rawdog

A Florida company plans to build two pumped storage hydroelectric stations just miles apart on previous coal mine sites in Wise County.

Rye Development has already secured a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project, which would be near the Roda community. FERC licenses and oversees hydropower projects in the U.S.

The company has also filed an application with FERC for a preliminary permit for its proposed Bluff Spur project, which would be built near the Dunbar community.

The company notes that it is very early in the process for both projects, which are near the Kentucky border.

Local officials say they are aware of the projects, but do not have much information about the proposals.

If approved, the two projects would be the third and fourth pumped storage facilities in Virginia.

Pumped storage facilities generate electricity by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations. This energy storage is vital to grid reliability, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

When electricity demand is relatively low and electric costs are cheaper, water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. When electricity demand peaks, water is released from the upper reservoir and descends to power the plant’s turbines.

Rye Development, headquartered in West Palm Beach, is already moving forward with a southeastern Kentucky pumped storage project near the Virginia and Tennessee borders that has secured a federal grant for up to $81 million.

One preliminary permit is sought; another is already in hand

On June 25, FERC published a notice of Rye Development’s preliminary permit application for the Bluff Spur project, under the incorporation of Bluff Spur Pumped Storage LLC. A preliminary permit would allow the company to move forward with filing a license application, but it would not authorize any land-disturbing activity.

The Bluff Spur project would be located north of the Dunbar community, northeast of the town of Appalachia and northwest of the city of Norton. The area has been heavily mined underground and on the surface for decades.

It would include an upper reservoir at an elevation of 3,620 feet and a lower reservoir at 2,280 feet. Each would have a surface area of about 70 acres. It would use two turbine generators with a total rated capacity of 300 megawatts.

The project would include building a 3.4-mile, 161-kilovolt transmission line to a substation.

“Initial fill and make-up water for the project would come from adjacent waterways and/or groundwater wells,” the notice states.

The project would have annual power generation of 840 gigawatt-hours — enough to power roughly 60,000 to 75,000 homes. That’s based on average household annual power consumption of about 11,000 to 12,000 kilowatt-hours.

Becky Brun, a Rye Development spokesperson, declined to answer a number of questions about the proposal but provided a statement from Sandy Slayton, the company’s vice president for environmental affairs.

The project “has the potential to create thousands of family-wage jobs, spur local economic development, and help meet growing energy demand in an environmentally responsible way,” Slayton said. “Pumped storage hydropower projects are built to serve communities for more than a century, delivering reliable, affordable energy and long-term economic benefits.”

Slayton continued: “This site appears to have the ingredients for a successful pumped storage project, but much more work needs to be done. A preliminary permit … is simply the first step in a lengthy licensing process. It’s not permission to build. Instead, it allows time for feasibility studies to be completed and gives Rye Development priority to apply for a future hydropower license at this site.”

Rye Development received a FERC preliminary permit in July 2025 for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project and is now working through the process of seeking full permitting. The preliminary permit is good through June 30, 2029.

The Stonega project would be built on a former surface mine site east of, and close to, the Roda community.

Stonega’s upper reservoir would be built at an elevation of 3,427 feet, with a surface of about 62 acres. The lower reservoir would be built at 2,280 feet, with a roughly 70-acre surface. The project would include building a new 161-kilovolt underground transmission line and a 161-kilovolt overhead line. It would generate an estimated 1,800 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power as many as 145,000 homes.

Preliminary permit documents indicate that threatened, endangered or potentially endangered species in the area include four bat species, three mussel species and one insect species.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources have expressed concern about the project’s potential impact on fish and wildlife, along with concern about acid mine drainage resulting from construction on a former surface mine.

The agencies recommended that the company coordinate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Also, they recommended examining the geology of the upper reservoir for potential impacts to downstream water quality.

Brun emphasized that if Rye Development decides to move forward with either of these projects, “the company must complete a full FERC license application and undergo a thorough FERC review, which typically takes several years.”

The company has no other comments on the Stonega project at this time, she said.

Public documents don’t indicate who might be a customer for the electricity. The area is served by Old Dominion Power Co., a subsidiary of Kentucky Utilities.

An ongoing discussion in Wise County, which is home to one data center, is pursuing additional data centers and possible self-contained systems to provide electricity for them.

Local officials have not heard a lot; one advocate says it’s concerning

Brian Falin, Wise County’s director of economic development, confirmed that county officials were made aware of the Bluff Spur application in February, “but we do not have any additional information other than what is included in the application.”

Karen Mullins, the interim county administrator and county attorney, echoed Falin’s comment.

“Wise County has not been contacted regarding the FERC feasibility permit,” she wrote in an email. “I was sent a screen shot of a post from Facebook. I did inquire of IDA, Brian Falin, and received the same information.”

County Supervisor Fred Luntsford, whose district includes the project sites, could not be reached for comment. Luntsford is also the Appalachia town manager.

The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority is not involved with the projects, said Jonathan Belcher, its executive director, who said he has no information about them.

LENOWISCO Planning District Commission Executive Director Duane Miller said he was aware of the Bluff Spur preliminary permit application, but he has no other information.

Wally Smith said he is closely watching the project permit processes. Smith, a biology professor at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, is an elected director of the Lonesome Pine Soil and Water Conservation District.

“Building pumped storage hydro projects on surface-mined land would pose complex questions about potential impacts to water quality and quantity for downstream communities, especially given our region’s increasing trends in flood severity,” Smith wrote in an email.

“I am deeply concerned that Wise County residents appear to have been caught off-guard with both of these proposals and only became aware of them after plans were developed and proposed to FERC, given their proximity to private residences and location within the Powell River watershed. Close coordination with county residents and other local stakeholders will be key to ensuring that projects like these develop in a way that is sensitive to local concerns.”

Company moves forward across Kentucky border

Rye Development is moving forward with its Lewis Ridge pumped storage facility in Bell County, Kentucky, near where Virginia meets Tennessee at the Cumberland Gap. The company got its preliminary FERC permit in 2022 and is pursuing its license.

In 2024, the federal Department of Energy approved a grant of up to $81 million for the $1.3 billion project. In April of this year, Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric Co. announced a partnership with Rye Development.

The utilities said they are “performing a thorough evaluation of the project and if proven effective,” they intend to seek permitting with the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Construction could begin next year, and the facility could go online in 2031. The project is expected to create about 2,300 jobs during construction and contribute about $1.65 million annually in local tax revenue once it becomes fully operational.

The 266-megawatt Lewis Ridge project could power nearly 67,000 homes annually.

Rye Development’s proposed projects would be the first pumped storage facilities in Southwest Virginia.

Dominion Energy made the first attempt, seeking a permit in 2017 for a pumped storage facility on East River Mountain in Tazewell County. But Dominion canceled its plans in late 2024, citing factors including the estimated $2 billion cost and a corporate shift to other energy sources.

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

Dominion operates one of Virginia’s two pumped storage facilities, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station. The 3,003-megawatt facility is the largest in the United States and went into service in 1985.

The other Virginia pumped storage facility is the 636-megawatt Smith Mountain project. It was created when Appalachian Power built the Smith Mountain dam on the Roanoke River in the 1960s, creating the reservoirs known as Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake.

Correction, 12:30 p.m. July 7: This story has been updated to reflect that Wally Smith is no longer vice president for the Clinch Coalition. Also, the location of the proposed Stonega pumped storage facility is just west of the Roda community.

The post 2 pumped storage hydroelectric stations could be located just miles apart in Wise County appeared first on Cardinal News.

A Florida company plans to build two pumped storage hydroelectric stations just miles apart on previous coal mine sites in Wise County.

Rye Development has already secured a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project, which would be near the Roda community. FERC licenses and oversees hydropower projects in the U.S.

The company has also filed an application with FERC for a preliminary permit for its proposed Bluff Spur project, which would be built near the Dunbar community.

The company notes that it is very early in the process for both projects, which are near the Kentucky border.

Local officials say they are aware of the projects, but do not have much information about the proposals.

If approved, the two projects would be the third and fourth pumped storage facilities in Virginia.

Pumped storage facilities generate electricity by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations. This energy storage is vital to grid reliability, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

When electricity demand is relatively low and electric costs are cheaper, water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. When electricity demand peaks, water is released from the upper reservoir and descends to power the plant’s turbines.

Rye Development, headquartered in West Palm Beach, is already moving forward with a southeastern Kentucky pumped storage project near the Virginia and Tennessee borders that has secured a federal grant for up to $81 million.

One preliminary permit is sought; another is already in hand

On June 25, FERC published a notice of Rye Development’s preliminary permit application for the Bluff Spur project, under the incorporation of Bluff Spur Pumped Storage LLC. A preliminary permit would allow the company to move forward with filing a license application, but it would not authorize any land-disturbing activity.

The Bluff Spur project would be located north of the Dunbar community, northeast of the town of Appalachia and northwest of the city of Norton. The area has been heavily mined underground and on the surface for decades.

It would include an upper reservoir at an elevation of 3,620 feet and a lower reservoir at 2,280 feet. Each would have a surface area of about 70 acres. It would use two turbine generators with a total rated capacity of 300 megawatts.

The project would include building a 3.4-mile, 161-kilovolt transmission line to a substation.

“Initial fill and make-up water for the project would come from adjacent waterways and/or groundwater wells,” the notice states.

The project would have annual power generation of 840 gigawatt-hours — enough to power roughly 60,000 to 75,000 homes. That’s based on average household annual power consumption of about 11,000 to 12,000 kilowatt-hours.

Becky Brun, a Rye Development spokesperson, declined to answer a number of questions about the proposal but provided a statement from Sandy Slayton, the company’s vice president for environmental affairs.

The project “has the potential to create thousands of family-wage jobs, spur local economic development, and help meet growing energy demand in an environmentally responsible way,” Slayton said. “Pumped storage hydropower projects are built to serve communities for more than a century, delivering reliable, affordable energy and long-term economic benefits.”

Slayton continued: “This site appears to have the ingredients for a successful pumped storage project, but much more work needs to be done. A preliminary permit … is simply the first step in a lengthy licensing process. It’s not permission to build. Instead, it allows time for feasibility studies to be completed and gives Rye Development priority to apply for a future hydropower license at this site.”

Rye Development received a FERC preliminary permit in July 2025 for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project and is now working through the process of seeking full permitting. The preliminary permit is good through June 30, 2029.

The Stonega project would be built on a former surface mine site east of, and close to, the Roda community.

Stonega’s upper reservoir would be built at an elevation of 3,427 feet, with a surface of about 62 acres. The lower reservoir would be built at 2,280 feet, with a roughly 70-acre surface. The project would include building a new 161-kilovolt underground transmission line and a 161-kilovolt overhead line. It would generate an estimated 1,800 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power as many as 145,000 homes.

Preliminary permit documents indicate that threatened, endangered or potentially endangered species in the area include four bat species, three mussel species and one insect species.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources have expressed concern about the project’s potential impact on fish and wildlife, along with concern about acid mine drainage resulting from construction on a former surface mine.

The agencies recommended that the company coordinate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Also, they recommended examining the geology of the upper reservoir for potential impacts to downstream water quality.

Brun emphasized that if Rye Development decides to move forward with either of these projects, “the company must complete a full FERC license application and undergo a thorough FERC review, which typically takes several years.”

The company has no other comments on the Stonega project at this time, she said.

Public documents don’t indicate who might be a customer for the electricity. The area is served by Old Dominion Power Co., a subsidiary of Kentucky Utilities.

An ongoing discussion in Wise County, which is home to one data center, is pursuing additional data centers and possible self-contained systems to provide electricity for them.

Local officials have not heard a lot; one advocate says it’s concerning

Brian Falin, Wise County’s director of economic development, confirmed that county officials were made aware of the Bluff Spur application in February, “but we do not have any additional information other than what is included in the application.”

Karen Mullins, the interim county administrator and county attorney, echoed Falin’s comment.

“Wise County has not been contacted regarding the FERC feasibility permit,” she wrote in an email. “I was sent a screen shot of a post from Facebook. I did inquire of IDA, Brian Falin, and received the same information.”

County Supervisor Fred Luntsford, whose district includes the project sites, could not be reached for comment. Luntsford is also the Appalachia town manager.

The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority is not involved with the projects, said Jonathan Belcher, its executive director, who said he has no information about them.

LENOWISCO Planning District Commission Executive Director Duane Miller said he was aware of the Bluff Spur preliminary permit application, but he has no other information.

Wally Smith said he is closely watching the project permit processes. Smith, a biology professor at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, is an elected director of the Lonesome Pine Soil and Water Conservation District.

“Building pumped storage hydro projects on surface-mined land would pose complex questions about potential impacts to water quality and quantity for downstream communities, especially given our region’s increasing trends in flood severity,” Smith wrote in an email.

“I am deeply concerned that Wise County residents appear to have been caught off-guard with both of these proposals and only became aware of them after plans were developed and proposed to FERC, given their proximity to private residences and location within the Powell River watershed. Close coordination with county residents and other local stakeholders will be key to ensuring that projects like these develop in a way that is sensitive to local concerns.”

Company moves forward across Kentucky border

Rye Development is moving forward with its Lewis Ridge pumped storage facility in Bell County, Kentucky, near where Virginia meets Tennessee at the Cumberland Gap. The company got its preliminary FERC permit in 2022 and is pursuing its license.

In 2024, the federal Department of Energy approved a grant of up to $81 million for the $1.3 billion project. In April of this year, Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric Co. announced a partnership with Rye Development.

The utilities said they are “performing a thorough evaluation of the project and if proven effective,” they intend to seek permitting with the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Construction could begin next year, and the facility could go online in 2031. The project is expected to create about 2,300 jobs during construction and contribute about $1.65 million annually in local tax revenue once it becomes fully operational.

The 266-megawatt Lewis Ridge project could power nearly 67,000 homes annually.

Rye Development’s proposed projects would be the first pumped storage facilities in Southwest Virginia.

Dominion Energy made the first attempt, seeking a permit in 2017 for a pumped storage facility on East River Mountain in Tazewell County. But Dominion canceled its plans in late 2024, citing factors including the estimated $2 billion cost and a corporate shift to other energy sources.

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

Dominion operates one of Virginia’s two pumped storage facilities, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station. The 3,003-megawatt facility is the largest in the United States and went into service in 1985.

The other Virginia pumped storage facility is the 636-megawatt Smith Mountain project. It was created when Appalachian Power built the Smith Mountain dam on the Roanoke River in the 1960s, creating the reservoirs known as Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake.

__________________

Correction, 12:30 p.m. July 7: This story has been updated to reflect that Wally Smith is no longer vice president for the Clinch Coalition. Also, the location of the proposed Stonega pumped storage facility is just west of the Roda community.

