Weekly Column: Week #4 - Important Bills Are Moving

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 January 17, 2020.

Important Bills Are Moving

In the fourth week of our historic General Assembly session, both the Senate and the House of Delegates voted to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment after a 50 year battle.  Our Clerks transmitted the ratifications to the Archivist of the United States of America and now the battle moves to Congress and the courts.  

We had a lengthy debate in the Senate on repealing unnecessary restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health, including requiring an intrusive, medically-unnecessary ultrasound before seeking an abortion and rules designed to make abortion clinics extremely expensive to construct.  The Senate voted 20-20 and the Lieutenant Governor broke the tie to approve the measure.  

On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee passed my legislation to eviscerate predatory lending in Virginia.  The bill provides a 36% interest rate cap with monthly fees that result in annual percentage Interest rates (APR’s) of 50-110%, depending on the length of the loan.  The longer the loan, the smaller the rate.  The bill would prohibit the 267% loans currently allowed at title lenders, businesses that have exploded along U.S. 1 and online loans currently made at rates exceeding 400%.  I expect a tough Senate floor fight. The House has already passed similar legislation.

Weeky #4: A Week of Highs and Lows in the State Legislature

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 February 3, 2019.

A Week of Highs and Lows in the State Legislature

The fourth week of this session of the General Assembly brought some of greatest highs and greatest lows I have ever experienced in my 10 years serving in the General Assembly. 

In a Monday, January 29 press conference with Governor Northam, we announced a new agreement with Transurban to start the immediate construction of a new lane southbound on I-95 between VA-123 and the Prince William County Parkway. Transurban agreed to waive any compensation event or penalty payment on their existing contract.  With this agreement, we much closer to removing the worst bottleneck in all of Northern Virginia, the most frequent transportation complaint I receive - a traffic nightmare that costs millions of Virginians millions of hours of lost productivity. 

Weekly Column: ERA On the Move, Redistricting Reform, and I-81 on the Docket

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 January 15, 2019.

        The first three days of the General Assembly ended on Friday and it is proving to me a busy session. 

        On the first day of session, my legislation to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was debated in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.  ERA would prohibit the government from discriminating against all persons on the basis of sex.  It does not apply to discrimination by private individuals (which is covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws).   

        The Commonwealth and the country have a long history of discrimination against women and although most forms of explicit discrimination have ended, there are still government actions taken that have disparate impacts on women and as we have seen from recent events, even the most basic political norms can be easily overturned.  I believe this value needs to be reflected in our Constitution.  

Little Hunting Creek Cleanup Saturday, April 5, 2014!

Mark your calendars to come and join Delegate Surovell for his annual partnership with the Alice Ferguson Foundation and The Friends of Little Hunting Creek to continue the war on trash, litter and shopping carts in Little Hunting Creek!

Del. Scott Surovell's Annual Little Hunting Creek Cleanup

Saturday, April 5, 2014

9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Three Sites in Hybla Valley 

At 166 Shopping Carts Removed & Counting!

Please RSVP so we know how many people we have along with how many bags, gloves, etc. we will need!

RSVP HERE

Here's some prior articles for your information.

• Little Hunting Creek Cleanup 2013! (Mar. 30, 2013)
• Little Hunting Creek Trash Flows On (July 10, 2012)
• Litter in Little Hunting Creek (Mar. 25, 2012)
• The Dixie Pig: Trash Continues to Flow Into Little Hunting Creek (Mar. 5, 2012)
• The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Little Hunting Creek (Apr. 12, 2011)
• The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Quander Creek (May 9, 2010)

2013 Session Appearance on Cable Reports

Today, I appeared on the Cable Reports with Delegates Kaye Kory (D-Falls Church) and Mark Keam (D-Vienna). 

We discussed online textbooks, legislation relating to Route 1, litter problems, predatory lending, Freedom of Information Act, reproductive choice, the special Tyson's Corner tax district, the Medicaid expansion and the Governor's Transportation plan. 

Hurricane Sandy Emergency Information

Update 10/31/12 - 11:00 P.M.

Dominion Power's Outage Map appears to show that nearly all outages in the 44th District have been resolved.  They just hit the one down the street from my house about an hour ago. 

 

Go check out Great Falls tomorrow if you want to see some serious water power!

Update 10/30/12 - 7:00 A.M.

Fairfax County is warning of possible flooding in Belleview and New Alexandria today and this evening.  Keep your fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Fairfax County Emergency Blog

Update 10/30/12 - 6:30 A.M.

While it appears that the Mt. Vernon-Lee Area was spared from the kinds of extremely damaging winds we saw during the Derecho, there are approximately 5,000 homes without power in the Mt. Vernon-Lee area and about 2,500 in the 44th District.

Little Hunting Creek Trash Flows On

This weekend I heard a report of new shopping carts in Little Hunting Creek only a month after we cleaned out most of them.  So I dropped by this morning to check things out.  Here's a picture I took. 

If you click to enlarge the pictures, you can make out the detail much better.

The battle goes on I guess.

Litter In Upper Little Hunting Creek

Trash and litter are a significant problem in the Route 1 Corridor.  I have blogged about this many times.

• The Dixie Pig: Trash Continues to Flow Into Little Hunting Creek (Mar. 5, 2012)
• The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Little Hunting Creek (Apr. 12, 2011)
• The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Quander Creek (May 9, 2010)

Most people would be shocked by the volume of trash flowing into these creeks if they actually saw it.  You can see pictures above and below.  One picture at the right was taken six months ago in Little Hunting Creek.

On April 14, 2012, the Alice Ferguson Foundation is sponsoring the Potomac River Cleanup Day.  The Friends of Little Hunting Creek are also sponsoring a cleanup.  I am going to sponsor a cleanup of the Upper Little Hunting Creek which runs between Janna Lee Apartments, Sequoyah Condominiums, Audubon Estates Trailer Park, Huntley Meadows Park, and starts around Mount Vernon Plaza behind Michaels near South Meadows Condominiums.

Today, I scouted out the section of creek looking for some good points to access the creek. You would be shocked at the amount of trash in the creek (pictures on the flip). 

Trash Continues to Flow In Little Hunting Creek

Earlier this session, I cosponsored legislation that would put a $0.20 fee or tax on every disposable plastic bag.  One of my constituents recently sent me some information that reminded me why I've been thinking about this.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in Paul Spring chasing minnows, crawfish, turtles and eels.  The last few times I've been down there, the creek is biologically dead.  Similarly, I've spent some time cleaning up other creeks in our area.  They aren't much better. 

The picture at the right was taken in Little Hunting Creek three months ago about two previous cleanups in the previous six months.  I wrote these articles after two different cleanups I participated in.

The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Little Hunting Creek (Apr. 12, 2011)

The Dixie Pig: Cleaning Up Quander Brook (May 9, 2010)

After viewing the volume of trash in our creeks first hand, I floated the idea of a plastic bag tax on my blog and posted a survey which received a mostly positive response.

The Dixie Pig, Plastic Bags and Mount Vernon's Watersheds (Nov. 18, 2010)