Renewable Energy

Guns, Redistricting, Tolls and Right to Work

February 5, 2016 by David Toscano

We are now three weeks into session and “cross-over,” the term used to describe the date by which all bills must be passed by the originating chamber so they then can “cross-over” to the other chamber for consideration, is approaching. The hours are long and many of the debates are heated because we have to meet deadlines for bills to proceed. The highlights of this week include:

Gun Safety Compromise

The gun safety legislation compromise continues to be debated. Much of the criticism has come from gun safety groups who believe the Governor didn’t get enough in exchange for modifying the Attorney General’s stance on concealed weapons reciprocity agreements. Under the proposed compromise, our reciprocity agreements would remain in effect, thereby undoing Attorney General Herring’s recent position. For advocates of gun rights, a deal on reciprocity was very important, as many people who have a concealed weapons permit issued in Virginia want to retain the ability to carry concealed in adjacent states. Reversing the Attorney General’s position, then, was their number one legislative goal.

In exchange, gun safety advocates received two improvements in the law. First, a person subject to a protective order issued by a judge will no longer be able to possess, own, or transport a firearm in the Commonwealth; they will have to surrender those weapons immediately upon issuance of the order, and will face serious consequences for any failure to do so. Second, we will now have “voluntary” background checks available for private sellers at gun shows; they can ask the State Police to conduct a background check of anyone who seeks to purchase a firearm. Proponents of the measure believe that this will establish a “best practices” standard for background checks and potentially could be used to impose liability on a seller who does not adequately check the background of a person who then commits a serious crime and inflicts serious injuries on a citizen. Bills enacting the deal have not yet been completed, but will likely be considered next week. I appreciate the comments on this that I have received to date.

Redistricting Reform Blocked

House Republicans have again killed all redistricting reform. There were at least five different redistricting bills that would have improved our process, which is overly political and simply protects incumbents, but they were all killed with little debate in subcommittee. I will continue to advocate for redistricting reform because I believe it is critical for the long-term viability of our democracy.

“Right to Work” Statute

Both bodies have now passed a measure that will put the so called “right-to-work” statute on the fall ballot for possible inclusion in the Virginia Constitution. You can see the debate on this issue on YouTube. Those of us who voted against this argued that the “right-to-work” statute has been in Virginia law since 1947 and has never been seriously questioned. Since there is no pressing need, there is no reason to amend Virginia’s Constitution. Voters, of course, will have the final say on this issue in November, and I hope that citizens will vote against the constitutional amendment.

Transportation Funding

A wide variety of bills relating to how and when the Commonwealth can place tolls on certain roads was considered and passed by the Transportation Committee in the House. In our area, we do not usually think about this issue, but it has tremendous statewide implications. As many know, I-66 in Northern Virginia is among the most congested highways in the country, and its capacity could be dramatically improved with additional lanes. At present, the Commonwealth does not have sufficient monies to build these additional lanes, with the result that private capital would need to be used to build new lanes, and tolls would need to be imposed to recover the cost. If tolling was prohibited, the possibility existed that road and transit money that would otherwise flow to areas like Charlottesville and Albemarle could be diverted to Northern Virginia to pay for those transportation improvements. That would be a tragedy for our area and is one reason why I voted for the tolling bills. Under the bills, there could be no tolls imposed in places in and around Charlottesville without General Assembly approval.

My Bills

My bill to prohibit discrimination against persons because of sexual orientation and gender identity (HB913) was tabled in a House subcommittee, as well as my bill to prohibit legislators from raising campaign money during special sessions of the General Assembly (HB914). My bill to permit the Jefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA) access to Neighborhood Assistance Tax Credits (HB742) has now passed the House and is moving to the Senate. I have several bills on education that are before committee early next week as well as my “vehicle-to-grid” bill (HB1137), a measure that would allow owners of electric vehicles to sell the energy stored in their batteries back to the grid when their vehicles are not operating.