The post 2 pumped storage hydroelectric stations could be located just miles apart in Wise County appeared first on Cardinal News.

A Florida company plans to build two pumped storage hydroelectric stations just miles apart on previous coal mine sites in Wise County.

Rye Development has already secured a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project, which would be near the Roda community. FERC licenses and oversees hydropower projects in the U.S.

The company has also filed an application with FERC for a preliminary permit for its proposed Bluff Spur project, which would be built near the Dunbar community.

The company notes that it is very early in the process for both projects, which are near the Kentucky border.

Local officials say they are aware of the projects, but do not have much information about the proposals.

If approved, the two projects would be the third and fourth pumped storage facilities in Virginia.

Pumped storage facilities generate electricity by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations. This energy storage is vital to grid reliability, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

When electricity demand is relatively low and electric costs are cheaper, water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. When electricity demand peaks, water is released from the upper reservoir and descends to power the plant’s turbines.

Rye Development, headquartered in West Palm Beach, is already moving forward with a southeastern Kentucky pumped storage project near the Virginia and Tennessee borders that has secured a federal grant for up to $81 million.

One preliminary permit is sought; another is already in hand

On June 25, FERC published a notice of Rye Development’s preliminary permit application for the Bluff Spur project, under the incorporation of Bluff Spur Pumped Storage LLC. A preliminary permit would allow the company to move forward with filing a license application, but it would not authorize any land-disturbing activity.

The Bluff Spur project would be located north of the Dunbar community, northeast of the town of Appalachia and northwest of the city of Norton. The area has been heavily mined underground and on the surface for decades.

It would include an upper reservoir at an elevation of 3,620 feet and a lower reservoir at 2,280 feet. Each would have a surface area of about 70 acres. It would use two turbine generators with a total rated capacity of 300 megawatts.

The project would include building a 3.4-mile, 161-kilovolt transmission line to a substation.

“Initial fill and make-up water for the project would come from adjacent waterways and/or groundwater wells,” the notice states.

The project would have annual power generation of 840 gigawatt-hours — enough to power roughly 60,000 to 75,000 homes. That’s based on average household annual power consumption of about 11,000 to 12,000 kilowatt-hours.

Becky Brun, a Rye Development spokesperson, declined to answer a number of questions about the proposal but provided a statement from Sandy Slayton, the company’s vice president for environmental affairs.

The project “has the potential to create thousands of family-wage jobs, spur local economic development, and help meet growing energy demand in an environmentally responsible way,” Slayton said. “Pumped storage hydropower projects are built to serve communities for more than a century, delivering reliable, affordable energy and long-term economic benefits.”

Slayton continued: “This site appears to have the ingredients for a successful pumped storage project, but much more work needs to be done. A preliminary permit … is simply the first step in a lengthy licensing process. It’s not permission to build. Instead, it allows time for feasibility studies to be completed and gives Rye Development priority to apply for a future hydropower license at this site.”

Rye Development received a FERC preliminary permit in July 2025 for its proposed Stonega pumped storage project and is now working through the process of seeking full permitting. The preliminary permit is good through June 30, 2029.

The Stonega project would be built on a former surface mine site east of, and close to, the Roda community.

Stonega’s upper reservoir would be built at an elevation of 3,427 feet, with a surface of about 62 acres. The lower reservoir would be built at 2,280 feet, with a roughly 70-acre surface. The project would include building a new 161-kilovolt underground transmission line and a 161-kilovolt overhead line. It would generate an estimated 1,800 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power as many as 145,000 homes.

Preliminary permit documents indicate that threatened, endangered or potentially endangered species in the area include four bat species, three mussel species and one insect species.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources have expressed concern about the project’s potential impact on fish and wildlife, along with concern about acid mine drainage resulting from construction on a former surface mine.

The agencies recommended that the company coordinate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Also, they recommended examining the geology of the upper reservoir for potential impacts to downstream water quality.

Brun emphasized that if Rye Development decides to move forward with either of these projects, “the company must complete a full FERC license application and undergo a thorough FERC review, which typically takes several years.”

The company has no other comments on the Stonega project at this time, she said.

Public documents don’t indicate who might be a customer for the electricity. The area is served by Old Dominion Power Co., a subsidiary of Kentucky Utilities.

An ongoing discussion in Wise County, which is home to one data center, is pursuing additional data centers and possible self-contained systems to provide electricity for them.

Local officials have not heard a lot; one advocate says it’s concerning

Brian Falin, Wise County’s director of economic development, confirmed that county officials were made aware of the Bluff Spur application in February, “but we do not have any additional information other than what is included in the application.”

Karen Mullins, the interim county administrator and county attorney, echoed Falin’s comment.

“Wise County has not been contacted regarding the FERC feasibility permit,” she wrote in an email. “I was sent a screen shot of a post from Facebook. I did inquire of IDA, Brian Falin, and received the same information.”

County Supervisor Fred Luntsford, whose district includes the project sites, could not be reached for comment. Luntsford is also the Appalachia town manager.

The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority is not involved with the projects, said Jonathan Belcher, its executive director, who said he has no information about them.

LENOWISCO Planning District Commission Executive Director Duane Miller said he was aware of the Bluff Spur preliminary permit application, but he has no other information.

Wally Smith said he is closely watching the project permit processes. Smith, a biology professor at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, is an elected director of the Lonesome Pine Soil and Water Conservation District. He is also vice president of the Clinch Coalition, a local environmental advocacy group.

“Building pumped storage hydro projects on surface-mined land would pose complex questions about potential impacts to water quality and quantity for downstream communities, especially given our region’s increasing trends in flood severity,” Smith wrote in an email.

“I am deeply concerned that Wise County residents appear to have been caught off-guard with both of these proposals and only became aware of them after plans were developed and proposed to FERC, given their proximity to private residences and location within the Powell River watershed. Close coordination with county residents and other local stakeholders will be key to ensuring that projects like these develop in a way that is sensitive to local concerns.”

Company moves forward across Kentucky border

Rye Development is moving forward with its Lewis Ridge pumped storage facility in Bell County, Kentucky, near where Virginia meets Tennessee at the Cumberland Gap. The company got its preliminary FERC permit in 2022 and is pursuing its license.

In 2024, the federal Department of Energy approved a grant of up to $81 million for the $1.3 billion project. In April of this year, Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric Co. announced a partnership with Rye Development.

The utilities said they are “performing a thorough evaluation of the project and if proven effective,” they intend to seek permitting with the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Construction could begin next year, and the facility could go online in 2031. The project is expected to create about 2,300 jobs during construction and contribute about $1.65 million annually in local tax revenue once it becomes fully operational.

The 266-megawatt Lewis Ridge project could power nearly 67,000 homes annually.

Rye Development’s proposed projects would be the first pumped storage facilities in Southwest Virginia.

Dominion Energy made the first attempt, seeking a permit in 2017 for a pumped storage facility on East River Mountain in Tazewell County. But Dominion canceled its plans in late 2024, citing factors including the estimated $2 billion cost and a corporate shift to other energy sources.

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

Dominion operates one of Virginia’s two pumped storage facilities, the Bath County Pumped Storage Station. The 3,003-megawatt facility is the largest in the United States and went into service in 1985.

The other Virginia pumped storage facility is the 636-megawatt Smith Mountain project. It was created when Appalachian Power built the Smith Mountain dam on the Roanoke River in the 1960s, creating the reservoirs known as Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake.

The post 2 pumped storage hydroelectric stations could be located just miles apart in Wise County appeared first on Cardinal News.

July 2 was the hottest day of the year 2026 had seen, at least until the next day steamed up even hotter.

The temperature hit 102 in Charlottesville, 100 in Roanoke, 99 in Lynchburg, 98 in Danville and Dulles, 96 in Richmond.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, temperatures were even hotter. Newark, New Jersey, saw the mercury hit 104 degrees; Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, were just a shade lower at 103 degrees.

So how did we stay cool? It was a clear, sunny day, which means that solar facilities were soaking up the maximum amount of rays. I spent much of the day following the live dashboard on fuel sources for the PJM grid, which is the electric grid that covers Virginia and all or parts of 12 other states, plus the District of Columbia.

12:50 a.m.: Wind output peaks; accounts for 3.8% of the grid

Let’s begin in the hour after midnight. At 12:50 a.m., output from wind energy reaches its peak: 5.11 gigawatts, which accounts for 3.8% of the total grid at that point. Wind energy typically peaks at night (which means it pairs well with solar). However, the states in the PJM grid don’t have a lot of wind energy.

Wind power is primarily in the Midwest; Iowa gets 73% of its power from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oklahoma almost 63%, Kansas just under 60%. Illinois (which is partly in the PJM grid) gets almost 20% of its power from wind; Indiana (another partial PJM state) gets almost 15%. Others, though, are in single digits to the point of being almost nonexistent (New Jersey and Virginia are less than 0.1% wind). The Trump administration has moved to halt as many offshore wind projects as possible, although Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project has survived and is now producing some power as construction continues. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.) Apex Energy of Charlottesville is currently building Virginia’s first on-shore wind project in Botetourt County. Virginia has the potential for more wind, but wind energy has historically taken a long time to develop, for both political and engineering reasons.

At 12:50 a.m., the top energy sources on the grid are gas, nuclear and coal. Spoiler alert: Those three sources will remain the top three through the day.

4:05 a.m.: Gas output hits its lowest point; nuclear its highest percentage

Power usage is lowest during the sleeping hours of early morning. At 4:05 a.m., gas is at its lowest output: 52 gigawatts.

More spoiler alerts: Nuclear and coal output don’t vary much through the day, which pro-nuclear and pro-coal advocates say is the benefit of those fuel sources: They are steady and reliable. On a percentage basis, nuclear output is highest at 4:05 a.m. when it accounts for 27.8% of the power on the PJM grid.

Note: It’s unclear why solar is showing up on this chart when the sun isn’t up yet. The best answer I’ve gotten is that might be an accounting issue for energy that really came from battery storage, but ultimately came from solar the previous day.

8 a.m.: Gas and solar start to rise, while wind drops

The sun rose on July 2 at 5:19 a.m. By 8 a.m., as temperatures start to rise and people are starting their day (and starting to crank up the air conditioning), we see gas output starting to increase (up 2.52 gigawatts from its low at 4:05 a.m.). We also see solar rising to the fourth-largest energy source with 3.96 gigawatts, but at just 3.2% of the grid, while wind has dropped.

10:40 a.m.: Solar output peaks; solar and gas have supplied most of the demand for new power

As the morning heats up, the additional power to the grid comes primarily from two sources: natural gas and solar.

From its low point at 4:05 a.m., the natural gas output on the grid is now up 10.1 gigawatts. Solar has added even more, peaking at 10:40 a.m. with an output of 13.34 gigawatts. Even so, it’s still just the fourth-largest energy source because nuclear and coal have remained steady. On a percentage basis, solar’s biggest contribution comes in the 10 o’clock hour, when it accounts for 9.4% of the grid’s power. Wind has dropped to almost nothing, at 0.3% of the grid’s power. In terms of a percentage contribution, that is wind’s lowest point of the day (again, a natural function of the wind being strongest at night). In terms of actual output, wind’s low point was 0.46 gigawatts at 11:15 a.m.

12:10 p.m.: Natural gas still rising, coal hits maximum output, solar drops

Now it’s shortly after noon. In terms of new power since our last check-in, it’s come almost entirely from natural gas. Natural gas output is now up 17.54 gigawatts since its low point at 4:05 a.m. Coal-burning through the day is generally steady, but this is its highest output, up 4.37 gigawatts since the early morning hours and up 1.51 gigawatts since our last check-in.

2 p.m.: Pump storage dams start to produce hydropower

By early afternoon, it’s already a scorcher. Gas, nuclear, coal and solar are all relatively steady at this point, but there’s a demand for more power, and it’s come from hydropower. There’s always some hydropower from conventional hydroelectric dams. What’s happening here is we’re starting to see pump storage dams (such as Dominion’s Bath County project or Appalachian Power’s Smith Mountain Lake) produce power for peak demand. Hydropower was at its lowest at 2:15 a.m., producing 0.39 gigawatts. Now it’s up to 2.26 gigawatts, and it will go higher, although it will never be a large percentage of the grid.

4 p.m.: As it gets hotter, we burn more oil

We haven’t talked about oil yet, because it’s generally such a small amount of the grid’s power. However, as temperatures heat up, oil starts flowing. Before daybreak, we were burning less than a gigawatt’s worth of oil; now we’re up to 5.11 gigawatts, and it’s surpassed hydropower (which has doubled in the past two hours) at 3.2% of the grid. Still, though, our main power sources remain the same: gas, nuclear, coal, with solar in fourth during the day. The gas output is more than 18 gigawatts higher than it was 12 hours earlier.

Five minutes after this screenshot, we see power start to enter the grid from another source we haven’t had occasion to talk much about yet: battery storage. It starts at 0.1% of the grid at 4:05 p.m. and, well, let’s see what happens.

7:15 p.m.: Gas, hydro, oil and storage all peak, solar drops by half

This is the part of the day when energy demand is the highest. It’s still unreasonably hot, so air conditioning is running full blast. People are also home and starting to cook, watch television and use other devices that require electricity.

In the 7 o’clock hour, natural gas, hydropower, oil and battery storage all hit their highest output while solar output has now dropped by half, arguably when we need power the most. Its output was 12.4 gigawatts at 4 p.m.; now it’s down to 5.09 gigawatts. Hydropower has now become our fourth-biggest power source, at 7 gigawatts. Battery storage also hits its high point: 0.18 gigawatts, but still just 0.1% of the grid’s power.

10 p.m.: As the day cools down, gas accounts for almost half the grid’s power

Come night, natural gas is still producing at almost its highest output of the day. And on a percentage basis, natural gas peaks at 47.2% of the grid at 9:45 p.m. and stays close to that for the rest of the night. The hydropower dams are still producing the fourth-highest amount of power, while solar and storage have dropped down to 0%. Wind is starting to pick up a little.

Summary: The highs and the lows

In terms of their output, nuclear goes virtually unchanged throughout the day. Coal only changes a little. The biggest variation in output is from natural gas, which goes from a low of 52.11 gigawatts at 4:05 a.m. to a high of 72.2 gigawatts at 7:15 p.m. That’s a change of 20.09 gigawatts, which illustrates why gas advocates like gas: You can just turn it on whenever you need it. Solar saw the second biggest change, going from essentially zero to 13.34 gigawatts.

Everything with energy is a tradeoff; there is no perfect energy source: Gas is reliable but is a fossil fuel. Solar is a free fuel source and emits no carbon, but isn’t always available.

This exercise also shows the enormity of the challenge we face in replacing fossil fuels with renewables. Natural gas dominates the PJM grid, with its share of the output ranging from 43.5% to 47.2%. Coal, even in its reduced state, accounts for 17.4% to 21.5% of the power output. Even before we account for that small amount of oil, that’s a lot of fossil fuel to be replaced. There’s also the inconvenient fact that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

The real challenges to phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables seem more political than technological. Think of all the solar facilities we now see across Virginia, and the political pushback those have sparked. Now look at the charts above: We’d have to more than double solar output to replace coal even at peak solar time. We’d have to septuple it to replace both gas and coal. Is that politically possible?

Botetourt County recently saw proposals for two relatively small utility-scale solar projects. Suddenly the county bloomed with “no industrial solar” and “Keep Botetourt green” signs. Both projects were rejected. In neither case is the land likely to stay green; both tracts are in high-growth parts of the county. If those landowners can’t make money from solar, at some point they may be forced to make money from turning the land into housing developments. The Solar Database compiled by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia shows that the number of solar projects approved in Virginia is declining; so is the number of megawatts being approved. Solar is the cheapest, and quickest, form of energy to add to the grid, but it seems to be becoming harder to do so, even as people complain more loudly about rising power costs.

Battery storage is touted as a way to store up renewable energy that’s “over-produced” during peak hours for solar and wind, and then feed it into the grid when the sun is down and the wind is light. Batteries can also be used to mitigate energy costs: Store up power during low-cost hours and then use it during peak demand when prices are highest. The immediate challenge for battery storage is that batteries don’t last that long. Technology may solve that problem but there’s still the question of how much people will trust reliance on batteries, knowing that they could run out during some extreme weather event. Still, though, we come back to the political problems: Culpeper County recently banned battery storage from farmland, restricting the units to industrial land. This 6-1 vote by the board of supervisors came over the objections from some farmers who saw battery storage as a way to squeeze extra money out of farmland. (This is often the argument for solar, as well.) A farmer can park a rusting tractor that doesn’t work out back of the barn, but parking a battery storage unit is now forbidden. Opposition to a form of energy overrides property rights even in a conservative county where property rights would normally be a rallying cry against a meddlesome government.

Wind is even harder to build than solar or battery storage — again, largely for political reasons. Apex first produced its Botetourt project in 2015 and that seemed a relatively easy one: Much of the project is out of sight and has had the support of a Republican board of supervisors, which saw the benefit of tax revenue and not much downside. That Rocky Forge project has also taken 11 years to build. Building other wind facilities anywhere else seems a hard lift.

That brings us to nuclear: It’s enjoyed a renaissance, at least rhetorically, as a way to produce lots of reliable, non-carbon energy. However, nuclear power has always been expensive and taken a long time to build. Smaller nuclear projects — small modular reactors — offer the promise of being quicker and cheaper, but we don’t know that yet because we don’t have any yet in North America (and we’re not likely to take the experience of the Russians and Chinese as our model). Let’s suppose they are commercially feasible, though. Based on these charts above, we’d need three to four times as much nuclear energy as we do now to replace gas and coal. Once again: Is this politically feasible? Realistically, we’re looking at some combination of fuel sources, but there is opposition to every single one of them, be it natural gas plants or solar facilities or battery storage or, well, you name it.

Feel free to argue the merits and demerits of your favorite (or least favorite) fuel source. Regardless of what it is, these are the numbers we have to deal with.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post On the hottest day of the year (at that point), here’s where the power came from that kept us cool appeared first on Cardinal News.

July 2 was the hottest day of the year 2026 had seen, at least until the next day steamed up even hotter.

The temperature hit 102 in Charlottesville, 100 in Roanoke, 99 in Lynchburg, 98 in Danville and Dulles, 96 in Richmond.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, temperatures were even hotter. Newark, New Jersey, saw the mercury hit 104 degrees; Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, were just a shade lower at 103 degrees.

So how did we stay cool? It was a clear, sunny day, which means that solar facilities were soaking up the maximum amount of rays. I spent much of the day following the live dashboard on fuel sources for the PJM grid, which is the electric grid that covers Virginia and all or parts of 12 other states, plus the District of Columbia.

12:50 a.m.: Wind output peaks; accounts for 3.8% of the grid

Let’s begin in the hour after midnight. At 12:50 a.m., output from wind energy reaches its peak: 5.11 gigawatts, which accounts for 3.8% of the total grid at that point. Wind energy typically peaks at night (which means it pairs well with solar). However, the states in the PJM grid don’t have a lot of wind energy.

Wind power is primarily in the Midwest; Iowa gets 73% of its power from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oklahoma almost 63%, Kansas just under 60%. Illinois (which is partly in the PJM grid) gets almost 20% of its power from wind; Indiana (another partial PJM state) gets almost 15%. Others, though, are in single digits to the point of being almost nonexistent (New Jersey and Virginia are less than 0.1% wind). The Trump administration has moved to halt as many offshore wind projects as possible, although Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project has survived and is now producing some power as construction continues. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.) Apex Energy of Charlottesville is currently building Virginia’s first on-shore wind project in Botetourt County. Virginia has the potential for more wind, but wind energy has historically taken a long time to develop, for both political and engineering reasons.

At 12:50 a.m., the top energy sources on the grid are gas, nuclear and coal. Spoiler alert: Those three sources will remain the top three through the day.

4:05 a.m.: Gas output hits its lowest point; nuclear its highest percentage

Power usage is lowest during the sleeping hours of early morning. At 4:05 a.m., gas is at its lowest output: 52 gigawatts.

More spoiler alerts: Nuclear and coal output don’t vary much through the day, which pro-nuclear and pro-coal advocates say is the benefit of those fuel sources: They are steady and reliable. On a percentage basis, nuclear output is highest at 4:05 a.m. when it accounts for 27.8% of the power on the PJM grid.

Note: It’s unclear why solar is showing up on this chart when the sun isn’t up yet. The best answer I’ve gotten is that might be an accounting issue for energy that really came from battery storage, but ultimately came from solar the previous day.

8 a.m.: Gas and solar start to rise, while wind drops

The sun rose on July 2 at 5:19 a.m. By 8 a.m., as temperatures start to rise and people are starting their day (and starting to crank up the air conditioning), we see gas output starting to increase (up 2.52 gigawatts from its low at 4:05 a.m.). We also see solar rising to the fourth-largest energy source with 3.96 gigawatts, but at just 3.2% of the grid, while wind has dropped.

10:40 a.m.: Solar output peaks; solar and gas have supplied most of the demand for new power

As the morning heats up, the additional power to the grid comes primarily from two sources: natural gas and solar.

From its low point at 4:05 a.m., the natural gas output on the grid is now up 10.1 gigawatts. Solar has added even more, peaking at 10:40 a.m. with an output of 13.34 gigawatts. Even so, it’s still just the fourth-largest energy source because nuclear and coal have remained steady. On a percentage basis, solar’s biggest contribution comes in the 10 o’clock hour, when it accounts for 9.4% of the grid’s power. Wind has dropped to almost nothing, at 0.3% of the grid’s power. In terms of a percentage contribution, that is wind’s lowest point of the day (again, a natural function of the wind being strongest at night). In terms of actual output, wind’s low point was 0.46 gigawatts at 11:15 a.m.

12:10 p.m.: Natural gas still rising, coal hits maximum output, solar drops

Now it’s shortly after noon. In terms of new power since our last check-in, it’s come almost entirely from natural gas. Natural gas output is now up 17.54 gigawatts since its low point at 4:05 a.m. Coal-burning through the day is generally steady, but this is its highest output, up 4.37 gigawatts since the early morning hours and up 1.51 gigawatts since our last check-in.

2 p.m.: Pump storage dams start to produce hydropower

By early afternoon, it’s already a scorcher. Gas, nuclear, coal and solar are all relatively steady at this point, but there’s a demand for more power, and it’s come from hydropower. There’s always some hydropower from conventional hydroelectric dams. What’s happening here is we’re starting to see pump storage dams (such as Dominion’s Bath County project or Appalachian Power’s Smith Mountain Lake) produce power for peak demand. Hydropower was at its lowest at 2:15 a.m., producing 0.39 gigawatts. Now it’s up to 2.26 gigawatts, and it will go higher, although it will never be a large percentage of the grid.

4 p.m.: As it gets hotter, we burn more oil

We haven’t talked about oil yet, because it’s generally such a small amount of the grid’s power. However, as temperatures heat up, oil starts flowing. Before daybreak, we were burning less than a gigawatt’s worth of oil; now we’re up to 5.11 gigawatts, and it’s surpassed hydropower (which has doubled in the past two hours) at 3.2% of the grid. Still, though, our main power sources remain the same: gas, nuclear, coal, with solar in fourth during the day. The gas output is more than 18 gigawatts higher than it was 12 hours earlier.

Five minutes after this screenshot, we see power start to enter the grid from another source we haven’t had occasion to talk much about yet: battery storage. It starts at 0.1% of the grid at 4:05 p.m. and, well, let’s see what happens.

7:15 p.m.: Gas, hydro, oil and storage all peak, solar drops by half

This is the part of the day when energy demand is the highest. It’s still unreasonably hot, so air conditioning is running full blast. People are also home and starting to cook, watch television and use other devices that require electricity.

In the 7 o’clock hour, natural gas, hydropower, oil and battery storage all hit their highest output while solar output has now dropped by half, arguably when we need power the most. Its output was 12.4 gigawatts at 4 p.m.; now it’s down to 5.09 gigawatts. Hydropower has now become our fourth-biggest power source, at 7 gigawatts. Battery storage also hits its high point: 0.18 gigawatts, but still just 0.1% of the grid’s power.

10 p.m.: As the day cools down, gas accounts for almost half the grid’s power

Come night, natural gas is still producing at almost its highest output of the day. And on a percentage basis, natural gas peaks at 47.2% of the grid at 9:45 p.m. and stays close to that for the rest of the night. The hydropower dams are still producing the fourth-highest amount of power, while solar and storage have dropped down to 0%. Wind is starting to pick up a little.

Summary: The highs and the lows

In terms of their output, nuclear goes virtually unchanged throughout the day. Coal only changes a little. The biggest variation in output is from natural gas, which goes from a low of 52.11 gigawatts at 4:05 a.m. to a high of 72.2 gigawatts at 7:15 p.m. That’s a change of 20.09 gigawatts, which illustrates why gas advocates like gas: You can just turn it on whenever you need it. Solar saw the second biggest change, going from essentially zero to 13.34 gigawatts.

Everything with energy is a tradeoff; there is no perfect energy source: Gas is reliable but is a fossil fuel. Solar is a free fuel source and emits no carbon, but isn’t always available.

This exercise also shows the enormity of the challenge we face in replacing fossil fuels with renewables. Natural gas dominates the PJM grid, with its share of the output ranging from 43.5% to 47.2%. Coal, even in its reduced state, accounts for 17.4% to 21.5% of the power output. Even before we account for that small amount of oil, that’s a lot of fossil fuel to be replaced. There’s also the inconvenient fact that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

The real challenges to phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables seem more political than technological. Think of all the solar facilities we now see across Virginia, and the political pushback those have sparked. Now look at the charts above: We’d have to more than double solar output to replace coal even at peak solar time. We’d have to septuple it to replace both gas and coal. Is that politically possible?

Botetourt County recently saw proposals for two relatively small utility-scale solar projects. Suddenly the county bloomed with “no industrial solar” and “Keep Botetourt green” signs. Both projects were rejected. In neither case is the land likely to stay green; both tracts are in high-growth parts of the county. If those landowners can’t make money from solar, at some point they may be forced to make money from turning the land into housing developments. The Solar Database compiled by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia shows that the number of solar projects approved in Virginia is declining; so is the number of megawatts being approved. Solar is the cheapest, and quickest, form of energy to add to the grid, but it seems to be becoming harder to do so, even as people complain more loudly about rising power costs.

Battery storage is touted as a way to store up renewable energy that’s “over-produced” during peak hours for solar and wind, and then feed it into the grid when the sun is down and the wind is light. Batteries can also be used to mitigate energy costs: Store up power during low-cost hours and then use it during peak demand when prices are highest. The immediate challenge for battery storage is that batteries don’t last that long. Technology may solve that problem but there’s still the question of how much people will trust reliance on batteries, knowing that they could run out during some extreme weather event. Still, though, we come back to the political problems: Culpeper County recently banned battery storage from farmland, restricting the units to industrial land. This 6-1 vote by the board of supervisors came over the objections from some farmers who saw battery storage as a way to squeeze extra money out of farmland. (This is often the argument for solar, as well.) A farmer can park a rusting tractor that doesn’t work out back of the barn, but parking a battery storage unit is now forbidden. Opposition to a form of energy overrides property rights even in a conservative county where property rights would normally be a rallying cry against a meddlesome government.

Wind is even harder to build than solar or battery storage — again, largely for political reasons. Apex first produced its Botetourt project in 2015 and that seemed a relatively easy one: Much of the project is out of sight and has had the support of a Republican board of supervisors, which saw the benefit of tax revenue and not much downside. That Rocky Forge project has also taken 11 years to build. Building other wind facilities anywhere else seems a hard lift.

That brings us to nuclear: It’s enjoyed a renaissance, at least rhetorically, as a way to produce lots of reliable, non-carbon energy. However, nuclear power has always been expensive and taken a long time to build. Smaller nuclear projects — small modular reactors — offer the promise of being quicker and cheaper, but we don’t know that yet because we don’t have any yet in North America (and we’re not likely to take the experience of the Russians and Chinese as our model). Let’s suppose they are commercially feasible, though. Based on these charts above, we’d need three to four times as much nuclear energy as we do now to replace gas and coal. Once again: Is this politically feasible? Realistically, we’re looking at some combination of fuel sources, but there is opposition to every single one of them, be it natural gas plants or solar facilities or battery storage or, well, you name it.

Feel free to argue the merits and demerits of your favorite (or least favorite) fuel source. Regardless of what it is, these are the numbers we have to deal with.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post On the hottest day of the year (at that point), here’s where the power came from that kept us cool appeared first on Cardinal News.

July 2 was the hottest day of the year 2026 had seen, at least until the next day steamed up even hotter.

The temperature hit 102 in Charlottesville, 100 in Roanoke, 99 in Lynchburg, 98 in Danville and Dulles, 96 in Richmond.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, temperatures were even hotter. Newark, New Jersey, saw the mercury hit 104 degrees; Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, were just a shade lower at 103 degrees.

So how did we stay cool? It was a clear, sunny day, which means that solar facilities were soaking up the maximum amount of rays. I spent much of the day following the live dashboard on fuel sources for the PJM grid, which is the electric grid that covers Virginia and all or parts of 12 other states, plus the District of Columbia.

12:50 a.m.: Wind output peaks; accounts for 3.8% of the grid

Let’s begin in the hour after midnight. At 12:50 a.m., output from wind energy reaches its peak: 5.11 gigawatts, which accounts for 3.8% of the total grid at that point. Wind energy typically peaks at night (which means it pairs well with solar). However, the states in the PJM grid don’t have a lot of wind energy.

Wind power is primarily in the Midwest; Iowa gets 73% of its power from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oklahoma almost 63%, Kansas just under 60%. Illinois (which is partly in the PJM grid) gets almost 20% of its power from wind; Indiana (another partial PJM state) gets almost 15%. Others, though, are in single digits to the point of being almost nonexistent (New Jersey and Virginia are less than 0.1% wind). The Trump administration has moved to halt as many offshore wind projects as possible, although Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project has survived and is now producing some power as construction continues. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.) Apex Energy of Charlottesville is currently building Virginia’s first on-shore wind project in Botetourt County. Virginia has the potential for more wind, but wind energy has historically taken a long time to develop, for both political and engineering reasons.

At 12:50 a.m., the top energy sources on the grid are gas, nuclear and coal. Spoiler alert: Those three sources will remain the top three through the day.

4:05 a.m.: Gas output hits its lowest point; nuclear its highest percentage

Power usage is lowest during the sleeping hours of early morning. At 4:05 a.m., gas is at its lowest output: 52 gigawatts.

More spoiler alerts: Nuclear and coal output don’t vary much through the day, which pro-nuclear and pro-coal advocates say is the benefit of those fuel sources: They are steady and reliable. On a percentage basis, nuclear output is highest at 4:05 a.m. when it accounts for 27.8% of the power on the PJM grid.

Note: It’s unclear why solar is showing up on this chart when the sun isn’t up yet. The best answer I’ve gotten is that might be an accounting issue for energy that really came from battery storage, but ultimately came from solar the previous day.

8 a.m.: Gas and solar start to rise, while wind drops

The sun rose on July 2 at 5:19 a.m. By 8 a.m., as temperatures start to rise and people are starting their day (and starting to crank up the air conditioning), we see gas output starting to increase (up 2.52 gigawatts from its low at 4:05 a.m.). We also see solar rising to the fourth-largest energy source with 3.96 gigawatts, but at just 3.2% of the grid, while wind has dropped.

10:40 a.m.: Solar output peaks; solar and gas have supplied most of the demand for new power

As the morning heats up, the additional power to the grid comes primarily from two sources: natural gas and solar.

From its low point at 4:05 a.m., the natural gas output on the grid is now up 10.1 gigawatts. Solar has added even more, peaking at 10:40 a.m. with an output of 13.34 gigawatts. Even so, it’s still just the fourth-largest energy source because nuclear and coal have remained steady. On a percentage basis, solar’s biggest contribution comes in the 10 o’clock hour, when it accounts for 9.4% of the grid’s power. Wind has dropped to almost nothing, at 0.3% of the grid’s power. In terms of a percentage contribution, that is wind’s lowest point of the day (again, a natural function of the wind being strongest at night). In terms of actual output, wind’s low point was 0.46 gigawatts at 11:15 a.m.

12:10 p.m.: Natural gas still rising, coal hits maximum output, solar drops

Now it’s shortly after noon. In terms of new power since our last check-in, it’s come almost entirely from natural gas. Natural gas output is now up 17.54 gigawatts since its low point at 4:05 a.m. Coal-burning through the day is generally steady, but this is its highest output, up 4.37 gigawatts since the early morning hours and up 1.51 gigawatts since our last check-in.

2 p.m.: Pump storage dams start to produce hydropower

By early afternoon, it’s already a scorcher. Gas, nuclear, coal and solar are all relatively steady at this point, but there’s a demand for more power, and it’s come from hydropower. There’s always some hydropower from conventional hydroelectric dams. What’s happening here is we’re starting to see pump storage dams (such as Dominion’s Bath County project or Appalachian Power’s Smith Mountain Lake) produce power for peak demand. Hydropower was at its lowest at 2:15 a.m., producing 0.39 gigawatts. Now it’s up to 2.26 gigawatts, and it will go higher, although it will never be a large percentage of the grid.

4 p.m.: As it gets hotter, we burn more oil

We haven’t talked about oil yet, because it’s generally such a small amount of the grid’s power. However, as temperatures heat up, oil starts flowing. Before daybreak, we were burning less than a gigawatt’s worth of oil; now we’re up to 5.11 gigawatts, and it’s surpassed hydropower (which has doubled in the past two hours) at 3.2% of the grid. Still, though, our main power sources remain the same: gas, nuclear, coal, with solar in fourth during the day. The gas output is more than 18 gigawatts higher than it was 12 hours earlier.

Five minutes after this screenshot, we see power start to enter the grid from another source we haven’t had occasion to talk much about yet: battery storage. It starts at 0.1% of the grid at 4:05 p.m. and, well, let’s see what happens.

7:15 p.m.: Gas, hydro, oil and storage all peak, solar drops by half

This is the part of the day when energy demand is the highest. It’s still unreasonably hot, so air conditioning is running full blast. People are also home and starting to cook, watch television and use other devices that require electricity.

In the 7 o’clock hour, natural gas, hydropower, oil and battery storage all hit their highest output while solar output has now dropped by half, arguably when we need power the most. Its output was 12.4 gigawatts at 4 p.m.; now it’s down to 5.09 gigawatts. Hydropower has now become our fourth-biggest power source, at 7 gigawatts. Battery storage also hits its high point: 0.18 gigawatts, but still just 0.1% of the grid’s power.

10 p.m.: As the day cools down, gas accounts for almost half the grid’s power

Come night, natural gas is still producing at almost its highest output of the day. And on a percentage basis, natural gas peaks at 47.2% of the grid at 9:45 p.m. and stays close to that for the rest of the night. The hydropower dams are still producing the fourth-highest amount of power, while solar and storage have dropped down to 0%. Wind is starting to pick up a little.

Summary: The highs and the lows

In terms of their output, nuclear goes virtually unchanged throughout the day. Coal only changes a little. The biggest variation in output is from natural gas, which goes from a low of 52.11 gigawatts at 4:05 a.m. to a high of 72.2 gigawatts at 7:15 p.m. That’s a change of 20.09 gigawatts, which illustrates why gas advocates like gas: You can just turn it on whenever you need it. Solar saw the second biggest change, going from essentially zero to 13.34 gigawatts.

Everything with energy is a tradeoff; there is no perfect energy source: Gas is reliable but is a fossil fuel. Solar is a free fuel source and emits no carbon, but isn’t always available.

This exercise also shows the enormity of the challenge we face in replacing fossil fuels with renewables. Natural gas dominates the PJM grid, with its share of the output ranging from 43.5% to 47.2%. Coal, even in its reduced state, accounts for 17.4% to 21.5% of the power output. Even before we account for that small amount of oil, that’s a lot of fossil fuel to be replaced. There’s also the inconvenient fact that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

The real challenges to phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables seem more political than technological. Think of all the solar facilities we now see across Virginia, and the political pushback those have sparked. Now look at the charts above: We’d have to more than double solar output to replace coal even at peak solar time. We’d have to septuple it to replace both gas and coal. Is that politically possible?

Botetourt County recently saw proposals for two relatively small utility-scale solar projects. Suddenly the county bloomed with “no industrial solar” and “Keep Botetourt green” signs. Both projects were rejected. In neither case is the land likely to stay green; both tracts are in high-growth parts of the county. If those landowners can’t make money from solar, at some point they may be forced to make money from turning the land into housing developments. The Solar Database compiled by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia shows that the number of solar projects approved in Virginia is declining; so is the number of megawatts being approved. Solar is the cheapest, and quickest, form of energy to add to the grid, but it seems to be becoming harder to do so, even as people complain more loudly about rising power costs.

Battery storage is touted as a way to store up renewable energy that’s “over-produced” during peak hours for solar and wind, and then feed it into the grid when the sun is down and the wind is light. Batteries can also be used to mitigate energy costs: Store up power during low-cost hours and then use it during peak demand when prices are highest. The immediate challenge for battery storage is that batteries don’t last that long. Technology may solve that problem but there’s still the question of how much people will trust reliance on batteries, knowing that they could run out during some extreme weather event. Still, though, we come back to the political problems: Culpeper County recently banned battery storage from farmland, restricting the units to industrial land. This 6-1 vote by the board of supervisors came over the objections from some farmers who saw battery storage as a way to squeeze extra money out of farmland. (This is often the argument for solar, as well.) A farmer can park a rusting tractor that doesn’t work out back of the barn, but parking a battery storage unit is now forbidden. Opposition to a form of energy overrides property rights even in a conservative county where property rights would normally be a rallying cry against a meddlesome government.

Wind is even harder to build than solar or battery storage — again, largely for political reasons. Apex first produced its Botetourt project in 2015 and that seemed a relatively easy one: Much of the project is out of sight and has had the support of a Republican board of supervisors, which saw the benefit of tax revenue and not much downside. That Rocky Forge project has also taken 11 years to build. Building other wind facilities anywhere else seems a hard lift.

That brings us to nuclear: It’s enjoyed a renaissance, at least rhetorically, as a way to produce lots of reliable, non-carbon energy. However, nuclear power has always been expensive and taken a long time to build. Smaller nuclear projects — small modular reactors — offer the promise of being quicker and cheaper, but we don’t know that yet because we don’t have any yet in North America (and we’re not likely to take the experience of the Russians and Chinese as our model). Let’s suppose they are commercially feasible, though. Based on these charts above, we’d need three to four times as much nuclear energy as we do now to replace gas and coal. Once again: Is this politically feasible? Realistically, we’re looking at some combination of fuel sources, but there is opposition to every single one of them, be it natural gas plants or solar facilities or battery storage or, well, you name it.

Feel free to argue the merits and demerits of your favorite (or least favorite) fuel source. Regardless of what it is, these are the numbers we have to deal with.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post On the hottest day of the year (at that point), here’s where the power came from that kept us cool appeared first on Cardinal News.

July 2 was the hottest day of the year 2026 had seen, at least until the next day steamed up even hotter.

The temperature hit 102 in Charlottesville, 100 in Roanoke, 99 in Lynchburg, 98 in Danville and Dulles, 96 in Richmond.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, temperatures were even hotter. Newark, New Jersey, saw the mercury hit 104 degrees; Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, were just a shade lower at 103 degrees.

So how did we stay cool? It was a clear, sunny day, which means that solar facilities were soaking up the maximum amount of rays. I spent much of the day following the live dashboard on fuel sources for the PJM grid, which is the electric grid that covers Virginia and all or parts of 12 other states, plus the District of Columbia.

12:50 a.m.: Wind output peaks; accounts for 3.8% of the grid

Let’s begin in the hour after midnight. At 12:50 a.m., output from wind energy reaches its peak: 5.11 gigawatts, which accounts for 3.8% of the total grid at that point. Wind energy typically peaks at night (which means it pairs well with solar). However, the states in the PJM grid don’t have a lot of wind energy.

Wind power is primarily in the Midwest; Iowa gets 73% of its power from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oklahoma almost 63%, Kansas just under 60%. Illinois (which is partly in the PJM grid) gets almost 20% of its power from wind; Indiana (another partial PJM state) gets almost 15%. Others, though, are in single digits to the point of being almost nonexistent (New Jersey and Virginia are less than 0.1% wind). The Trump administration has moved to halt as many offshore wind projects as possible, although Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project has survived and is now producing some power as construction continues. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.) Apex Energy of Charlottesville is currently building Virginia’s first on-shore wind project in Botetourt County. Virginia has the potential for more wind, but wind energy has historically taken a long time to develop, for both political and engineering reasons.

At 12:50 a.m., the top energy sources on the grid are gas, nuclear and coal. Spoiler alert: Those three sources will remain the top three through the day.

4:05 a.m.: Gas output hits its lowest point; nuclear its highest percentage

Power usage is lowest during the sleeping hours of early morning. At 4:05 a.m., gas is at its lowest output: 52 gigawatts.

More spoiler alerts: Nuclear and coal output don’t vary much through the day, which pro-nuclear and pro-coal advocates say is the benefit of those fuel sources: They are steady and reliable. On a percentage basis, nuclear output is highest at 4:05 a.m. when it accounts for 27.8% of the power on the PJM grid.

Note: It’s unclear why solar is showing up on this chart when the sun isn’t up yet. The best answer I’ve gotten is that might be an accounting issue for energy that really came from battery storage, but ultimately came from solar the previous day.

8 a.m.: Gas and solar start to rise, while wind drops

The sun rose on July 2 at 5:19 a.m. By 8 a.m., as temperatures start to rise and people are starting their day (and starting to crank up the air conditioning), we see gas output starting to increase (up 2.52 gigawatts from its low at 4:05 a.m.). We also see solar rising to the fourth-largest energy source with 3.96 gigawatts, but at just 3.2% of the grid, while wind has dropped.

10:40 a.m.: Solar output peaks; solar and gas have supplied most of the demand for new power

As the morning heats up, the additional power to the grid comes primarily from two sources: natural gas and solar.

From its low point at 4:05 a.m., the natural gas output on the grid is now up 10.1 gigawatts. Solar has added even more, peaking at 10:40 a.m. with an output of 13.34 gigawatts. Even so, it’s still just the fourth-largest energy source because nuclear and coal have remained steady. On a percentage basis, solar’s biggest contribution comes in the 10 o’clock hour, when it accounts for 9.4% of the grid’s power. Wind has dropped to almost nothing, at 0.3% of the grid’s power. In terms of a percentage contribution, that is wind’s lowest point of the day (again, a natural function of the wind being strongest at night). In terms of actual output, wind’s low point was 0.46 gigawatts at 11:15 a.m.

12:10 p.m.: Natural gas still rising, coal hits maximum output, solar drops

Now it’s shortly after noon. In terms of new power since our last check-in, it’s come almost entirely from natural gas. Natural gas output is now up 17.54 gigawatts since its low point at 4:05 a.m. Coal-burning through the day is generally steady, but this is its highest output, up 4.37 gigawatts since the early morning hours and up 1.51 gigawatts since our last check-in.

2 p.m.: Pump storage dams start to produce hydropower

By early afternoon, it’s already a scorcher. Gas, nuclear, coal and solar are all relatively steady at this point, but there’s a demand for more power, and it’s come from hydropower. There’s always some hydropower from conventional hydroelectric dams. What’s happening here is we’re starting to see pump storage dams (such as Dominion’s Bath County project or Appalachian Power’s Smith Mountain Lake) produce power for peak demand. Hydropower was at its lowest at 2:15 a.m., producing 0.39 gigawatts. Now it’s up to 2.26 gigawatts, and it will go higher, although it will never be a large percentage of the grid.

4 p.m.: As it gets hotter, we burn more oil

We haven’t talked about oil yet, because it’s generally such a small amount of the grid’s power. However, as temperatures heat up, oil starts flowing. Before daybreak, we were burning less than a gigawatt’s worth of oil; now we’re up to 5.11 gigawatts, and it’s surpassed hydropower (which has doubled in the past two hours) at 3.2% of the grid. Still, though, our main power sources remain the same: gas, nuclear, coal, with solar in fourth during the day. The gas output is more than 18 gigawatts higher than it was 12 hours earlier.

Five minutes after this screenshot, we see power start to enter the grid from another source we haven’t had occasion to talk much about yet: battery storage. It starts at 0.1% of the grid at 4:05 p.m. and, well, let’s see what happens.

7:15 p.m.: Gas, hydro, oil and storage all peak, solar drops by half

This is the part of the day when energy demand is the highest. It’s still unreasonably hot, so air conditioning is running full blast. People are also home and starting to cook, watch television and use other devices that require electricity.

In the 7 o’clock hour, natural gas, hydropower, oil and battery storage all hit their highest output while solar output has now dropped by half, arguably when we need power the most. Its output was 12.4 gigawatts at 4 p.m.; now it’s down to 5.09 gigawatts. Hydropower has now become our fourth-biggest power source, at 7 gigawatts. Battery storage also hits its high point: 0.18 gigawatts, but still just 0.1% of the grid’s power.

10 p.m.: As the day cools down, gas accounts for almost half the grid’s power

Come night, natural gas is still producing at almost its highest output of the day. And on a percentage basis, natural gas peaks at 47.2% of the grid at 9:45 p.m. and stays close to that for the rest of the night. The hydropower dams are still producing the fourth-highest amount of power, while solar and storage have dropped down to 0%. Wind is starting to pick up a little.

Summary: The highs and the lows

In terms of their output, nuclear goes virtually unchanged throughout the day. Coal only changes a little. The biggest variation in output is from natural gas, which goes from a low of 52.11 gigawatts at 4:05 a.m. to a high of 72.2 gigawatts at 7:15 p.m. That’s a change of 20.09 gigawatts, which illustrates why gas advocates like gas: You can just turn it on whenever you need it. Solar saw the second biggest change, going from essentially zero to 13.34 gigawatts.

Everything with energy is a tradeoff; there is no perfect energy source: Gas is reliable but is a fossil fuel. Solar is a free fuel source and emits no carbon, but isn’t always available.

This exercise also shows the enormity of the challenge we face in replacing fossil fuels with renewables. Natural gas dominates the PJM grid, with its share of the output ranging from 43.5% to 47.2%. Coal, even in its reduced state, accounts for 17.4% to 21.5% of the power output. Even before we account for that small amount of oil, that’s a lot of fossil fuel to be replaced. There’s also the inconvenient fact that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

The real challenges to phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables seem more political than technological. Think of all the solar facilities we now see across Virginia, and the political pushback those have sparked. Now look at the charts above: We’d have to more than double solar output to replace coal even at peak solar time. We’d have to septuple it to replace both gas and coal. Is that politically possible?

Botetourt County recently saw proposals for two relatively small utility-scale solar projects. Suddenly the county bloomed with “no industrial solar” and “Keep Botetourt green” signs. Both projects were rejected. In neither case is the land likely to stay green; both tracts are in high-growth parts of the county. If those landowners can’t make money from solar, at some point they may be forced to make money from turning the land into housing developments. The Solar Database compiled by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia shows that the number of solar projects approved in Virginia is declining; so is the number of megawatts being approved. Solar is the cheapest, and quickest, form of energy to add to the grid, but it seems to be becoming harder to do so, even as people complain more loudly about rising power costs.

Battery storage is touted as a way to store up renewable energy that’s “over-produced” during peak hours for solar and wind, and then feed it into the grid when the sun is down and the wind is light. Batteries can also be used to mitigate energy costs: Store up power during low-cost hours and then use it during peak demand when prices are highest. The immediate challenge for battery storage is that batteries don’t last that long. Technology may solve that problem but there’s still the question of how much people will trust reliance on batteries, knowing that they could run out during some extreme weather event. Still, though, we come back to the political problems: Culpeper County recently banned battery storage from farmland, restricting the units to industrial land. This 6-1 vote by the board of supervisors came over the objections from some farmers who saw battery storage as a way to squeeze extra money out of farmland. (This is often the argument for solar, as well.) A farmer can park a rusting tractor that doesn’t work out back of the barn, but parking a battery storage unit is now forbidden. Opposition to a form of energy overrides property rights even in a conservative county where property rights would normally be a rallying cry against a meddlesome government.

Wind is even harder to build than solar or battery storage — again, largely for political reasons. Apex first produced its Botetourt project in 2015 and that seemed a relatively easy one: Much of the project is out of sight and has had the support of a Republican board of supervisors, which saw the benefit of tax revenue and not much downside. That Rocky Forge project has also taken 11 years to build. Building other wind facilities anywhere else seems a hard lift.

That brings us to nuclear: It’s enjoyed a renaissance, at least rhetorically, as a way to produce lots of reliable, non-carbon energy. However, nuclear power has always been expensive and taken a long time to build. Smaller nuclear projects — small modular reactors — offer the promise of being quicker and cheaper, but we don’t know that yet because we don’t have any yet in North America (and we’re not likely to take the experience of the Russians and Chinese as our model). Let’s suppose they are commercially feasible, though. Based on these charts above, we’d need three to four times as much nuclear energy as we do now to replace gas and coal. Once again: Is this politically feasible? Realistically, we’re looking at some combination of fuel sources, but there is opposition to every single one of them, be it natural gas plants or solar facilities or battery storage or, well, you name it.

Feel free to argue the merits and demerits of your favorite (or least favorite) fuel source. Regardless of what it is, these are the numbers we have to deal with.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post On the hottest day of the year (at that point), here’s where the power came from that kept us cool appeared first on Cardinal News.

Times Fiber Communications, a manufacturer of coaxial cables and other telecommunications equipment, will permanently close its Pittsylvania County plant by the end of October, laying off 79 employees.

Employees of the facility at 380 Tightsqueeze Industrial Road in Chatham will be laid off between Aug. 31 and Oct. 31, according to a June 29 letter that the company sent to state officials.

Of the 79 affected employees, 61 are listed in the letter as craft workers, while other positions include engineers, managers and supervisors. Thirty-eight employees are represented by the United Steelworkers union. 

“Our plan is to provide as much support and assistance to the dislocated workers. These services will be shared with our employees over the course of the next few weeks,” Sarah Dwyer, group human resources director, said in the letter.

The letter did not state a reason for the closure, and Dwyer declined to comment on Monday.

The letter was sent to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or the WARN Act, which requires employers to provide advance notice of mass layoffs.

Times Fiber Communications is a subsidiary of Meriden, Connecticut-based Amphenol Broadband Solutions. The Chatham plant has been operating since 1973.

The post Times Fiber Communications to close Chatham plant, lay off 79 appeared first on Cardinal News.

Hello Cardinal News readers. Welcome back to Cardinal Commerce Notes, our regular feature catching you up on various recent business news items.

If you missed last week’s edition, check it out here to learn more about Columbia Gas’ rate increase request, a future Botetourt County grocery store and a new bookstore in Henry County.

I’m always on the lookout for news tips. Please email me at matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn and message me there.

Unemployment benefits increase

The maximum weekly unemployment benefit in Virginia has increased from $430 to $478 per week, while the minimum weekly benefit has increased from $112 to $160. 

Both increases apply only to new claims filed on or after July 5.

The higher benefits came from legislation — HB 1320 from Del. Marty Martinez, D-Loudoun County, and SB 759 from Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria — passed during this year’s General Assembly. 

Virginia Employment Commission Commissioner Melissa Smith said in a news release that the changes “will provide additional financial support to eligible Virginians during periods of unemployment and help families meet essential expenses while they search for new employment.”

“By ensuring households can maintain spending on necessities during difficult times, unemployment insurance also plays a critical role in stabilizing the economy of the Commonwealth,” Smith said.

The VEC offers an Unemployment Insurance Benefits Estimator for Virginians to understand the benefits that they might qualify to receive based on their wages, employment history and claim date.

More information is available at the VEC’s website.

Roanoke refreshes GIS website

The city of Roanoke has launched a new geographic information systems — or GIS, for short — website. 

The site provides users with maps, aerial photos and information on properties, including assessed values and sales. Among the changes that the new site brings is a more mobile-friendly user interface. 

“The new platform features a refreshed, modern design with improved performance and navigation across desktop and mobile devices. Users will continue to have access to the property information, map layers, and data they rely on, while benefiting from an enhanced user experience,” the city said in a news release.

The website is available here. A series of YouTube videos explaining how to navigate the site is available here.

Roanoke land sold to Beacon Credit Union 

Lynchburg-based Beacon Credit Union recently bought a Roanoke property for its third Roanoke Valley location, according to Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group.

The 1-acre parcel at 3659 Orange Ave. N.E. sold for $700,000 on June 17. Rachele Hunley and Matt Huff of Poe & Cronk represented the credit union in the transaction.

“The new branch will expand Beacon’s presence in the region and improve access to financial services for members in the Blue Hills and Bonsack communities,” Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group said in an announcement.

Overlook at Smith Mountain visitor center temporarily closed

The overlook at the visitor center for the Smith Mountain Project will be closed for several weeks for renovations. The closure began Monday.

The Smith Mountain Project is a 636-megawatt pumped storage hydroelectric facility that created Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake.

The visitor center is free and open to the public. It features exhibits about the dam’s history and operations, but it does not offer tours of the dam.

For more information, visit the Smith Mountain Project website.

Are you a commercial/industrial real estate broker with a recent notable sale to share? Do you know of a new business expanding or relocating in your town? Maybe you’ve got an update on a story we’ve reported before. Send your tips my way: matt@cardinalnews.org or connect with me on LinkedIn.

The post Cardinal Commerce Notes: Unemployment benefits increase appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Economy:

Prince William Digital Gateway data center project officially dies. — Virginia Business (paywall).

Politics:

Affordability, jobs, election integrity take center stage in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District race. — Virginia Mercury.

State budget extends Virginia higher education displacement commission funding for two years. — Virginia Mercury.

Culture:

Virginia wines top French competition in Paris. — The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress (paywall).

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: Prince William Digital Gateway data center project officially dies; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

After the city of Roanoke said it incorrectly installed 30 Flock “Raven” gunshot detectors, it says 80% of them have been removed, and on Monday the city council reversed an earlier decision and ended the use of such audio devices.

City Manager Valmarie Turner said that she anticipates all 41 gunshot detector devices will be removed by the end of the week, following an internal investigation that found that “data entry errors resulted in mistype of sensor locations.” She said the matter will not be revisited unless the council directs the city to do so. 

The council discussed the situation during a closed meeting Monday, then returned to public session to vote unanimously to repeal the April ordinance. The ordinance allowed for encroachment permits for the devices, which capture audio to detect gunshots. 

In April, the city had approved encroachment permits for 75 devices. After the city received a “citizen complaint,” it found in June that multiple devices were installed in locations not previously approved by council. At that time, 41 total devices had been installed. First, on June 24, the city reported that 16 detectors were installed in the wrong locations. The next afternoon, the city said that number was actually 30.

Some of these mistakes included spelling errors, such as “Orange Ave.” being listed as “Grange Ave.” multiple times. The city did not confirm the list of 30 incorrect addresses, after being asked by Cardinal News four times over the course of one week. The city did release the 75 addresses on the “plan set list,” and its community engagement team said the list approved by council in April did contain incorrect addresses.

Councilman Nick Hagen was the first person to bring the issue to the city’s attention after seeing a Reddit post from a resident who expressed concerns after seeing a Raven device being installed on their property. In the post, the resident said their address was not included in the list approved by the council ordinance in April. 

Turner said the rollout of the gunshot detectors “fueled distrust” in the city’s use of public safety technology. She said the city will be independently verifying the removal of each device.

The city looked to use Raven technology in an effort to reduce gun-related violence and to locate and assist victims faster, Payton Mayo, police department spokesperson, said in an email in April. Since then, the subject has become a source of public outcry as numerous residents have expressed privacy concerns in city council meetings.

Mayor Joe Cobb said the mistakes made with the devices are “unfortunate and extremely disappointing” during the meeting. “We acknowledge that a human error was made and appropriate action was taken.”

State Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, and Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County, applauded the council’s decision in a joint news release. The pair also sent a joint press release June 10, copying the Salem City Council and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, expressing “serious concerns” about the tech, citing privacy concerns.

“Today’s vote is a positive step to restoring trust,” their Monday release reads. “The unauthorized placement of commercialized listening devices near private homes without resident notification was a colossal administrative failure and highlights the inherent risks of automated mass surveillance networks.”

The release also calls for the city to “look at their authorization of mass surveillance cameras.”

The city currently has 27 Flock devices active — 26 license plate readers and one live video camera — according to the city’s Flock transparency portal.

The city used $57,000 in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance funding to pay for the detectors. It’s unclear at this point what will happen with the devices purchased, whether that grant money can be reutilized and if the city incurred any additional costs in the process of incorrectly installing devices that are being removed. 

The city did say that it did not pay installation costs, which it said were a part of the vendor contract.

The post After complaints and mistakes, Roanoke City Council votes to discontinue gunshot audio devices appeared first on Cardinal News.

After the city of Roanoke said it incorrectly installed 30 Flock “Raven” gunshot detectors, it says 80% of them have been removed, and on Monday the city council reversed an earlier decision and ended the use of such audio devices.

City Manager Valmarie Turner said that she anticipates all 41 gunshot detector devices will be removed by the end of the week, following an internal investigation that found that “data entry errors resulted in mistype of sensor locations.” She said the matter will not be revisited unless the council directs the city to do so. 

The council discussed the situation during a closed meeting Monday, then returned to public session to vote unanimously to repeal the April ordinance. The ordinance allowed for encroachment permits for the devices, which capture audio to detect gunshots. 

In April, the city had approved encroachment permits for 75 devices. After the city received a “citizen complaint,” it found in June that multiple devices were installed in locations not previously approved by council. At that time, 41 total devices had been installed. First, on June 24, the city reported that 16 detectors were installed in the wrong locations. The next afternoon, the city said that number was actually 30.

Some of these mistakes included spelling errors, such as “Orange Ave.” being listed as “Grange Ave.” multiple times. The city did not confirm the list of 30 incorrect addresses, after being asked by Cardinal News four times over the course of one week. The city did release the 75 addresses on the “plan set list,” and its community engagement team said the list approved by council in April did contain incorrect addresses.

Councilman Nick Hagen was the first person to bring the issue to the city’s attention after seeing a Reddit post from a resident who expressed concerns after seeing a Raven device being installed on their property. In the post, the resident said their address was not included in the list approved by the council ordinance in April. 

Turner said the rollout of the gunshot detectors “fueled distrust” in the city’s use of public safety technology. She said the city will be independently verifying the removal of each device.

The city looked to use Raven technology in an effort to reduce gun-related violence and to locate and assist victims faster, Payton Mayo, police department spokesperson, said in an email in April. Since then, the subject has become a source of public outcry as numerous residents have expressed privacy concerns in city council meetings.

Mayor Joe Cobb said the mistakes made with the devices are “unfortunate and extremely disappointing” during the meeting. “We acknowledge that a human error was made and appropriate action was taken.”

State Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, and Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County, applauded the council’s decision in a joint news release. The pair also sent a joint press release June 10, copying the Salem City Council and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, expressing “serious concerns” about the tech, citing privacy concerns.

“Today’s vote is a positive step to restoring trust,” their Monday release reads. “The unauthorized placement of commercialized listening devices near private homes without resident notification was a colossal administrative failure and highlights the inherent risks of automated mass surveillance networks.”

The release also calls for the city to “look at their authorization of mass surveillance cameras.”

The city currently has 27 Flock devices active — 26 license plate readers and one live video camera — according to the city’s Flock transparency portal.

The city used $57,000 in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance funding to pay for the detectors. It’s unclear at this point what will happen with the devices purchased, whether that grant money can be reutilized and if the city incurred any additional costs in the process of incorrectly installing devices that are being removed. 

The city did say that it did not pay installation costs, which it said were a part of the vendor contract.

The post After complaints and mistakes, Roanoke City Council votes to discontinue gunshot audio devices appeared first on Cardinal News.

When Crystal Spring Grocery Co. runs out of it, folks start to holler. When staff at Dogwood Restaurant bring out a burger or hot dog topped with it, the sight inspires five more orders. Caterer Drew Buzik’s orders typically include it, occasionally by the vat.

The delight in question is called cheese slaw, a snack with Roanoke roots. It’s textural kin to the better-known pimiento cheese. But this treat centers on Swiss, not cheddar. Banana and jalapeno peppers, not pimientos, provide the punch, with more bite coming via green onion.

“I like it — perfectly tangy, perfectly creamy, a little salty,” said Abby Epperly, who works front of house at Crystal Spring Grocery in South Roanoke. “I just think this needs to be a cheese slaw town.”

The sometime-condiment, sometime-side, sometime-charcuterie feature has a cult following beyond the Star City that publications including Southern Living occasionally pump up. 

“Today, cheese slaw is still a fixture on holiday and party tables in Roanoke and many other places if a Roanoke ex-pat has something to say about it,” Anne Byrn wrote in 2025 for Southern Living.

One mystery to ponder is why it never was packaged, marketed and sold by the pallet in the same way as its oranger, blander cousin. (While we acknowledge that some companies have added jalapenos as an option, we’ve tasted neither banana pepper, brine nor green onion in any pimiento goo we’ve tried.) 

Buzik, whose career includes a run as owner at the old Cafe Succotash in Vinton, said that day might come.

“I don’t think it was widely known outside of this area until about the last 10 years,” Buzik said. “I’d say there’s a huge opportunity being missed somewhere in that.”

Meanwhile, there are a scant few places to get your fix, and plenty of recipes floating around for those who want to make their own version of the stuff that a caterer named Lib Wilhelm started mixing in the mid-20th century.

Everyone who is serious about making and selling it gives a nod to the late Wilhelm, who was “caterer for the who’s who in Roanoke in the `60s and `70s,” Buzik said.

Tinnell’s Finer Foods, which opened in 1937 and stayed in business on Crystal Spring Avenue Southwest until 2019, packaged and sold its own version. Crystal Spring Grocery opened the next year in the Tinnell’s building. 

Its owners opted to keep some Tinnell favorites, including ham biscuits and pimiento cheese, all with the same recipes, said Epperly, who started working there the year it opened.

“You know, people freak out if it’s gone,” she said of the cheese slaw.

Epperly prefers it, focusing on the banana peppers’ imparted tanginess. She recommends a charcuterie tray with Ritz crackers, bread-and-butter pickles and a sliced-up summer sausage.

Buzik, who made a load of the stuff for a family that was taking it to Smith Mountain Lake to be an edible part of its July 4 celebration, said that Wilhelm served hers inside a head of cabbage hollowed out as a bowl. There was no cabbage in her “slaw,” but there was slaw in the cabbage.

“As a toddler, I remember being at wedding receptions that I believe Lib must have catered, because I recall seeing that hollowed out head of cabbage on the table with this luscious, savory cheese dip in it, and it did contain carrots, from my memory.”

Buzik is possibly the only one making it who keeps shredded carrots in the recipe. The root veggies’ colors likely served to make it look more like its half-namesake, he said. No one is bothering with the hollowed-out cabbage head.

“I think the original version is shredded Swiss cheese, shredded carrot, sliced green onions, chopped jalapeno peppers, chopped mild banana peppers and mayonnaise,” he said. “That’s all I put in mine, and my intention was to be true to the original. That’s what I have seen in print, although I’ve seen a lot of more recent versions of it that omit the carrot.”

It has been a beloved topping for burgers and dogs, as well. Fork in the Alley — and, later, sister establishment Fork in the Market — got Tinnell’s permission to use its recipes and included both the slaw and the pimiento versions on burgers. Cheese slaw topped the iconic Astro Dog, which married it with New Orleans-style olive relish and dijon mustard on a Washington, D.C.-famous half-smoke sausage.

“That was just from childhood memories of really good food that stuck with me,” former Forks’ owner David Trinkle said. He and his chefs developed the idea for that entree and others from food he loved growing up in Roanoke and during college in Charlottesville, he said.

Trinkle and his wife, Ann, sold Fork in the Alley in 2025, and with new owners came a new menu, sans Astro Dog. The couple sold Fork in the Market in June, but the mega-savory half-smoke combination may well make occasional guest-starring appearances there, said new owner Brandon Blevins.

It was a popular item, but with food costs rising, Blevins needed to pare down. Hot smokes went on just two dog offerings, and olive relish was an Astro-only ingredient, he said.

“It was more of a menu maintenance thing, and trying to cut down on food costs rather than due to its lack of popularity,” said Blevins, a longtime employee who was general manager there before he bought the downtown Roanoke dive bar.

He added: “We are doing different special menus each month, so you could keep an eye out, and it may make an appearance here in the future.”

About three miles east of the City Market Building, downtown Vinton’s Dogwood Restaurant has featured cheese slaw-topped burgers and dogs for about a decade, said Dogwood’s front-of-house manager, Jessica Blankenship. 

The Big Lick Burger and the Scooby Dog are topped with a version that includes chopped red peppers. 

“We make it fresh, and, say if I made it today, I will probably be sold out by tomorrow. It’s probably 3 pounds we make at a time,” Blankenship said. “It goes really quick.”

The burger features tomato and mayo with the Swiss mix, and the hot dog pairs with house-made chili.

“As soon as one person sees it, we will probably sell five more right after,” she said.

To Buzik, pimiento cheese is “near and dear to people’s hearts,” but making it so much over the decades became tiring, “to put it kindly,” he said. He played around and created a white cheddar version with jalapeno and banana peppers.

“And then I remembered … that the cheese slaw, even though it’s not pimento cheese, was very popular in Roanoke at one time, and I put it on the menu a few times, and lo and behold, it sells like crazy.”

Here is Buzik’s recipe, faithful to the one Wilhelm made famous and guaranteed to disappear quickly from its delivery module, be it hollowed-out cabbage, buttery-and-salty cracker or sandwich.

Star City Cheese Slaw

Makes about 1 quart

16-ounce block Swiss cheese, coarsely grated
1 small carrot, peeled and coarsely grated
3 scallions, green tops thinly sliced (reserve the white bulbs for another use)
1/2 small jar of mild sliced banana peppers, roughly chopped
1/2 to 1 whole fresh jalapeños, seeded and finely minced (use as much as you enjoy)
2-3 Tbs. brine from the jarred banana peppers
Duke’s mayonnaise

Simply combine all ingredients up to the Duke’s in a large mixing bowl. Add about a half-cup of mayonnaise and mix with a sturdy spoon or spatula until well combined and moistened. Add more mayo, if needed, to achieve a spreadable but not overly wet end product. Serve in a hollowed-out head of cabbage, if you’re of a mind, but a bowl works just as well. Crackers, cut veggies and fried pork rinds are the best vehicles for delivery to the mouth.

— Courtesy of Drew Buzik

The post ‘Cheese slaw town’: Pimiento cheese’s Roanoke kin retains its spicy cult following appeared first on Cardinal News.

We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”

With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.

If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.

Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.

What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?

Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.

Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).

At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.

Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.

The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)

If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:

What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.

Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.

This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.

You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.

So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?

These were the top 10 House Democrats.

These were the top 10 House Republicans:

These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:

And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:

Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.

You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.

Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.

Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.

The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”

The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party.  In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”

You can find all the scores here.

Kiggans tops the congressional rankings

The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118^th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.

In the 117^th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post New study ranks Del. Hope as most effective legislator in Richmond; Rep. Kiggans is tops in Washington appeared first on Cardinal News.

We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”

With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.

If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.

Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.

What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?

Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.

Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).

At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.

Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.

The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)

If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:

What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.

Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.

This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.

You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.

So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?

These were the top 10 House Democrats.

These were the top 10 House Republicans:

These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:

And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:

Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.

You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.

Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.

Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.

The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”

The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party.  In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”

You can find all the scores here.

Kiggans tops the congressional rankings

The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118^th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.

In the 117^th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post New study ranks Del. Hope as most effective legislator in Richmond; Rep. Kiggans is tops in Washington appeared first on Cardinal News.

We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”

With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.

If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.

Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.

What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?

Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.

Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).

At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.

Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.

The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)

If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:

What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.

Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.

This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.

You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.

So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?

These were the top 10 House Democrats.

These were the top 10 House Republicans:

These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:

And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:

Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.

You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.

Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.

Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.

The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”

The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party.  In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”

You can find all the scores here.

Kiggans tops the congressional rankings

The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118^th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.

In the 117^th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post New study ranks Del. Hope as most effective legislator in Richmond; Rep. Kiggans is tops in Washington appeared first on Cardinal News.

We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”

With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.

If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.

Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.

What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?

Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.

Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).

At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.

Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.

The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)

If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:

What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.

Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.

This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.

You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.

So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?

These were the top 10 House Democrats.

These were the top 10 House Republicans:

These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:

And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:

Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.

You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.

Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.

Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.

The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”

The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party.  In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”

You can find all the scores here.

Kiggans tops the congressional rankings

The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118^th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.

In the 117^th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post New study ranks Del. Hope as most effective legislator in Richmond; Rep. Kiggans is tops in Washington appeared first on Cardinal News.

We often write about certain legislators as being “powerful.” It’s practically required that we refer to the chairs of the General Assembly’s budget-related committees as powerful, as in “the powerful Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas.”

With Lucas, her power is on display for all to see. She single-handedly killed former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a sports arena in Alexandria, and while she didn’t prevail in her desire to abolish Virginia’s tax incentives for data centers, she did succeed in putting that issue into a public forum — and helped secure a tax on the electricity that the facilities consume.

If you want to see the influence of other legislators, sometimes all you have to do is look at the state budget. The funding in the current budget for developing a healthcare workforce in the Roanoke Valley by exploring a healthcare-focused high school can be traced to Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County. He encountered the graduates of a similar high school in Houston when he was there for medical treatment several years ago; as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of an even more select group of budget negotiators, he was in a position to make that happen.

Likewise, the money for the proposed inland port in Washington County might not have happened if not for state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and is, like Austin, one of the final budget negotiators.

What, though, about the legislators who don’t sit on the “money committees,” as they’re called? Power and influence come in many forms — and it doesn’t always include making headlines, either. There are many legislators who work quietly, behind the scenes, and sometimes accomplish more than those who are pumping out content for social media. We can measure the effectiveness of baseball players in mathematical ways — batting averages for the hitters, earned run averages for the pitchers. Is it possible to do the same with legislators?

Probably not. There’s too much of the human factor involved, and that’s hard to quantify. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, though. In the 1980s and ’90s, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot newspaper surveyed legislators and other denizens of Capitol Square (lobbyists, state officials and journalists) to compile an annual ranking of which legislators were the most effective. It seemed a generally accurate list, although Republicans never liked it because they were in the minority then and minority members always get ranked lower because, well, they’re in the minority. There were also some concerns that some legislators hadn’t answered truthfully, that they were intentionally ranking some members of the other party lower in hopes that a poor score would hurt them come reelection time. Republicans eventually stopped participating, and that killed the project.

Now comes the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint venture between the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University. The center has been producing scores on legislative effectiveness at the federal level, and now has them for members of Congress back to the 1994-95 session. This year, for the first time, it’s produced legislative effectiveness ratings for state legislators — starting with Virginia and New Jersey. (The reports also go back to 1994-95).

At this point, everybody wants to know the scores, right? OK, fine, the highest score went to Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington County, and the lowest went to — well, that’s complicated.

Now let’s talk about how the data gets there — what it tells us and what it can’t.

The center has a whole page on its methodology. Warning: It includes the word “coefficient” and uses “5-gram Jaccard similarity comparisons.” (No, that’s not a line from “Breaking Bad.”)

If you want to know the actual formula, here it is:

What? You didn’t pay attention in calculus, either? Here’s a much shorter version. The center uses 15 metrics that “collectively capture the proven ability of a legislator to advance … agenda items through the legislative process and into law.” This doesn’t just mean getting his or her own bills passed, but how much that legislator contributed to getting other bills passed. The formula also distinguishes between types of bills, since not all bills are equal — which is why you just can’t look at the number of bills a legislator introduces. If you’re really into the methodology, you can read it all here.

Now, before we get to the numbers, keep in mind that a member of the majority party always has an advantage over a member of the minority party — that was the objection Republicans had to the Virginian-Pilot rankings back in the ’90s, and they were not wrong. Regardless of which party holds the majority, when you find a minority member with a high effectiveness score, then you’ve really found something because they’re working with an institutional handicap.

This data is also for the 2024-25 legislative session, not the current one (it takes time to do all this math). That means some of the most effective legislators are no longer in the General Assembly for reasons we’ll soon get to. The report also points out that some party leaders don’t score well. For instance, House Speaker Don Scott gets a big fat zero — because speakers traditionally don’t introduce any bills. They’re powerful enough that they don’t have to; that makes them hard to score under this formula. Trust me, Scott is influential, just not in ways this scorecard can capture. Likewise, the lowest-scoring House Republican was then-House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert. Same thing, just the other side of the aisle. If you’re House minority leader, your job is to help your party members look good, not score points yourself.

You’ll see that some Republicans typically score lower than Democrats, but remember what I said about minority members laboring with a disadvantage in a partisan environment. Nonetheless, politics being what they are, I suspect some of these scores will find their way into campaign literature next year — likely on the other side. On the other hand, some low-ranking Republicans may find these scores to be a badge of honor — a sign that they’re fighting the Democrats at every turn and aren’t about to introduce bills that the other party would even think of supporting. A low-scoring Republican in a swing district probably won’t find it wise to make that argument, but a low-scoring Republican in a bright red district sure could. Ultimately, in our system, it’s up to voters to decide which qualities they prize — although, in our system, that also means that voters taking part in party primaries sometimes count more than ones taking part in general elections.

So, let’s get onto the scores, shall we?

These were the top 10 House Democrats.

These were the top 10 House Republicans:

These were the top 10 Senate Democrats:

And now, the top 10 Senate Republicans:

Some observations before we move on: If you follow the General Assembly (and if you’ve read this far, you probably do), you’ll recognize many of these names because they’re the legislators involved in a lot of the key action. You’ll also see that many of the Democrats are committee chairs. It’s hard to overstate how important a committee chairmanship is — and, by definition, those only go to members of the majority party.

You’ll also notice that some of these legislators are no longer there. Two of the top 10 Senate Democrats moved up: Ghazala Hashmi is now lieutenant governor, Adam Ebbin is now with the governor’s administration. Two of the top 10 House Republicans have moved out: Carrie Coyner lost her reelection bid, Jonathan “Jed” Arnold didn’t seek reelection due to his wife’s illness.

Coyner’s loss does underscore an inconvenient political fact: Voters don’t always appreciate an effective legislator if they’d prefer them to be voting the other way on those issues. Arnold’s departure is completely understandable but also reminds us that legislators have family responsibilities besides their civic ones. The center said that Arnold had a remarkably high score for a freshman member, so losing him was akin to Republicans losing a “rookie of the year” in sports.

Perhaps the biggest surprise: Lucas scores poorly. She’s the third-lowest-scoring Democrat and ranks below five Republicans. I suspect this is a function of the formula: Her power hasn’t been in getting bills passed; it’s been in stopping bills (Alexandria sports arena) or influencing the debate (data center taxation). There may not be a baseball equivalent to this, but to switch sports analogies, she might be comparable to the basketball player or hockey player who may not score a lot of goals but whose presence on the court or the ice changes the dynamics of the game. Those are qualities that every sports fan understands, but they’re hard to translate into statistics.

The center does make this fascinating observation: “In terms of party influence, the recent partisan battles over redistricting and other matters often yield the impression of significant partisan divides across the Commonwealth. In contrast, our data show that the Virginia General Assembly achieves a greater balance in lawmaking effectiveness across parties than is found in most states across the country. While the [scores] of minority-party lawmakers across the country on the whole averages about 0.60, the average scores in 2024-2025 for minority-party Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were somewhat higher at 0.65 and in the Senate at an average value of 0.76.”

The center also looked at how many successful bills come from each party.  In the Senate, 39.1% came from Republicans, while in the House, 29.4% did. The center thought that was an unusually high number for a minority party, concluding that these figures are “indicative that both parties were active and effective in the lawmaking process, striking a balance rarely found in states across the country.”

You can find all the scores here.

Kiggans tops the congressional rankings

The center’s congressional rankings are a mirror image of the General Assembly ones — because Congress is controlled by Republicans. The rankings are for the 118^th Congress, which ran 2023-24, so not the current one. In those rankings, the most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation was Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach, who faces a tough reelection bid this fall. The second most effective legislator was Rep. Bob Good, R-Prince Edward County, who lost the Republican primary in 2024 to John McGuire.

In the 117^th Congress that preceded it (2021-2022), Democrats were in charge. The most effective member of Virginia’s congressional delegation then was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax County, who also ranked as the most effective member in all of Congress, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger ranked second. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

As for last place, in the 118th Congress it was Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Newport. In the previous Congress, where Democrats held a majority, Scott was a committee chairman and ranked third, which again shows the partisan nature of Congress and the importance of being in the majority.

Want more politics and analysis? We have more each week in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, that comes out each Friday.

The post New study ranks Del. Hope as most effective legislator in Richmond; Rep. Kiggans is tops in Washington appeared first on Cardinal News.

Petition signatures will be gathered in the town of Pulaski as residents weigh in on whether to allow a Rosie’s Gaming Emporium. 

The same is happening in Amherst County as Churchill Downs, the company that owns the Rosie’s brand, moves toward filling out the locations it can open in the state.

Michael Kelly, director of strategic communication & advocacy for Hunton Andrews Kurth, a lobbying firm representing Churchill Downs Inc. in Virginia, confirmed the petition drives in Pulaski and Amherst. 

There are eight Rosie’s sites operating in Virginia: Collinsville, Dumfries, Emporia, Hampton, Henrico County, New Kent County, Richmond and Vinton. While the business operates similarly to a casino, it is legally a pari-mutuel historical horse racing facility that does not feature house-banked table games. Virginia law caps the licenses for such operations to operate in any year at 12.

In a June 25 press release, Pulaski Town Manager Todd Day notified residents that several locations for the business have been assessed, but that a necessary number of petition signatures need to be gathered before voters can consider it on a future ballot — that’s 5% of qualified voters, according to state law. A referendum would then be required.

“I’m excited about it. I know there are mixed emotions around the community, and I absolutely understand that,” said Day. “But, again, I’m excited about it and I think it’s an amazing opportunity for the town.” 

Day said that he and his staff have periodically called Rosie’s to “let them know that we are still open for business” — business that could bring as much as an estimated $1 million a year in revenue, he said.

“Needless to say, business brings business, so Rosie’s is just a start, but the economy that it will bring to already existing businesses is priceless,” said Day, adding that two vacant buildings on East Main Street, one within the Pulaski mall and the other within the Pulaski Plaza, are identified as potential locations. 

This is not the first time that Amherst County considered a Rosie’s. In 2021, voters rejected a referendum that would have installed the emporium in Madison Heights, with more than 7,000 votes against it. 

“I don’t think that rural, beautiful Amherst County is the place for that,” said Tobey Thurston, a county resident who, prior to the 2021 referendum, helped lead a “Vote no to Rosie’s” initiative.

Five years later, Thurston said she is concerned that county officials will leverage the revenue Rosie’s could generate in the new petition as an option to alleviate increases in taxes. “I’m afraid that it’s going to be presented to the county that, if we want our taxes to go down, we have to either vote for a data center or Rosie’s.” 

For Pulaski residents who may consider the plan as a move that will encourage gambling in town, Day says he encourages residents to consider what this could mean for a town in need of an economic boost. 

“I continuously and respectfully get input all the time that our taxes are high, water rates are high, sewer rates, et cetera, et cetera. And all of that is based on the economy in the area, but a locality that ceases to grow will eventually cease to exist,” he said.

The post Plans for Rosie’s Gaming Emporiums are underway in Pulaski and Amherst County appeared first on Cardinal News.

Welcome back to Extra Credit, a weekly roundup of education-related news from across Southwest and Southside Virginia.

We might be in the thick of summer, but education news doesn’t stop! 

Have a story idea, tip or think there’s something I missed? Email me at meghan@cardinalnews.org.

Thanks for reading!

Roanoke College launches new AI lab

Roanoke College is launching a program to educate professionals on artificial intelligence and equip them “with the skills and strategies needed to lead AI adoption.”

The seven-week WorkAI Lab will include hands-on training, expert instruction and peer collaboration, according to a news release. It’s geared toward individuals looking to expand their skills and employers interested in sponsoring seats for their employees.

Participants will earn a professional credential, an “AI-Forward Leadership” badge, and leave “with the ability to conduct AI training and identify opportunities to leverage AI tools in workflows,” according to the release.

This is just one new program Virginia colleges and universities are offering focused on artificial intelligence. 

George Mason University is launching a master’s degree in artificial intelligence this fall, and the University of Mary Washington will launch a new master of science degree in artificial intelligence in business. Virginia Tech will also debut a new artificial intelligence minor this fall.

The University of Virginia will also pilot three new artificial intelligence literacy courses, and the University of Lynchburg offers a doctoral degree in executive leadership focused on the ethics of AI and technology.

The first group of Roanoke College’s WorkAI Lab students will start in September. Applications are open, and early bird pricing is available until July 15. Find more information at roanoke.edu/WorkAILab. 

Roanoke County holds meet-and-greets with new superintendent 

Roanoke County Public Schools is holding a series of community meetings this month where students, families and community members can learn more about new superintendent Jamie Soltis and his vision for the district.

Soltis was named superintendent in October to succeed longtime schools chief Ken Nicely, who retired last month. 

Soltis previously served as deputy superintendent. He began his career with Roanoke County schools in 1999.

“I look forward to meeting with our students, staff, parents and community members to talk about the future of Roanoke County Public Schools,” Soltis said in a news release. “We already have exceptional schools and staff. Now we’re looking to get even better, and I want to hear from those we serve as to how we can best do so.”

Here’s the schedule of community meetings:

• July 20, 6-7 p.m., Northside High School 
• July 21, 6-7 p.m., Glenvar High School
• July 27, 6-7 p.m., William Byrd High School 
• July 30, 7-8 p.m., Hidden Valley High School
• Aug. 6, 6-7 p.m., Cave Spring High School 

School board members will also attend the community meetings. 

Roanoke County isn’t the only school district in Southside and Southwest Virginia starting the 2026-27 school year with a new leader. 

Last month, Amherst County Public Schools named Melody Sheppard its next superintendent after Tim Hoden announced in February that he was stepping down.

Roanoke City Public Schools Superintendent Verletta White last month also announced she will retire at the end of the 2026-27 school year. 

University of Lynchburg dining services gets national acclaim

University of Lynchburg students are eating at award-winning facilities — at least according to the National Association of College & University Food Services. 

The school’s Burton Dining Hall earned a bronze award for residential dining facility of the year. The award celebrates “exemplary menus, presentations, special event planning, and new dining concepts,” according to a news release. 

This is the third year that the university has been recognized by the national college food services association. This year’s entry highlighted the work dining services employees do on a regular basis as well as “how staff rose to the occasion during extraordinary times” last winter, according to the release.

During Winter Storm Fern in January, “the entire city was shut down,” Shaun Dearden, the university’s director of dining services, said in a news release. “But our dining team was here.” 

The team communicated with students and their families via social media, ensuring parents that their children were being taken care of.

“It was a super proud moment. It shows the level of pride and commitment that our dining team takes toward the University and taking care of our students,” Dearden said. 

Chef John Barker noted the award is “all encompassing.”

“It’s not about Burton Dining Hall as a facility or specific events held there, but about what we do everyday. I think that’s what makes us great,” he said in the release.

The post Extra Credit: Roanoke College launches AI program for professionals appeared first on Cardinal News.

Hello and welcome back to Danville Field Notes, a weekly column where I report on recent and upcoming news items in Southside. 

This week, the heat wave rolling through much of Cardinal country did not stop groundbreakings, unveilings and regular city business in Danville. 

Folks practically sweated through their clothes at a noon groundbreaking for the Morotock Lofts on Wednesday, when the temperature reached a high of 98. 

Speaking of historic, a historic marker for the Danville Canal was unveiled Friday at an only slightly less sweltering ceremony. 

The final item in this week’s column is unrelated to revitalization or history, but it affects residents’ pockets, so it’s worth a mention.

Danville and Pittsylvania seem to always have plenty of news, so let me know if I missed anything, or if there’s something you’d like to see me cover! Reach out anytime at grace@cardinalnews.org. 

City and developers break ground on Morotock Lofts adaptive reuse project

The project to turn yet another former textile mill into River District apartments is officially underway after a groundbreaking ceremony on July 1. 

The Morotock Manufacturing Co. building on Floyd Street was originally built in 1907 as a textile mill, when the textile industry was one of the city’s main economic drivers. Later in its life, it was a grocery store and a bowling alley. 

More recently, the building, which totals more than 32,000 square feet, sat vacant for many years. 

By August 2027, it will be a residential space with 41 apartments — studios, one- and two-bedroom units — and include a fitness center, a reading room and a 1,500-square-foot office space for lease. 

The units will be designated as workforce housing, with 40% of the units reserved for residents earning 100% of the area’s median income or lower. 

Workforce housing is a term that refers to housing for middle-income workers like teachers, police officers and nurses. 

The $15 million project began with an idea about six years ago, said Rory Dowling, owner of 1st & Main Development, the Durham, North Carolina-based company behind the project.

“It quickly became my passion project,” Dowling said. “It wasn’t until I started talking to the city, and they said ‘Here’s what we can do to help pencil this project out,’ that it became a collaborative, iterative process over the last three years to really get this to come together.”

The building is located in the Mechanicsville area of the River District, which emerged in the later 19th and early 20th centuries as a “distinctive, ethnically mixed neighborhood of tradesmen, educators, skilled workers and laborers,” according to the city. 

Danville’s effort to revitalize this area, called Plan Mechanicsville, includes community workshops and background research. The effort is in its final phase, which will end with the presentation and adoption of a planning document. Key focuses include infrastructure like sidewalks, neighborhood improvements to calm traffic and affordable housing. 

Danville Canal historic marker now stands outside Dan River Falls

The Danville Canal, which is the city’s oldest commercial structure, has a history going back 270 years. It was approved for a historic marker through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources about a year ago, and the marker was finally erected Friday. 

The historic marker, sponsored by local historian Jonathan Hackworth, recognizes the canal’s longstanding history in Danville before it is transformed into a whitewater channel through a city parks and recreation project. 

Located directly in front of Dan River Falls, a renovated textile mill, on Memorial Drive, the marker includes information about the original canal construction in 1794. 

The canal has transformed for different reasons over the years, facilitating river trade, serving industry and eventually powering the massive Dan River Mills complex, which the Dan River Falls building belonged to. 

“Its path traces the city’s growth from a frontier settlement to a major manufacturing center,” the marker says. 

Near the canal, the Dan River Falls project and the new Riverfront Park represent the city’s effort to revitalize its waterfront. Soon, the Danville canal will be part of that effort. 

Construction to transform the canal into a whitewater channel is expected to be complete in 2027, turning the historic feature into “a one-of-a-kind outdoor recreation and tourism destination,” according to the city’s website. 

In addition to recreational opportunities, the whitewater channel will be used to train first responders on swift-water rescue scenarios. 

The canal’s 1882 headgate system, which controls the flow of water, will allow the water elevation in the channel to be manipulated for both of these purposes.

“The amazing thing is that it’s the oldest commercial structure in Danville and it’s still somewhat functional,” Hackworth said in a 2025 interview. “When the canal project is done it will be the oldest functioning structure in Danville.” 

City council to vote on lower fees for curbside recycling pickup

At its regular 7 p.m Tuesday meeting, the Danville City Council will vote on a fee reduction to the city’s subscription-based curbside recycling program. 

If approved, the annual fee would be reduced from $90 to $52 for semimonthly curbside recycling pickup. 

City staff supports this fee reduction, hoping that it will “improve affordability and encourage greater participation in the program,” according to the staff report in the meeting’s agenda packet.

The reduced annual fee would go into effect immediately and would be payable in advance at the public works office. 

In 2011, the city launched its subscription-based curbside recycling pickup program, and has reduced the fee several times since then. When the program started 15 years ago, it cost $260 per year to have curbside recycling picked up. In 2013, the city lowered that rate to $195 per year, and lowered it again in 2016 to $90 per year. 

Recycling carts are provided at no cost to participating residents upon request, the staff report said.

The post Morotock Lofts breaks ground, adding apartments to the River District appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Politics:

Feds will close portion of Petersburg prison complex. — The (Petersburg) Progress-Index (paywall).

Virginians with marijuana charges — and more — can now get that criminal history sealed. — WVTF/RadioIQ.

Virginia foam food container ban goes fully into effect. — WVTF/RadioIQ.

Virginia creates State Climate Office at George Mason University. — Richmond Times-Dispatch (paywall).

Local:

Bedford Passenger Rail Project efforts pick up steam in public interaction. — The (Lynchburg) News & Advance (paywall).

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: Feds will close portion of Petersburg prison complex; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

I hope you enjoy my latest column, a collection of weekly short news updates and future events to look out for, and arriving to your inbox as part of our NRV newsletter on Mondays. 

As your New River Valley reporter, I primarily cover Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Montgomery County and Radford, but aim to expand my reach throughout the rest of a bustling valley. 

I aim to inform and meet people where they are at, but the valley is vast. So if you have thoughts on a developing story or ideas on how I can get to know your community better, you can reach me at erick@cardinalnews.org. 

Two candidates to run for Blacksburg Town Council vacancies

Councilman Joel Goodhart and newcomer Leslie Harwood are running for the two Blacksburg council seats set for a special election in November. 

The candidates will run to fill the unexpired council terms of Michael Sutphin, who was elected mayor last December, and former Councilman Liam Watson, who resigned after being found guilty of election fraud. Both terms will end in December 2027.

“That’s key that we get that right, someone who’s gonna say yes to more housing and more housing types is really important to me,” said Goodhart, who was appointed as an interim council member in January. Access to public transportation is also a main issue he wants to address, saying “we should focus on how do we move people more efficiently, not just getting people to drive everywhere.”

For Harwood, running to increase transparency between town council and their constituents is her main priority.

“One thing people were telling me is that they felt that decisions were being made behind closed doors and that they didn’t understand why things were done,” she said. “The truth behind transparency is that it has to be very open not only after decisions are made, but throughout the process by showing people openly how the decisions are made.”

Harwood and Goodhart are the only two candidates in the race for the two seats as of last week, according to the Montgomery County registrar’s office. 

Andrew Kassoff, who was appointed to fill one of the two vacated council seats, said he will not run in the special election due to unforeseen family obligations.

The candidate filing deadline is Aug. 14. The general election is Nov. 3, with early voting starting Sept. 18 and ending on Oct. 31.

Giles County gets almost $4 million to address contamination

Giles County will receive $3.7 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revitalize a contaminated property that sits on the New River and near the Appalachian Trail. 

Ninth District U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, announced the news last month, voicing his support for the Brownfields and Land revitalization program, a federal initiative that provides funding and resources towards the reuse of brownfields — properties that struggled to be reused because of the presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or containment, according to the EPA.

“Redevelopment of brownfield sites in Virginia’s Ninth District are promising projects that account for economic growth potential,” said Griffith in a news release.

The 33-acre brownfield site in Giles was owned by the former Leas & McVitty/New River Tannery, which was first established in the Pearisburg/ Bluff City area in 1894, according to County Administrator Chris McKlarney. The site provided leather hides for many local and national manufacturing companies and, during World War II, all of the leather produced at the Tannery went directly into military use to make millions of pairs of shoes and boots for armed forces personnel.

“Obviously, we are extremely excited at this great opportunity to reclaim a property that has been vacant and unusable for more than 65 years,” said McKlarney. 

The tannery was phased out by the 1960s, and in 1972 wooden structures were purposely burned as part of demolitions efforts, McKlarney said. “The site was first considered for redevelopment by the Industrial Development Authority in 1992, but the cost of the cleanup was not feasible.”

Two Virginia Tech grads to lead growing Christiansburg company

A pair of Hokies will lead the growing IV Labs, a Christiansburg-based specialty chemistry company serving manufacturers and laboratories worldwide.

Justin Yalung was recently appointed as chief executive officer. And Brian Alexander was named the company’s president. Both men have been with the company for some time.

IV Labs is the parent company of Inorganic Ventures and PURE Laboratories. Together, the companies offer more than 2,000 stock elemental mixtures and compounds and more than 60,000 unique custom formulations, according to a company news release. 

The products are used for production applications, research, testing and calibration across sectors including pharmaceuticals, energy, environmental safety, mining, industrial manufacturing and food and beverage. 

“At IV Labs, we consider ourselves the quiet force for manufacturers across industries to deliver consistent, high-quality products with confidence,” said Yalung in the release. “Since joining IV Labs, I’ve been amazed at how our work can have such a far-reaching impact on people’s everyday lives.”

 Yalung succeeds Christopher Gaines, who becomes the company’s board chairman. Erik Miller, chief strategy officer, and founder of PURE, moves to vice chair, according to the release.

 “IV Labs is at an inflection point — the team, the technology, the timing — it’s all aligned. I’m stepping into this board role knowing that what comes next is going to turn heads, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch it unfold,” Gaines said in the release.

Yalung is the first company leader outside of the founders’ families. Before joining IV Labs, Yalung served as corporate controller for TechLab, Inc. in Blacksburg and held senior finance roles at bioMérieux, IBM’s mergers and acquisitions team in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, and GE Energy in Atlanta. A Virginia Beach native, he earned a finance degree from Virginia Tech and completed Oxford’s Executive Leadership Programme, according to the release. 

Alexander, a geochemist, earned a bachelor’s degree in geosciences and an MBA from Virginia Tech, a master’s in geosciences from Penn State University and a Ph.D. from Constructor University in Bremen, Germany (then Jacobs University Bremen), according to the release.

IV Labs, located in the Falling Branch Corporate Park in Christiansburg and Montgomery County, was recruited to the New River Valley from New Jersey in 2009 and has grown from six relocated employees to more than 100 team members across Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The post New River Valley Field Notes: Two candidates for two council seats so far in Blacksburg appeared first on Cardinal News.

A half-century ago, João Antonio Tracci and Pilar Neira Gonzalez, my parents, took the oath of naturalization and became American citizens. That is one reason why on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, I was especially honored to make the motion — on behalf of the United States — for the court to administer the oath of citizenship to naturalize 74 new Americans at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. This marked both the culmination of a legal process and a new beginning for our fellow citizens and their families. The ceremony further affirmed the transcendence of American citizenship and our shared obligation to defend the defining ideals upon which it rests.

America’s foundational values find best expression in the Declaration’s “self-evident truths” that all men are created equal, and that we are endowed by our Creator with certain “unalienable rights,” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” America’s identity was shaped by the vision and courage of our founders — the eloquence of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, the genius of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, and the peerless valor and immortal humility of General Washington. America’s founding ideals were preserved by President Lincoln, broadened by Martin Luther King Jr., and sustained by the courage and sacrifice of every subsequent generation. The American promise is grounded firmly in the conviction that Divine Providence has imbued us with fundamental rights and liberties that governments are established to safeguard. A promise that reflects the universal aspirations Thomas Jefferson forged into the Declaration that established our Independence and continues to illuminate the world. 

These founding ideals find powerful expression in the principle of “equal justice under law,” the aspirational cornerstone of America’s legal system. In a tripartite and federalist constitutional structure that serves as a bulwark against a concentration of power that is the sure invitation to tyranny. In a legal tradition that aspires to fairness and impartiality above race, politics, or social station. 

In May 1944, at “I am an American Day,” Judge Learned Hand spoke of the meaning of liberty and American citizenship. “We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty?

“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can do much to help it. But while it lies there, this spirit needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that there may be a Kingdom where the least shall be heard, and considered, side by side with the greatest.” 

There are those who contend that humility and national pride are incompatible. But Americans can be humble while embracing our exceptionalism. The American system constrains the power of government to abridge or diminish rights conferred by the Creator. It upholds personal dignity, preserves liberty, freedom of worship, and accords to each individual the autonomy to realize their full potential.  This is unique in world history, and defending it demands sacrifice. We must be forever grateful to the patriots who established our country, to those who have given the last full measure of devotion to preserve it, and to those who continue to rise in America’s defense.

Is it too much to expect Americans to recognize the fundamental goodness of the country for which our fellow citizens have sacrificed so much? We can affirm America’s virtue while seeking to reconcile past injustice; extol our founding principles while aspiring to fully realize their promise; and take pride in the state of our union while striving to perfect it. And while addressing past faults, we must emphatically reject the destructive impulse to transform America’s missteps into weapons of national division.

Americans share core values that ensure national unity and cohesion. With American citizenship comes the common purpose and shared obligation of a unified people reflected in America’s unofficial motto: E pluribus unum — out of many, one. In offering the promise of American citizenship to those who lawfully seek it, we must also ensure that the full measure of America’s promise remains available to our fellow citizens whose families have made America their home for generations.  

We must defend American citizenship against those who miscast national unity as political arrogance, who defame patriotism as prejudice, and conflate national pride with cultural condescension. The shared identity and common fate of American citizenship transcend race, ethnicity, and faction — serving as a fortress and firewall against the ancient, centrifugal tribalisms our New World relegates to the Old.   

As a first-generation American, my family lineage flows from Outeiro de Rei — Lugo, Galicia, Spain, and from Mantua and Padua, Italy, by way of South America.  My wife’s maternal grandparents were born in the United States, yet her grandparents, mother, and uncle suffered the injustice of being removed from their homes, by the country of their birth, and relocated to the Heart Mountain Internment Center in Wyoming. America is neither perfect nor without sin; no institution established by human beings can or will be. I am profoundly grateful my parents chose our country as their own. For America’s goodness — and greatness — are without parallel in history.  

As the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, I was honored to make the motion to welcome our newest citizens into the American family on July 4, 2026. We should take pride in the integrity of our institutions and must respect our laws, including those through which the extraordinary privilege of American citizenship is earned. With American citizenship comes freedom, liberty, and equality of opportunity. But only so long as we have the fidelity and courage to preserve, protect and defend them.

Robert Tracci is first assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

The post Tracci: Citizenship, duty and obligation on America 250 appeared first on Cardinal News.

I grew up in Virginia, which means I learned about Virginia history a lot.

We had Virginia history in fourth grade. We had it again in fifth grade as part of U.S. history. Then we learned it all over again in seventh grade and eleventh grade. It’s hard to remember now which was Virginia history and which was U.S. history because so much of U.S. history pre-1820 is Virginia history.

Just because we learned about Virginia history a lot doesn’t mean that we learned a lot about Virginia history, though.

The history we’re taught is, by definition, a shorthand version, but there were large parts of Virginia history that we simply weren’t taught at all — sometimes by design.

The version of Virginia’s role in American independence that we learned was almost entirely the story of wealthy men in white wigs. You certainly can’t tell the story of July 4, and how we got there, without talking about Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or Patrick Henry. However, there are large parts of Virginia’s history from that era that are still new to me, and I consider myself a reasonably well-read student of history.

Three years ago, Cardinal News received a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission to tell a monthly series of stories about lesser-known aspects of Virginia’s part in independence.

We plunged into that project with enthusiasm — but no real sense of how many stories there were to tell. Today we still don’t know, other than it’s a lot more than we ever expected. When we started, I knew some of those stories — about Peter Muhlenberg, the German minister who tore off his cloak at the end of a sermon in Woodstock and began recruiting soldiers, about Jack Jouett, the Louisa County tavern keeper’s son who rode to alert Jefferson that the British were marching on Monticello. I’d even heard (vaguely) about Susanna Bolling, the 16-year-old from modern-day Hopewell who supposedly rode through the night to warn the Marquis de Lafayette that the British were planning to capture him.

However, I’d never heard about Billy Flora, the hero of the Battle of Great Bridge, the first significant land battle in Virginia. We were never taught that it was Flora, a free Black man and a business owner, who almost single-handedly held back the British during one key part of the battle.

In fourth grade, we held fundraisers to pay for a field trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg, but I sure don’t ever remember hearing about the key newspaper publisher of that era — Clementina Rind, the first woman to publish a newspaper in Virginia.

It’s only after we embarked on our Cardinal 250 series that I learned of people such as Elizabeth Bennett Young, who hid the court papers in Isle of Wight County from the British, or John Wyatt, the Botetourt County barrel-maker who went undercover as a spy in the New River Valley to expose a nest of Loyalists who were plotting to take over the lead mines in modern-day Wythe County that supplied the patriots with ammunition.

Each month, as we’ve put together this series, I’ve learned something new about our history — and I hope you have, too. Last month it was about John Sinclair, Virginia’s patriotic pirate (well, a pirate in the eyes of the British) who raided royal ships. The month before it was that Cumberland County might have the honor of being the first locality in the country to call for independence. Before that, it was about the legend that French soldiers are buried in Prince Edward County.

We’re now coming up on July 4, the formal 250^th anniversary of American independence, and we have still more stories to tell. In 1776, July 4 was not the end of the story; it was merely the beginning. America’s 250th anniversary celebration will run through the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown. We’d like to keep telling those stories. We’re currently working on turning some of these stories into a graphic novel for Virginia fourth-graders that we’ll make available for free download on our site. We’re looking at revamping the Cardinal 250 portion of our website to make our stories easier to find — and to put them in the context of a map and a timeline. We also have a lot more stories to tell, and that’s where we ask for your help. If you like what we’ve been doing, please consider signing up as a Cardinal News member so that we can continue to commission writers to tell us all more about the history some of us were never taught in school.

You can sign up for our Cardinal 250 newsletter here:

The post Not all of Virginia’s independence story was made by men in white wigs. Here’s what we’ve learned about our history. appeared first on Cardinal News.