Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed Virginia back into a carbon-permit program on June 30, twenty days after Dominion had already priced it at about $13 a month on your power bill. The number was public, and she signed anyway.
Her office calls it the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and the Committee calls it a backdoor carbon tax, because that is how it works: power plants buy permits to emit carbon, and Dominion passes the cost to you.
They voted for it. You pay for it. Nobody showed you the price.
Give the Democrats this much: it was not a back-room rule. The General Assembly passed it, House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D-Alexandria) sponsored it, and Spanberger signed it.
What the vote never came with was a price tag. Dominion supplied that in a filing to state regulators: about $1.18 billion in permit costs, about $13 a month for a typical home, roughly 8 percent, starting with the March 2027 rate year. The old RGGI charge, before Gov. Glenn Youngkin pulled Virginia out, was about $4.40.
That is $156 a year, and you cannot opt out of it or shop for a cheaper one.
A permit cost $14.88 at the last auction before Virginia left. At the September 9 auction, with Virginia back in, it cost $37.65. More than double, and every tick up lands on the one line of your bill you cannot shop around.
Senate Republican Leader Ryan McDougle called it “just a tax on Virginians.” Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Rockingham) said he was “disturbed and deeply concerned” about the $13 a month.
Spanberger’s answer is a rebate. The budget sends 45 percent of the auction money back as bill credits, which she calls “a direct credit to ratepayers.” Translation: she takes your money, hands part of it back, and calls that a favor. Nobody has said how big the credit is.
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-SD-34) said in June, “I think it’s prudent to talk about ways to potentially mitigate that.” Translation: it hurts, and they knew it would.
On Oct. 1, Spanberger released her 2026 Virginia Energy Plan. It keeps RGGI and the Clean Economy Act, and it scores the clean path as the cheap one by counting carbon at $262 a ton. Data centers get a line saying they should pay for the power lines they need, while you get the carbon tax.
House Republican Leader Terry Kilgore (R-Scott) called the plan “the strongest argument we’ve seen yet for repealing the Virginia Clean Economy Act.”
Herring sponsored it. The General Assembly passed it. Dominion priced it at $13 a month. Spanberger signed it on June 30. On Oct. 1, she kept it.
The Committee priced this at $156 a year in June and flagged the new tax on your power when the budget passed. Regulators have not ruled on Dominion’s request yet, and the number they approve is the one to remember.
Spanberger cannot succeed herself, so her name is not on the next ballot. Herring’s is, Surovell’s is, and every one of the 140 House and Senate seats is up on November 2, 2027, eight months after the first $13 lands. They voted for it, you pay for it, and nobody showed you the price.