For those of you interested in seeing recent floor speeches, you can view them all on my David Toscano YouTube channel. There are floor speeches on education, Virginia’s economy, and the successes of the Obama administration.

If you want to find out some more about our session, I recently taped a broadcast that will be presented on our local access cable later this month, or you can watch it on my YouTube channel here.

2016 Legislative Agenda

January 21, 2016 by David Toscano

Bills offered by Delegate Toscano

Most of the Virginia General Assembly bills have now been filed and they include eleven of my own. I have a great package this year and they include the following:

HB899, which will allow persons over the age of 65 to vote absentee without having to provide any excuse whatsoever. This will allow greater ease of voting for senior citizens and hopefully will increase voter participation.
HB935, a bill to extend foster care services to youngsters who would otherwise “age-out” at age 18. There are many youngsters who would benefit by remaining in the foster care system for a few more years after they reach the age of 18. This bill would allow them access to a wider variety of services designed to better prepare them for adult life. Virginia has one of the highest percentages of children who age-out of foster care; many of those do not yet have the skills necessary to negotiate adult life. This bill will allow those services to be extended up to the age of 21.
HB913, which will prohibit discrimination, employment and housing on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
HB 915, a measure that will allow localities like Charlottesville and Albemarle which have video-monitoring systems on school buses that record violations of unlawful passing of a bus to execute a summons for a violation by mailing the summons to the vehicle owner who committed the offense. There are an increasing number of drivers who are illegally passing stopped school buses, and this will provide an additional tool to penalize those who violate the law and deter people who might otherwise consider it.
HB933 and HB936, two measures that will assist public school divisions. HB933 will keep school divisions from being penalized for taking youngsters who have been placed in their custody from out of their jurisdiction and who drop out soon after entering the division. In some instances, a student will be placed in the custody of the local Department of Social Services and come into a school division from another jurisdiction. They will then drop out almost immediately and the student is then counted against the drop-out rate for that division. This is unfair because the division has not had sufficient time and opportunity to work with the student and retain them in school.HB936 will provide flexibility for school divisions which have to address students with limited English proficiency, primarily among immigrants. The students may be perfectly competent, but because of language difficulties they fail math or English SOLs. This bill will give greater flexibility in how these youngsters are assessed.
HB914 is a measure that will prohibit political fundraising by legislators during legislative special sessions. At present, we are prevented from raising money while we are in regular session. The rationale behind that is that we are dealing with bills that affect the economic condition of groups and individuals who provide us political contributions, and acceptance of contributions one day and voting the next on a law that benefits the contributor is not proper. We do not have such a prohibition, however, during special sessions when a number of significant pieces of legislation are considered. For example, we had a long special session several years ago about transportation funding and yet we were allowed to take political campaign contributions from the very groups that would be benefiting by decisions we were making. My bill would stop this.
HB941 is a bill that would extend the scope of clean energy programs by including certain residential properties that cannot avail themselves of voluntary special lien assessment provisions that encourage the installation of rooftop solar collectors.
HR75 is a resolution that commends the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom and condemns the statements of prominent politicians who argue that Muslims should be prohibited from entering the United States because of their religion.

You can follow these and all other bills offered before the 2016 General Assembly by visiting lis.virginia.gov. Please contact me at deldtoscano@house.virginia.gov if you wish to comment on my legislation or any other legislation before us this Session. My office number in Richmond during Session is (804) 698-1057.

General Assembly Update (Feb. 20, 2015)

February 20, 2015 by David Toscano

The 2015 General Assembly session is scheduled to adjourn on February 28, 2015. The revised budget is just about done and will likely include some raises for teachers and state employees. It is also likely to include some additional monies for higher education. These are important advances, though I would like to see additional funding for education.

The budget does not go far enough in a number of other ways, and still does not provide for the expansion of Medicaid, which could bring back hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars to help Virginians secure health insurance, create jobs, and strengthen our hospital systems.

