk.”