The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has launched a $120,000 digital accountability campaign targeting nine Republican incumbents in the House of Delegates for voting against measures the group says would lower energy costs and support a clean energy transition.
The three-week ad campaign will run on Meta, Connected TV, Snapchat and YouTube in the districts represented by Dels. Ian Lovejoy, Geary Higgins, Chris Obenshain, David Owen, Amanda Batten, Mark Early, Carrie Coyner, Kim Taylor and A.C. Cordoza.
“In peak summer, as energy consumption – and electric bills – hit their highest point of the year, it’s important for Virginians to know that if Republicans had their way at the General Assembly those energy costs would be much, much higher,” said Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. “At a time when clean energy is our cheapest, most deployable resource, Republicans want to double down on harmful, dirty, and expensive coal and methane to keep the lights on – efforts that would make our air dirtier while boosting corporate polluters’ bottom lines.”
The lawmakers were targeted for voting against several Democratic-led bills during the 2025 General Assembly session:
— House Bill 2266, which aimed to cut excessive interconnection costs charged by utilities to third-party developers, with the goal of making small clean energy projects more affordable and speeding up implementation.
— House Bill 2346, which proposed a virtual power plant pilot program in Dominion Energy territory that would coordinate distributed energy resources to meet demand during peak times, reducing the need for new generation infrastructure.
— House Bill 1935, which would have created a task force to explore ways to cut energy costs and improve home weatherization programs.
The group also criticized the lawmakers for voting in 2024 to support Dominion Energy’s nuclear development efforts while opposing proposals to expand small-scale solar access and grid-enhancing technologies.
“The ‘Megabill’ that just passed out of Congress is estimated to drive up energy costs in Virginia by more than $7 billion – making it that much more important that we do everything we can here in the commonwealth to cut bills and secure a better path forward, one that meets energy demand with cheap wind and solar and puts Virginians – not corporations – first,” Town continued.