Menhaden, the fish that has been the focus of years of political squabbling, got a starring role as the General Assembly took its last, largely technical steps to give Virginia a new, if much-delayed, state budget.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s 14 final amendments to the budget compromise, which were worked out 11 days ago, won approval in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. With that, nothing else is needed to make the budget law.
Her proposals, now in the state budget, include one that makes James Monroe's Oak Hill Farm a state park, another that delays the enforcement of new restrictions on open carry of assault weapons, and another that says electric cooperative members will also get the rebates of the costs from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that the budget provides for other electric utility customers.
“We have a budget,” said House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth. “We’re done. Mission accomplished. It’s a wrap. Peace in the valley.”
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There wasn’t always peace.
The House and Spanberger on one side, and the Senate on the other, were at a standoff from the March 14 end of the regular session until less than two weeks ago over the question of the Senate’s proposal to end the sales tax exemption for data centers — a $1.9 billion tax break.
The impasse ended after conferees, meeting for the first time in months, agreed on a revised alternative that Spanberger had proposed for a consumption tax on data centers’ electricity use.
“I think we went through a lot to get here, but at the end of the day, data centers are going to contribute about $1.2 billion over biennium to help fund our government, just like every other taxpayer in our state, and that extra money resulted in us being able to give a larger pay increase for teachers, a larger pay increase to ... our state employees," said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax.
“We're also able to set aside some hundreds of millions of dollars for financial contingencies, such as the coming Medicaid crisis we're going to be dealing with, due to what the Trump administration and Congress have done to us … and it's important that we set aside some money to deal with possible negative budget actions that might happen if our economy starts to teeter even more than it already has, so I think it was worth it to go through what we went through,” he said.
Spanberger hailed the vote.
“Today, by finalizing our budget, Virginia is charting a path toward a stronger, more secure, and more affordable future for every family who calls our Commonwealth home," she said in a statement.
She said the budget addresses President Donald Trump’s cuts to healthcare and positions Virginia to be a national leader on data centers with the first-of-its-kind statewide energy consumption tax on data centers that she proposed this spring.
"With historic investments in education, four percent raises for our teachers, and landmark funding to help families manage the rising cost of childcare, we are making real strides to uplift every student, listen to parents, support educators, and prepare communities for long-term success," she said.
Senate
Some of the last-minute tweaks voted on Monday never got much of an airing during the session.
But menhaden, the prey of striped bass and ospreys that have been a battleground for years between the fishing fleet out of Reedville and environmentalists, sparked confrontation Monday over Spanberger’s call for $2 million to study population and migration in the Chesapeake Bay.
The menhaden research is supported by the fishing fleet and by environmental groups, but state Sen. Richard Stuart, R-King George, whose district includes Reedville, worries it could set the stage for shutting down the fishery.
“There are special interest groups that want us to study that to determine what a responsible bay cap is (but) they already have a bay cap, they had one … it is the most highly regulated industry that I think we potentially have,” Stuart said.
“We have (the Virginia Marine Resources Commission) on the boats, we have others looking to see what's being caught, taking that information down all the time, and there's no evidence whatsoever that there's any problem … I’ll take out my boat and I’ll show you because when you get out there, every direction you look, all you see are acres and acres and acres of bunker (menhaden) on the surface, and there are plenty of them,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Surovell said the amendment just funded research and did not call for a new cap on the amount of fish harvested. The amendment passed with a 26-12 vote
Stuart also spoke up against a Spanberger proposal expanding oversight of data center water use, which the facilities use to cool their equipment, because the language mentioned cooling systems that rely on evaporation.
“What that does is it completely guts the water restrictions that we put in the budget,” Stuart said.
State Sen. Jermey McPike, D-Prince William, said the amendment language says evaporation can only be used alongside other, more efficient cooling systems.
This amendment passed 28-10.
Spanberger’s amendment, delaying for a year the enforcement of a new ban on openly carrying assault firearms in public places, drew an unusually lengthy, 12-minute speech from state Sen. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, who said he was concerned about its impact on military personnel, retired police officers and hunters.
When he finished, McPike replied, saying, "I might have lost where it was this gentleman was going … I ask the senator, is he for or against the question that's before the body, which is whether or not this law will be implemented this year or next year?”
“Let me explain it this way,” DeSteph replied. “There should have been a complete repeal of these bills, not a partial, tiny, little fix. It's unconstitutional what we've done here.”
This amendment passed 20-18 on a party-line vote.
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House of Delegates
The House of Delegates approved all 14 amendments in less than 20 minutes.
Most of the votes fell along party lines, but four passed unanimously, dealing with Medicaid funding for treatment of sickle cell disease, acceleration of higher reimbursement rates for personal care providers, new requirements for data centers to demonstrate efforts to conserve water in sensitive groundwater areas in Tidewater and creating a new grant program for cancer screenings of career firefighters.
“At a time when too many people believe government cannot work, the Commonwealth of Virginia has shown what responsible leadership looks like,” Scott said in a statement.
“We balanced the budget, protected our fiscal strength, invested in our people, and delivered real results without losing sight of our responsibility to future generations,” he said.
“This budget keeps Virginia the best place in the nation to do business while making sure working families share in that success,” he said. “It delivers meaningful tax relief, the largest investment in public education in Virginia history, raises teacher pay, increases the minimum wage, lowers healthcare costs and provides funding for affordable housing."
One of the most contentious amendments will delay the enactment of a new law to prohibit the open carrying of assault weapons in public places, which faces challenges in state courts.
Rep. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham, called the new law “a backdoor war on private security” and said that delaying its implementation for one year is not enough.
“I would encourage us to do a little bit more than just delay the enactment,” Garrett said, before the House voted 56-34 to approve the amendment.
Del. Eric Zehr, R-Campbell, raised similar concerns about amending a new law that prohibits law enforcement from wearing face masks in most instances, by exempting officers “engaged in the performance of official SWAT team duties” or other specific operations, such as undercover, drug gang and surveillance work.
The law, proposed by Sen. Michael Jones, D-Richmond, aims to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from wearing masks while publicly detaining suspected undocumented immigrants, and includes exceptions in some cases.
Zehr said that even with the amendment, the law leaves its application open to wide interpretation.
“These are not academic questions,” he said. “These are operational questions, and if we get them wrong, people get hurt.”
The House voted 63-24 to pass the amendment.
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, also urged a vote against an amendment that would provide an additional $680,000 to carry out voter referendums in November on proposed constitutional amendments to ensure women’s reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and voting rights for felons who have served their time. The amendment passed by a 57-33 margin.
The House quickly adopted the other amendments with little drama, applauding once after voting 74-14 to accept Oak Hill Farm — former President James Monroe’s 1,250-acre estate in Loudoun County — as a state park.
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