For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Contact:
Lee Francis | Chief Communication and Program Officer
Virginia League of Conservation Voters
(434) 989-3197 | lfrancis@valcv.org
Accountability program highlights incumbents’ votes against cutting energy bills, securing an affordable, clean energy future
RICHMOND – Today, the Virginia League of Conservation Voters announced it had launched a $120,000 digital accountability program targeting Republican incumbents in nine legislative districts for their votes against efforts to lower Virginians’ energy bills and secure an affordable, clean energy transition.
The video-format ads (“Raking in the Cash,” and “Sweat”) will be running on Meta, Connected TV, Snapchat and YouTube for three weeks in House Districts 22 (Lovejoy), 30 (Higgins), 41 (Obenshain), 57 (Owen), 71 (Batten), 73 (Early), 75 (Coyner), 82 (Taylor) and 86 (Cordoza). The campaign is estimated to cap out at nearly 4 million impressions and more than 2.5 million video completions.
In announcing the ad launch, Michael Town, Executive Director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, issued the following statement:
“In peak summer, as energy consumption – and electric bills – hit their highest point of the year, it’s important for Virginians to know that if Republicans had their way at the General Assembly those energy costs would be much, much higher. At a time when clean energy is our cheapest, most deployable resource, Republicans want to double down on harmful, dirty, and expensive coal and methane to keep the lights on – efforts that would make our air dirtier while boosting corporate polluters’ bottom lines. The ‘Megabill’ that just passed out of Congress is estimated to drive up energy costs in Virginia by more than $7 billion – making it that much more important that we do everything we can here in the Commonwealth to cut bills and secure a better path forward, one that meets energy demand with cheap wind and solar and puts Virginians – not corporations – first.”
Republican incumbents targeted in this campaign voted against the following bills this year to cut energy costs and secure a clean, affordable energy future:
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House Bill 2266: Cuts excessive interconnection costs – the charges that big utilities levy on third-party energy developers to bring clean energy onto the grid – to make small clean energy projects more affordable and bring projects online faster.
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House Bill 2346: Creates a virtual power plant (“VPP”) pilot program in Dominion Energy territory that coordinates distributed energy resources (“DERs”) to help meet power demand when it’s at its highest instead of building new, costly, and polluting generation infrastructure.
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House Bill 1935: Creates a task force to identify ways to cut energy costs and make home weatherization programs more effective.
In 2024, these same incumbents voted to give Dominion Energy a blank check for nuclear development, while rejecting measures to expand affordable small solar projects and advance cost-saving grid-enhancing technologies.
About us:
The Virginia League of Conservation Voters serves as the political voice of the state’s conservation community, working to make sure Virginia’s elected officials recognize that our natural heritage is an environmental and economic treasure for all. Virginia LCV works with conservation leaders across Virginia and strives for a conservation majority in state government. We secure good public policies on the state level and hold public officials accountable for their positions on environmental issues. For more information, visit www.valcv.org.
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