A number of the major initiatives that I have worked on look likely to pass in some form. The bill to expand the DNA database, which was proposed in response to the Hannah Graham murder, has now passed the Senate in a form slightly modified from the one that was passed by the House. This means that there will be a conference committee composed of Senate and House members to reconcile the two bills for final passage. The same is true with the campus sexual assault reporting bill. I hope to be involved in the final discussions on these bills and expect them to be passed and signed by the Governor.

In the energy arena, one of the major debates focused on the bill proposed by Dominion Virginia Power to freeze electric utility rates for the next five years. This is drawing considerable controversy in the press, and much of the focus has been on the initial form of the bill, which was extremely detrimental to consumers and those of us who support greater investment in renewable energy. The bill that passed, however, is substantially different than the one that was proposed. In fact, the amended bill was not opposed by the Sierra Club, nor the League of Conservation Voters. It includes a requirement that Dominion undertake a weatherization program for low-income persons, and unprecedented initiatives to expand solar and other renewables. The bill provides some comfort to consumers as it will freeze the “base rates” of the utility for the next five years. Your utility bill may or may not change, however, as your bill also reflects the cost of fuel. If natural gas continues to decline, that decrease in price will be passed on to the consumer in the form of lower bills. If there is a spike in natural gas or other fuel sources, your bill will likely rise. But the base rate, which is determined by the cost of other operations of the utility, such as maintaining its infrastructure and repairs and replacements generated by weather events and natural disasters, will be borne solely by the utility. In the event that Dominion “over earns” after the five year period, they will have to provide a credit to consumers, or an actual reduction in base rates.

My efforts to reform the coal tax credits have not yet succeeded. Republicans in the House and Senate have not yet been convinced of the economic arguments opposing the massive taxpayer subsidies provided to the coal and utility companies. This has amounted to approximately $600 million over the last twenty years for an industry that has lost three quarters of its workforce during this period and is now mining substantially less coal. Unfortunately, some people are so “locked in” to the so called “war on coal” argument, and are willing to allow their constituents to further subsidize an industry that is failing. The better approach is to take the money and invest it in emerging industries in southwest Virginia that will create better jobs in the long run. We will continue to fight for reform.

Several of my other bills will soon pass both bodies and go to the Governor. Included in these is my bill to give property owners more flexibility in how they deal with the city’s zoning ordinance for sidewalk construction (HB 2051), a bill to eliminate paperwork for small businesses as they file their personal property tax documents with their localities (HB 2098), and a bill requiring universities to provide more information about their sponsored research programs and the degree to which these initiatives are creating more commercial activity in the Commonwealth (HB 1959).

And, for your viewing pleasure, you may be interested in a floor speech I gave this week on “millennials” and how Democrats are responding to their concerns in Richmond. You can see it here.

I am looking forward to returning to Charlottesville to spend more time with my family, resume my law practice, and serve my constituents from my local office. It is a pleasure serving you in Richmond.

Sincerely,

David Toscano

Update from the General Assembly, Week of 1/26/15

January 29, 2015 by David Toscano

Fourteen days into the Session, and things are really heating up. On Wednesday, several of my bills advanced, including a measure to provide Charlottesville more options in their sidewalk funding program, and a bill to address certain problems that small businesses have in Albemarle County in how they report their assets for tax purposes.

House Bill 1617, my bill to expand the DNA database, got its first hearing in the Courts of Justice criminal law sub-committee on Tuesday. Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding and Gil Harrington testified on behalf of the concept. This bill is likely to have a fiscal impact and we will have to find some monies in the budget to help fund it. But I believe the concept is well accepted by members of the Courts committee, and I believe that some initiative will be passed. Delegates Bell and Obenshain also have bills, but it is not clear which vehicle will ultimately be the one that moves forward. However, the important thing is that we will likely get some change in the DNA database this session which will make it easier to apprehend wrongdoers and exonerate the innocent.

