Joint Commerce & Labor Coal Ash Meeting #3

On December 21, 2018, we met for the third Joint Meeting of the Senate and House Commerce and Labor Committees to focus on coal ash legislation for next session and discuss the report recently issued by Dominion that you can read here:

Dominion Coal Ash Recycling Study

First, Dominion Resources presented their findings resulting from the study required by my legislation - Senate Bill 807 - from last year's session.

• There are 11 ponds at four different sites, five have not been closed yet
• One station (Chesterfield) still burns coal and creates coal ash
• There are 27 million cubic yards to be disposed of - 1.8 million truckloads or about 300,000 rail cars on 461 acres of ash ponds
• Dominion believes we have 15 years to close the ponds starting in 2019

They are on track to close six of the 11 ponds as permitted by SB807.  The bill also required them to go out to the markets and obtain proposals on coal ash recycling from cradle to grave including dewatering, removing it, treating it, and selling an end product.  

They summarized the recycling proposals responses as follows:

• They involve 600-700 trucks per day and/or about 700 railcars per years)
• Closer in markets used trucks while shipments to far markets involved rail transport

The estimates ranged from a total of $2.345 to $5.642 billion.  Dominion has already spent about $400 million so far on coal ash remediation at the four sites.  About 45-46% of the cash can be recycled based on market demand assumptions.  

Weekly Column: Small Advances against Predatory Lending, but More to Do

The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, Springfield Connection, The Prince William Times, The Fort Hunt Herald, and Potomac Local in the week of December 17, 2018.

Small Advances against Predatory Lending, but More to Do

                Predatory lending, imposing abusive terms and high interest rates on borrowers regardless of ability to pay, is a nagging problem in Virginia, the 36^th Senate District and especially in the U.S. 1 Corridor.  I will introduce legislation in January to end to these abusive practices.

                There are many kinds of high-interest or predatory loans.  First, payday loans are loans that are secured against a consumer’s pay check.  In 2009, the Virginia General Assembly enacted restrictions on payday loans which caused the practice to scale back to about six locations in and around the 36^th District.

                In 2010-11, some of the same companies went back to Richmond and persuaded the legislature to authorize car title loans.  Today, in Northern Virginia car title loans are offered by companies like Title Max, Loan Max, Advance America, Cash Point or Fast Auto Loans.  These companies are allowed to make loans at interest rates between 15-22% per month or up to an annual percentage rate (APR) or 267%.  Several locations have shut down.  The number of locations has gone from 21 to 12 around the 36^th District. 

Weekly Column: Ending Gridlock, Seeking Transportation Funds for Our Area

The following is my column that will appear in the Mt. Vernon Gazette, Springfield Connection, The Prince William Times, The Fort Hunt Herald, and Potomac Local in the week of December 3, 2018.

Ending Gridlock, Seeking Transportation Funds for Our Area

As traffic congestion continues to plague us, I  am intensifying my fight for more transportation resources in our area.  Last week, I testified before the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) and made the case for more funds for several critically needed transportation projects:  the I-95/Occoquan bottleneck, U.S. 1 widening and bus rapid transit, U.S. 1 in Dumfries and several other projects. 

A few years ago, we began scoring projects based on objective criteria including congestion relief, economic development, environmental benefits and safety improvements.  Not surprisingly, U.S. 1 scored relatively high using these new metrics as compared to projects around the rest of Northern Virginia, a result that underscores my long-term point that U.S. 1 has been long ignored over the last few decades.