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RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia localities will soon have a streamlined ability to offer incentives that aid the development of urban green spaces, like city parks or sport fields.
Del. Dawn Adams, D-Richmond, introduced House Bill 1510 to give localities regulatory flexibility. The General Assembly passed the bill with a House vote of 72-27 and a Senate vote of 32-8.
Urban green space is defined as a piece of land covered with grass, trees, shrubs or other vegetation and located around a populated area, according to the bill. The proposed area must help reduce higher temperatures sometimes associated with urban development or aid the mitigation of stormwater in order to qualify for incentives, and can be public or private projects.
The incentives would not be available in rural areas and areas of low population density.
The incentives may include a reduction in project permit fees or a streamlined permit approval process, according to the bill. The type of available permits would be up to localities, but could include permits such as building, Adams stated.
"The process for obtaining permits is both costly and lengthy; ideally, this legislation could help speed up that process for developments incorporating [urban green space]," Adams stated.
The incentives received will depend on how much green space is implemented on a building site.
The bill gives cities the flexibility to opt in, Adams told a House Finance subcommittee.
"The bill does not mandate localities do anything, but rather gives those that currently have resources a tool to incentivize or accelerate urban green space development and there is no fiscal impact for the state," Adams said.
Lee Francis, deputy director for the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, said he sees the bill as an opportunity to serve communities that don't have access to green spaces.
"It gives localities a tool to expand green spaces into underserved communities and kind of even the playing field a little bit," Francis said.
Jeremy Hoffman, chief scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, believes that more green spaces in urban communities, such as Richmond, are beneficial to various aspects of the environment.
"They lower air temperatures, they soak up stormwater that falls on them as rain and they clean the air of harmful pollutants," Hoffman said.
Hoffman describes urban green spaces as "natural air conditioning for cities," while being the "environmental clean up crew."
Building more green spaces can reduce a phenomenon called urban heat island effect. It is when air temperatures rise in a city from man-made infrastructures, such as dark paved roads, compared to rural areas, according to Hoffman.
"Those [paved roads] absorb more of the sun's energy throughout the day and then re-emit it back into the air as heat throughout the afternoon and overnight, basically raising the temperatures in those landscapes," Hoffman said.
Scientists can quickly attain heat island results and use air thermometers or before and after thermal heat photos taken from the ground or by satellite, according to Hoffman.
"We trimmed up some trees, planted some new plants and were able to show between the morning and the afternoon the impact of improving that green space," Hoffman said while talking about Rosemoore Pocket Park in the Scott's Addition neighborhood in Richmond.
Green spaces can lower temperatures by 10 degrees to 20 degrees on hot days, according to Shelly Barrick Parsons, executive director for Capital Trees.
Capital Trees is a Richmond-based nonprofit organization that works to implement green spaces in the community through partnerships with the city, corporations and other nonprofits.
Barrick Parsons sees the potential in the bill and what it could do for urban cities.
"I think it has opportunity to increase the development of green space if municipalities take advantage of the opportunity," Barrick Parsons said.
The incentives can help accelerate a development timeline, but also have financial impacts.
"Permitting fees can be just a few thousand dollars, but that $2,000 can make a lot of difference to a nonprofit," Barrick Parsons said.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved the bill on March 23, and the measure will become effective on July 1.
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia firefighters will be required to complete a training program starting next year, about the risk of electric vehicle fires.
Del. Israel O'Quinn, R-Washington, proposed House Bill 2451 to require the executive director of the Virginia Department of Fire Programs to develop a training program for electric vehicle fires. The program must be developed and available by July, 1 2024, according to the bill. All firefighters, including volunteer firefighters, must complete the training by Dec. 1, 2025.
The bill unanimously passed committees and both chambers. Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, asked for one clarification in the Senate General Laws and Technology committee, about whether the program would be offered both in-person and virtual.
"I heard from some of my fire folks, and they were concerned that this is more time away," Reeves said.
A lot of the annual firefighter training is done online, according to Reeves.
Spencer Willett, government affairs manager for the Virginia Department of Fire Programs, assured the Senate committee the training would be offered in multiple modalities.
