Transgender Students
The Virginia Department of Education under Governor Glen Youngkin has proposed changes regarding treatment of transgender and other youth in public schools. A new policy would replace the 2021 Model Policy for Treatment of Transgender Students, which allowed them the use of restroom facilities and pronouns and names corresponding to their gender identity, as well as having privacy protections.
The 2022 Model Policies document released by the department prioritizes the rights of parents. It considers that allowing individuals to choose their gender identity is an ideological belief and only recognizes biological sex as the basis of decisions by public schools. It states that transgender students shall be recognized as such only if parents have requested it in writing, and that names and gender pronouns that don’t match legal documents will not be used by the school.
Thousands of Virginia students from more than 90 schools have participated in protests of the proposed policy.
The comment deadline is October 26. Information and comments can be read and submitted here: https://townhall.virginia.gov/L/comments.cfm?GDocForumID=1953
Virginia May Leave Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Following up on our January ESJ blog post, Governor Younkin continues efforts to withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). A multi-state agreement, RGGI uses an auction-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation.
Utilities are required to emit a decreasing amount of CO2 each year and must purchase allowances for emissions they release. These credits can be banked for future use or sold to other utilities via auctions, which are held four times per year. Utilities are allowed to pass increased costs onto consumers, which the Governor considers a tax. Funds from the auctions are distributed to the participating states. In Virginia, those funds are designated for flood control and to provide energy efficiency funds for lower-income Virginians. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, (NRDC), Virginia received $74 million from the most recent auction.
Also according to the NRDC, since 2009 “RGGI has saved consumers hundreds of millions of dollars on energy, with billions more in savings to come; created thousands of new jobs; and improved public health while helping to cut carbon pollution from the region’s power plants in half.”
Gov. Younkin has ordered the Department of Environmental Quality to “develop a regulation for the State Air Pollution Control Board’s consideration to repeal the regulation implementing participation in RGGI…” by the end of 2023.
The comment period on this proposal has begun and remains open until October 26. See https://townhall.virginia.gov/L/ViewAction.cfm?actionid=6082 for information and to submit
National Climate Change Legislation
In other environmental news, Congress has passed and President Biden has signed into law several bills intended to advance research, encourage the growth of noncarbon industries, reduce pollution, and help mitigate climate change.
According to The Atlantic, the CHIPS and Science Act that passed with large bipartisan support is “one of the most significant investments in fighting climate change ever undertaken by the United States. The new act will boost efforts to manufacture more zero-carbon technology in America, establish a new federal office to organize clean-energy innovation, and direct billions of dollars toward disaster-resilience research.” While the act authorizes expenditures, agencies will need to request Congress to appropriate the funds.
President Biden also signed into law the “Inflation Reduction Act” after the bill was passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. No Republicans supported the bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council says “the bill promises to spur an unprecedented renewable energy boom, create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, and help the United States curb greenhouse gas emissions up to 40 percent, below 2005 levels, by 2030.”
The Citizens Climate Lobby reports that another bipartian vote ratified an amendment to the Montreal Protocol to reduce hydrofluorocarbons, which are damaging to the ozone layer and contribute to climate change.