You may have heard about the proposed new Energy Bill - I believe the Bill also attempts to spur Hydro development (presumably including more pumped storage). Partisan bickering has delayed so we'll see where it goes.
...expected to pass both Houses, if it gets there. Dems blocked it last month, I forget why but unrelated to the merits of the Bill. This Bill is a little like the much condemned budget compromise which passed. A hodge podge of things that someone wants so the other guy says OK I give you that if you give me what I want. I do not see much in it for Virginia at the moment.
One person's worthwhile program is another person's pork. Why does the government have to modernize the energy grid? Don't those solar folks want to get off it? Let the utilities and their rate payers decide how much they want to spend for a better grid.
...actually that OP blurb is from my science professional society asking me call my reps to support the Bill...I am wondering why they are pushing it.
Haven't read enough of it to be sure what I think of it, but usually if I'm talking about a bill in a forum I like to give the Thomas link for it so nobody has to guess. With a long bill like this one it's often helpful to read the summary made by the CRS, which usually gives a pretty good idea what you'll find in each section. I have to admit I've seen summaries CRS seemed to work harder on, this one has a lot of "such-and-such law is amended" without saying much about what the amendment would do. The next option for level of detail is the report by the Energy and Natural Resources committee from their study of the bill, see the 114-138 link. In the Actions section of the page, I see the most recent thing to happen was on February 4th when a vote was called for cloture (end debate and move forward) and rejected 46 yea 50 nay, and Senator McConnell wanted the vote reconsidered, getting rejected harder the second time, 43 yea 54 nay. I thought it might be interesting to read what they were saying on the Senate floor that day. Turns out a good deal of it involved the delegation from Michigan, not yet in favor of closing off debate because they would like to negotiate something about what folks in Flint can drink. -Chap
