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Local PBS, NPR stations ponder programming changes if federal money dries up
Roanoke-based Blue Ridge PBS has faced challenges before. When state budget cuts in 2013 led to the shutdown of broadcast towers in Marion and Norton, the station faced a setback to its mission to provide Central, Southside and Southwest Virginia with educational and cultural programming. Ten years later, PBS returned to Southwest Virginia with the launch of PBS Appalachia, which has its studio at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Bristol and is breaking new ground as a network station that uses an all-digital format rather than traditional over-the-air television signals. Now Blue Ridge PBS and other public media around the U.S. face a new challenge: Congress is considering a bill to cut federal funding to PBS, NPR and local public broadcasting stations.
Wiegard: Virginia needs Congress to protect clean energy efforts
The U.S. House recently passed a budget bill that includes the near total repeal of all support for clean energy. For Virginia, this approach would increase energy costs, increase air pollution, accelerate climate change and decrease economic investments. Federal tax credits — designed to boost clean energy manufacturing in the U.S. — have been getting good results in parts of Virginia. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, Rep. Jen Kiggans’ district in the Hampton Roads region has seen an estimated 3,000 new jobs, mostly related to offshore wind. Rep. John McGuire’s district in western Virginia has seen more than 5,000 jobs from solar, energy storage and clean tech manufacturing.
Lewis: To governor candidates pledging a car tax repeal: Be careful what you promise
Show of hands: who loves paying the yearly tax on your personal automobiles? Don’t be shy. Raise those hands. Anybody? As Virginians, it’s perhaps our most galling duty: paying hundreds of bucks (thousands for folks with bougie rides) to your city, county or town government for the responsibility of owning a depreciating asset you pay through the nose to buy, insure, fuel and maintain. According to the Tax Foundation, Virginia is among 27 states and the District of Columbia where tangible personal property taxes are assessed. Fourteen states broadly exempt personal property from taxes; 10 allow de minimis exemptions.
New data suggests increased flooding risks for D.C. region’s roads and transit systems
The D.C. region’s roads and other transportation infrastructure is more at risk from future flooding than previously thought, a new analysis found. The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) outlined its findings to leaders of member jurisdictions ... at a meeting last Wednesday (June 18). Past efforts using Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mapping to determine flooding threats to transportation weren’t “totally sufficient,” TPB planner Katherine Rainone said. To augment FEMA’s available resources, TPB licensed data from flood maps issued by Fathom, a UK-based analytics firm.
Connaughton: Senate budget plan would decimate Virginia hospitals
At this moment, the future of our health care delivery system is being decided in Congress. Access to care for millions of Americans, and Virginians, as well as the operation of hospitals is hanging in the balance. That is what’s at stake as part of budget reconciliation negotiations now occurring in Washington, D.C.
Yancey: A rewrite of the Clean Economy Act seems increasingly likely. This may pose hard questions for many
This fall, you’re going to hear a lot about the Virginia Clean Economy Act, the 2020 law that mandates a carbon-free electric grid by 2050, and which Democrats say lowers electric bills (because solar is cheaper than other fuels) and which Republicans say is raising them (because utilities have to build new facilities to generate that carbon-free power). Here’s what you may not hear: the conversations behind the scenes about ways to rewrite that law. Republicans, of course, would like to rewrite the whole thing, top to bottom. That’s not happening, not at least for the next two years, while Democrats have control of the state Senate. (Democrats currently control the House, too, but that’s up for election this fall, along with the governorship.)
VPAP Visual Lieutenant Governor Primary Night Timeline
For a few minutes on election night, Sen. Aaron Rouse took the lead in the closely contested Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney had been in the lead at the start of the night, but the reporting of a large number of ballots from Rouse's hometown of Virginia Beach around 9:30 p.m. briefly put him in first place. This pattern quickly reversed as more ballots came in from Northern Virginia and across the state, leading to a narrow victory for Hashmi out of the three frontrunners. See how the election night results played out minute by minute and where ballots were reported throughout the night on the map and timeline in VPAP's latest visual.
Supervisors to consider tax incentives for data center projects in western Chesterfield
Following recent EDA-initiated rezonings of sites for two code-named data centers developments in western Chesterfield, incentives are being teed up for the planned projects. Proposed incentive agreements between Chesterfield and two limited liability companies – Skyward Holdings and Aeris Investments – would lock in the county’s personal property tax rate for data centers at its current 24 cents per $100 of assessed value for the future projects at sites near Moseley and Westchester Commons for 30 years.
FEMA adds 180 Richmond sites to flood zones
Roughly 180 Richmond homes and businesses will soon be in a high-risk flood zone, according to new FEMA flood maps for the city. The additions will likely be required to buy flood insurance for their property when the maps go into effect in two weeks. FEMA updates its Flood Insurance Rate Maps every five years to account for shifts in flood risk due to environmental changes, construction and development impacts, or other factors, per the city.
What to expect in this week’s primaries to replace Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly
Voters in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, centered in Fairfax County, head to the polls for yet another election — just a week after the commonwealth’s regular primary last Tuesday. This time, voters have the chance to weigh in on party-run nominating contests, or “firehouse primaries,” which will determine the Democratic and Republican contenders to succeed Rep. Gerry Connolly, who died of cancer in May after serving the district for nearly two decades. Connolly’s death opens up a highly blue district in the Northern Virginia suburbs, and leaves the district temporarily without representation — at a time when the local federal workforce is reeling from federal government cuts. The House of Representatives is also narrowly divided, meaning that every vote counts.