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Miyares joins cohort pressing for U.S. Supreme Court to review pharmacy benefit manager case
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares wants states to have more authority to regulate pharmacy benefit managers. Pharmacy benefits managers, or PBMs, are the middlemen that negotiate contracts between health plans, drug manufacturers and pharmacies. Though they do retain rebates and discounts set in their contracts, the exact amount of savings passed onto consumers has been relatively unknown. In recent years, several states have pushed legislation to enhance transparency, but it’s unclear how much power states have to enact their own regulations due to different court rulings on similar cases. So, Miyares recently signed onto a 32-state amicus brief to request that the United States Supreme Court review a case from Oklahoma.
Douglas: Sadly, Youngkin chose Big Pharma over Virginians in need
As CEO of the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, the primary care association representing Virginia’s 30 federally qualified health centers serving nearly 400,000 individuals at over 200 locations across the commonwealth, I write today with deep disappointment regarding Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto of Senate Bill 119. This critical piece of legislation held immense promise for countless Virginians struggling to afford the medications they need to stay healthy.
Child care challenges are threatening economic growth in Southside, study finds
About 52% of the Danville-Pittsylvania County area is considered a child care desert, according to a new Virginia Tech study. This means that there’s inadequate access to quality child care — an issue that the study found is hindering the region’s economic growth. Alongside housing and infrastructure, child care was identified by community workshop events over the last year as a main inhibitor of economic progress.
Old Dominion Power asks to raise rates
Old Dominion Power is asking state regulators for an increase in electric rates that would raise the average residential customer’s monthly bill by nearly $22. But the proposed increase could be partially offset by an approximately $10 monthly decrease in fuel costs that took effect April 1. Old Dominion Power, a subsidiary of Kentucky Utilities, provides electric service to about 28,000 Virginia customers in Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, and Wise counties. It’s the smallest investor-owned utility in Virginia.
Effort to ban kratom in Virginia sparks uproar
For a few days, Jennifer Brandt’s petition drew very little attention. In April, Brandt requested that the Virginia Board of Pharmacy make big changes to how it regulates kratom, a widely available medicinal plant. Kratom is marketed as a natural pain reliever, mood booster and at-home solution for addiction cravings. The petition has since received more than 2,900 comments — primarily from addicts describing how kratom has repaired their lives. Despite that, pharmacists say there need to be guardrails around kratom for community safety.
Yancey: How a sex scandal in North Carolina helped get the Mountain Valley Pipeline approved
Natural gas will soon be flowing through the Mountain Valley Pipeline, 10 years after it was first proposed and six years after its initial anticipated completion date. This is a profound disappointment for opponents, who warned that the pipeline will produce 89 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses each year, the equivalent of 24 coal-fired power plants at a time when we’re phasing out coal-fired power plants. Opponents managed to delay the pipeline through years of legal action and for a while held out hope that they might simply bankrupt the pipeline operators. They didn’t.
Certification rules for Virginia geologists, who help reduce environmental hazards, change
As part of a request from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s agency for professional certifications has cut back regulations for geologists that workers in that field want to maintain. Tuesday, the Board of Professional Soil Scientists, Wetland Professionals, and Geologists approved the regulation reductions for a voluntary professional geologists certification under the directive of Youngkin’s Executive Order 19, designed to cut down “discretionary” regulatory requirements for job certifications by 25%.
Chesapeake council rejects poll of residents on election system overhaul
City Council rejected a request to poll voters in the November election on a potential change to how elections work in the city. After roughly 60 speakers showed up to nearly fully packed City Council chambers Tuesday, a 6-3 vote rejected a request to place an advisory referendum on the ballot asking voters about transitioning to a single-member ward voting system.
Reston Association seeks firm to assist with ‘anti-casino’ lobbying
Though the Virginia General Assembly won’t convene for another six months, Reston Association is starting to lay the groundwork for a major advocacy push. The homeowners’ association recently issued a request for proposals seeking research and communications firms that could assist it in lobbying state lawmakers, particularly regarding the expected return of legislation to make Fairfax County eligible for a casino.
Fisher: Going for gold in the Trump Loyalty Olympics
In the Donald Trump Loyalty Olympics, next week’s congressional competition in central Virginia is the medal match to watch. In one corner, we have the incumbent, Rep. Bob Good, a very conservative Republican who beat the previous conservative Republican holder of the seat by running sharply to that guy’s right. Good, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, is one of the handful of hard-right House members who orchestrated the ouster of former speaker Kevin McCarthy and has the endorsement in next Tuesday’s GOP primary of such Trump loyalists as Stephen K. Bannon and Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert.