Virginia's legislative policy is greener, but funding lags

RICHMOND

After decades of delays and deriding the need for environmental reform, many Virginia politicians are now identifying themselves as “green.”

Up for discussion in the General Assembly this year were proposals to ban flimsy plastic bags, offer tax credits to buyers of energy-efficient homes, and pay farmers to keep cattle away from rivers so polluted water doesn’t flow downhill .

According to Ann Jennings, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia office, the shift has less to do with the Democratic Party’s takeover of the Senate in November’s election than a slow-growing acknowledgment, spurred by pollution’s obvious effects on the Chesapeake Bay, that environmental problems are affecting Virginia’s long- term economic health.

“You just, across the board, find strong majority support for providing a clean Bay and clean water,” Jennings said, which makes party labels increasingly irrelevant.

Despite the evolution in thinking, another kind of “green” is in short supply. While legislators are showing more environmental sensitivity, a slowdown in the state’s economy means there is not enough money for projects to reduce pollution and studies of greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past 26 months, the Republican-controlled General Assembly funded $700 million in upgrades to sewage treatment plants so they produce less runoff.

However, another proposal to improve water quality in the Bay through nonpoint source pollution is in trouble, precisely because of the cost.

Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington , and Del. Steve Landes, R-Augusta County , sponsored legislation to reduce fertilizer and farm waste runoff.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine pledged $20 million for the effort, and Whipple’s bill, SB511 , would have set aside an additional $100 million in sales tax revenue to teach farmers “best management practices” for reducing runoff. It sailed through House and Senate committees but hit a snag when gloomy revised budget numbers came out earlier this month.

Support for using sales tax revenue died with the revised economic forecast in early February – after which Kaine reduced his commitment to $17 million.

The House and Senate kept the rest of the bill in place, but without the money to implement the program, it’s largely a symbolic victory.

“Everybody knows we need to do that,” Whipple said of the program. “It’s simply a matter of finding the money.”

W. Tayloe Murphy Jr., the former secretary of natural resources, said Virginia has the right tools, including one of the best water quality programs around.

“But no matter how good the program is, if you don’t implement funding, it won’t be effective,” he said.

Many Virginians are frustrated that lawmakers don’t put environmental legislation on par with education and health priorities, Murphy said.

“You can’t find a person who is not for saving the Bay. You can’t find a person who is not for clean air and clean water,” Murphy said. “But when push comes to shove, they push them down to the bottom of the priority pile.”

Whipple said the legislative environment for reform is better than it used to be.

A no-nonsense grandmother who got her political start on the Arlington School Board, Whipple is one of the biggest advocates for green legislation.

She and Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant Jr. – then a delegate – co-sponsored landmark legislation in 2000 to end the net loss of nontidal wetlands. It was a long-sought victory: Maryland and Pennsylvania enacted similar laws in 1989 and 1991, respectively.

Whipple said she has noticed a difference in the past two years, with more colleagues showing a better understanding of complex environmental issues.

For years, she hasn’t had to explain the intricacies of how excess nitrogen causes algae blooms and the decline of fishing stocks in the Bay. But lately, Whipple said, “In particular, air quality issues are becoming better understood.”

Another legislator is also watching colleagues grasp another kind of environmental issue: energy policy. Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach , has become the chamber’s driving force on energy efficiency.

Wagner said he thinks the United States must become energy-independent. Emerging economies have the hard currency to compete with the United States for oil, he reasons, and he supports just about any source of power that limits U.S. reliance on foreign nations.

He cites France as a good example; the French depend on nuclear-generated power for 80 percent of their electricity.

Wagner, a father of four, becomes almost childlike when talking about his favorite subject. He envisions windmills on Tangier Island, drilling for natural gas off Virginia’s coast, and new technologies that create biofuel out of algae.

Two years ago, Wagner was the main author of Virginia’s first energy plan. He sees the work – now an entire section of the Virginia code – as one of his biggest accomplishments .

Along with increasing and diversifying the supply of energy, Wagner said, we also have to reduce demand. That’s why he joins Whipple in supporting higher fuel-efficiency ratings for cars. Another pet project: energy-efficient homes that use solar power and appliances such as water heaters that provide hot water on demand.

Last year, Wagner spent a week in such a house built atop the parking lot of a Lowe’s store in Richmond to draw attention to the homes.

“You can’t really talk about energy without talking about the environment at the same time,” Wagner said.

Still, his stance on offshore drilling and support of a uranium mining study in western Virginia earn him black marks from some environmental groups – even while they applaud him for his stances on conservation, for instance.

Wagner shrugs off the criticism.

“I think you lose credibility if you support one side but not the other,” Wagner said about addressing both energy supply and demand.

Yet whatever improvement Virginia makes protecting the environment, growth and sprawl threaten to reverse the gains.

Bryant, the natural resources secretary, notes that 170,000 people move into the Bay watershed every year.

“For all of the progress we have made upgrading sewage treatment plant technologies, we’re losing ground on impervious surfaces: rooftops, driveways, roads – all of which carry sediment.”

“I would say we’re having a hard time now achieving the environmental protections to offset that kind of rapid growth,” Bryant said. “We can’t conserve land fast enough to offset some of the other stuff.”

Bryant said Virginia has an obligation to protect its natural resources, because of their place in American history – from “the 12,000-year-old Chesapeake Bay to the Blue Ridge Mountains” to what he calls the founders’ rivers – the James, Rappahannock, York and Potomac.

Wagner seems to agree and said energy issues fuel his political drive.

“For a lot of years, I was up here wondering why I was here. A good, conservative vote? Anybody can do that,” he said.

Then he thinks about writing a new code section for energy and getting “overwhelming support” from the General Assembly.

“Now,” Wagner said, “I feel like I’ve really made a difference.”

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com