Spanberger Energy Hikes Would Cost Each Virginian Nearly $3,500 Year

Virginia governor candidate Abigail Spanberger proved yet again she wants to make Virginians poor and financially struggling—endorsing a terrible state law that is projected to increase energy costs by $3,500 per customer. 

Spanberger embraced the poorly-named “Virginia Clean Economy Act,” signed into law in 2020 under former Gov. Ralph Northam, which will ban oil and gas production in Virginia, mandating that both of our state’s two utilities produce 100% renewable electricity by 2050.

This law is already having ruinous effects: Energy prices are higher, and Virginia now imports 40% of its electricity from out-of-state, up from 18% in 2020. The Act mandates Virginia transition from reliable power sources to expensive, unproven, unreliable “green energy” that has been demonstrated to be notoriously incapable of meeting the needed capacity for storage and distribution. 

Yet no energy transition is happening in the Commonwealth of Virginia, despite the Virginia Clean Economy Act being law. As of June 2025, 87% of Virginia’s net-electricity generation is primarily derived from natural gas, nuclear, and coal. Renewables—including solar and biomass—only accounted for 14.3%.

Economists with the Center of the American Experiment think tank modeled the cost of meeting the renewable energy mandates established by the Virginia Clean Economy Act. They also analyzed its impact on the electric grid’s reliability.

“The legislation will increase the cost of electricity to an average annual expense of $1,770 per customer, with costs peaking at $3,500 per customer by 2045,” the economists estimated.

Spanberger is totally on board with what the study authors call “energy mandates [that] will make maintaining a reliable electricity grid exponentially more difficult and expensive.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Spanberger’s energy plan for Virginia would allow utility companies to remotely control our thermostats—even if we shut off our ACs. That means even if Virginians are sweltering or shivering, it would be the public utility companies that determine whether residents remain in a suffering state. 

Spanberger has no business in the governor’s mansion if she plans to serve as our Nanny State thermostat police chief.

As the Virginia Mercury reported, Virginia House GOP members panned the proposal: “Her plan leans heavily on demand-side management: programmable thermostats, weatherization programs, utility subsidies, and incentives to reduce consumption during peak hours. That might sound reasonable in theory, but here’s the problem: managing scarcity isn’t a solution—it’s a symptom of failure,” an op-ed penned by House GOP leaders and members read.

California and Germany are two energy case studies of what Spanberger wants to do to Virginia. Despite massive government spending and strict “Green Energy” mandates, this state and country are failing to meet their climate change goals, all while expansively hiking up energy prices. This is an energy scarcity mindset that has no place in Virginia. 

This especially hits poor and middle-class families, who spend a much bigger proportion of their family budget on energy. California and Germany’s energy failure examples should be learned from—not duplicated and expanded.While in Congress, Spanberger voted lockstep with then-President Joe Biden for trillions in inflationary spending—including massive “Green Energy” boondoggles—that caused painful, generational inflation. She even bragged about voting for the deceptively-named “Inflation Reduction Act” in a January 2023 Fox News editorial. During the Biden-Harris administration, electricity prices soared 30%—largely due to the IRA passing. That’s not something to brag about.

Virginia doesn’t need to import Bidenomics to our beautiful Commonwealth.

Carrie Sheffield, a Virginia voter, is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice and leads the Northern Virginia chapter of the Independent Women’s Network.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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