"The agency's plan would be to offer an online version for departments and then also offer an in-person version for those that would be willing to want to take that training," Willett said.
The number of electric vehicles on Virginia's roadways is set to increase with the soon-to-be implemented Clean Car law. The law states 35% of all new cars and trucks sold in Virginia with a 2026 model year must be electric. Then 100% of new models on the market must be electric by 2035, according to the law, which is based on California's final regulation order.
Del. Mike Cherry, R-Colonial Heights, a co-patron of the bill, said it is important to implement mandated training statewide, even for areas like Southwest Virginia where electric vehicles aren't prominent.
"Anytime a fire department deals with something new and unique, they will then figure out a protocol to deal with it again in the future," Cherry said.
There is currently no mandated electric vehicle training for Virginia firefighters, according to William Boger, District 5 vice president and communications director for the Virginia Professional Fire Fighters.
However, departments can currently seek out training from car manufacturers like Tesla or Toyota, he said.
The future training program will greatly help firefighters better understand electric vehicle fires and the best ways to extinguish them, according to Boger.
Firefighters use approximately 50 gallons to 100 gallons of water to extinguish a regular internal combustion engine, or gasoline, vehicle fire while electric vehicles require about 10,000 gallons of water, according to Boger.
"They are very stubborn and very difficult to extinguish," he said.
Most electric vehicles carry large lithium-ion battery packs underneath the vehicle, where they are not very accessible. These batteries can overheat, which leads to a reaction called thermal runaway and requires thousands of gallons of water, according to Boger.
Firefighters also need to be aware that the battery is not necessarily finished burning just because the fire is finally put out, according to Boger.
"The problem with these cars is you have to put the fire out, then you have to continuously cool the battery," Boger said.
Some electric vehicle batteries will reignite on the way to a junkyard if the battery is not properly cooled down and observed after the fire is put out, according to Boger.
Some batteries can even catch fire two to three days later, according to Doug Reynolds, battalion chief of the Henrico County Division of Fire.
"You may have to have several tankers bringing you water, so it's not the easy, you know, fire that it used to be," Reynolds said.
Dry chemicals and fire blankets have been used, but are not considered as effective as water, according to Boger.
Andrew Klock, senior manager of education and development with the National Fire Protection Association, said the best recommendation is still water.
"It's the most effective to date and if it's placed in the proper location, it can put out the fire and drain the heat from the battery pack," Klock said.
Electric vehicle fires are not more threatening than gasoline vehicle fires, which occur every three minutes, Klock said.
"But I do think that the risk and the inherent problem is that firefighters have had a 100 years to figure out and perfect how to put out an internal combustion engine vehicle [fire]," Klock said. "But it's not so with this new technology or newer technology of hybrid and electric vehicles."
Reynolds' department looks forward to seeing the curriculum and learning everything they can about this unique type of vehicle fire, he said.
"It affects every firefighter, you know from paid to volunteer, big departments, small departments, you know, the car fires are out there every day," Reynolds said. "So it's just better to protect us to learn how to fight those fires because it's important."
The Virginia Department of Fire Programs will develop the training program, utilizing fire experts and industry representatives, according to Will Merritt, VDFP marketing and communications manager.
A workgroup will create the curriculum in concert with VDFP staff, Merritt stated via email. The curriculum is then "piloted, finalized and posted for registration in VDFP's learning management system, Cornerstone OnDemand," he stated.
"As electric vehicles become more popular, it is important that Virginia's fire service be adequately trained to fight electric-vehicle fires," Merritt stated.
RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia lawmakers this week shot down the last bill of seven introduced to reverse the adopted California standard on electric vehicles Tuesday afternoon.
Del. Tony Wilt, R-Rockingham, proposed House Bill 1378 to repeal the 2021 law allowing the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board to implement emission standards for vehicles with a 2025 or later model year.
The current Clean Car law, adopted from California and soon to be implemented in Virginia, states 35% of all new cars and trucks sold in Virginia with a 2025 model year must be electric. By 2035, 100% of new models on the market must be electric, according to California's final regulation order.