The big disappointment of the day was the failure of the House Finance Committee to report out HB 2181, a bill that would have reformed the coal tax credits in Virginia. Independent of the climate change issue, which I believe is important and one on which we should focus, the economics of the coal tax credit is abysmal. What we have been doing is providing taxpayer subsidies for 25 years to utility companies and coal companies in the form of massive tax credits. The credits provided to these companies total over one-half billion dollars. And what have we gotten for it? Coal tonnage mined is down from 48 million tons per year to 17 million tons per year in the last twenty years. And employment has dropped from over 11,000 in 1988 to only 3,600 in 2014. If we were running a private company and got that kind of return on our investment, we would be fired.

On Wednesday, I took to the floor to argue for a reform of the coal tax credit program. You can see the speech by clicking here, and read my written remarks with some commentary from the Blue Virginia blog by clicking here. The bill would have raised almost $20 million dollars in the first year that could have helped with education, public safety, and critical services. The bill was defeated on a party line vote, and it is clear that the Republicans view any effort to reform these credits as part of the “war on coal.”

A number of my energy bills will be heard next week, including a bill that will facilitate electric vehicles being able to transfer unused energy back to the grid (HB 2073), and a bill that will encourage greater use of solar energies through what is called the Solar RECs (HB 2075).

The Senate has defeated most of the gun safety bills; many have yet to be heard in the House but will probably experience the same fate. I have one of these bills, a measure that would permit voluntary background checks by private sellers at gun shows. This is designed to close the so-called “gun show loop-hole,” which permits private sellers at gun shows from having to get a background check before they transfer a gun to a purchaser. A voluntary check program would permit these private sellers to request the State police to conduct a background check to insure that their purchasers do not have something in their past that prevent them from obtaining a gun. The Virginia State Police would be present at the show — the check could be easily done.

Finally, the budget is continuing to be refined and will appear in the next week. Given our new budget projections, I am working with others to find monies for teacher and state employee raises, and to protect K-12 funding.

Please feel free to call us or write us during session with issues of concern.

It is a pleasure to serve you in the General Assembly.
Sincerely,

David Toscano

New Laws go into Effect July 1, 2011

July 1, 2011 by David Toscano

General Assembly Update (7/1/11)

Today marks the effective date on hundreds of new laws passed by the 2011 General Assembly. I am proud to have passed several bills this year that will promote solar energy generation, make mortgage refinance easier, and streamline adoptee’s access to birth records, among others.

Here is a summary of several other interesting bills that are now law. Please share your thoughts on these with me by email or facebook.

Persons in dating relationships are now eligible to obtain protective orders. In the past, abused spouses or those in a familial relationship with an abuser were eligible but those in dating relationships that did not live with their abuser or have a child with him or her were not. My bill on this subject, HB 2422 was incorporated into the final legislation (HB 2063).

Localities can now permit school systems to install video cameras on school buses to detect vehicles that illegally pass stopped buses that may be picking up or dropping off children (HB1911).

Victims of sexual abuse now have 20 years–up from two years–to file lawsuits against their alleged attackers. As a member of the Courts of Justice Committee, I heard hours of testimony on this bill which, while not perfect, provides more time for victims to come to terms with their traumatic experience and initiate civil court proceedings (HB1476).

Motorcyclists, mo-ped operators and bicyclists can now proceed through steady red lights after two light cycles or two minutes if their vehicle doesn’t trigger a light change as long as they exercise due care (HB1981).

Restaurants licensed by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board can permit customers to bring in and consume their own wine and can charge a corkage fee (SB1292).

Individuals who have cast absentee ballots but who die before Election Day will now have their ballots counted (HB1568).

State workers will receive a 5 percent pay raise in exchange for being required to pay 5 percent of their salary toward the Virginia Retirement System, which was recently found to have a $17 billion “unfunded liability.” (Read more about that issue here)

Producers selling agricultural produce or eggs in farmers markets and roadside stands will be exempt from the sales and use tax if the seller’s annual income from sales does not exceed $1000.

As always, it is an honor to serve you in the General Assembly, and I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July Weekend.