Wilt introduced the bill for several reasons, he said. He questioned whether Virginia's infrastructure can withstand 100% electrical powered cars in 12 years, Wilt said.
"In such a short period of time, we start putting these demands on electric grids of having the capabilities to keep up with electric generation," Wilt said.
The bill passed in the House with a party-line vote of 52-48.
Ahead of the final House vote, Wilt expressed concern over the cost of electric vehicles and said "they still cost significantly more upfront."
"Which can make them unattainable," Wilt said.
Wilt's bill died in the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources committee on a party-line 8-7 vote to pass by indefinitely. Other similar measures introduced in the Senate were incorporated into one bill that met the same outcome in the same committee.
Virginia residents will look to surrounding states to buy combustion engine vehicles because of the decrease of those available cars and the expensive costs of electric vehicles, according to Wilt.
"And so we're actually taking the revenues out of the state of Virginia," Wilt said.
Wilt believes in a renewable energy future but said it should be done incrementally.
"Instead of these heavy-handed governmental mandates to meet these deadlines and so forth, let the free market dictate that," Wilt said.
Natural consumer demand for electric vehicles is what should drive the market to go green, according to Wilt.
Virginia needs to "decouple" from California and establish standards unique to Virginia, according to Wilt and other Republicans who have spoken against the measure.
Trip Pollard, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said it is not legally possible to create a Virginia-specific standard.
States either accept the required Clean Air Act federal regulation or choose the more protective standard introduced by California.
"The General Assembly decided in '21 that we want to choose the more protective option," Pollard said. "We can't set our own standards."
The reasoning behind this is simple, Pollard said: Car manufacturers cannot meet 50 different state regulations.
"The manufacturers got that written into the Clean Air Act decades ago because they don't want to have to produce 50 different models of vehicles for different states," Pollard said.
California sought a waiver from the EPA to create its own standards, which now allows states to also choose California's stricter standards.
Many advocates for the Clean Car law, including Pollard, point out these next few years in the General Assembly are crucial for prepping the state's infrastructure for electric cars.
Along with legislative action, Virginia has already begun receiving incremental funding that will be over $100 million through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, according to Pollard. Private companies, such as Tesla, are distributing electric car chargers as well, he said.
Even with these initiatives, some legislators are already giving up on the law before it has even taken effect, according to Pollard.
"To me it makes no sense to repeal these standards now, when they offer such enormous health and environmental benefits," Pollard said.
Lawmakers can ditch the adopted California standard and go back to the less protective federal one if the Clean Car law does not work out, according to Pollard.
Environmental organizations, like the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, strongly believe in keeping the Clean Car law in place due to the harm combustion engine vehicles bring to Virginia's air quality.
"Transportation emissions are Virginia's largest driver of climate change," said VLCV deputy director Lee Francis. "They make up about half of our total carbon pollution."
Electric vehicles are popular right now and there is a fast growing shift toward electric vehicles, according to Francis.
"A lot of it is driven by the auto manufacturers themselves," Francis said.
General Motors, Ford, BMW and Honda are just some of the car manufacturers shifting toward zero emission vehicles, according to Forbes.
Lawmakers, lobbyists and Gov. Glenn Youngkin have attempted to repeal the Clean Car law since 2021. Citizens question what the state's future of electric vehicles will look like by 2026.
The effort to overturn the Clean Car law could be a factor in the upcoming November election, according to Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington and a political science professor.
All seats are up for reelection in the currently Republican-majority House and the Democratic-majority Senate.
Candidates will compete for Senate and House seats in new districts recently redrawn to keep up with population changes. The redistricting could favor Democrats more since the population changes across Virginia put more districts in Democratic-leaning areas, Farnsworth said.
House Republicans will use the Clean Car law as a part of their campaign to be reelected, he said.
"Republicans often run on issues of individual freedoms and a bill that comes out of California and shapes public preferences in a liberal direction is a useful thing for Republican candidates to talk about," Farnsworth said.
The Air Pollution Control Board will implement the standard shortly after Jan. 1, 2024 and auto manufacturers will have to abide by it to sell their vehicles in Virginia, according to the board's vehicle standards.
