Governor Abigail Spanberger moved Virginia back into a carbon program that will add about $13 to the typical Dominion Energy customer’s monthly bill — roughly $156 a year. Virginia Democrats call it climate policy. Your power bill calls it a tax.
Fairfax families are already paying more to keep the lights on. Virginia’s average residential electricity price ran 14.89 cents per kilowatt-hour in March 2025. By March 2026 it hit 17.05 cents — a 14.5% jump in twelve months, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Then in November, state regulators approved a Dominion rate increase that raises the typical monthly bill another $11.24 in 2026, pushing it past $161.
Stack the two together and the trend is plain: the cost of keeping a Fairfax home lit has climbed for years, and the Virginia Democrats who run Richmond keep finding new reasons to push it higher.
Onto a bill climbing that fast, Virginia Democrats chose to add one more charge.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative forces power producers to buy allowances for the carbon they emit. Under Virginia law, Dominion passes that cost straight to you. It builds no plant. It lowers no bill. It adds no electricity to the grid.
Republicans pulled Virginia out of RGGI to stop exactly this charge. Spanberger and the Democrat majority in Richmond are putting Fairfax families back in.
State the choice plainly: $156 a year out of your pocket, so the politicians who run Richmond can call themselves climate leaders. The carbon gets a price. You pay it.
Worse, the charge floats. RGGI allowance prices are set at quarterly auction, so the carbon line rises with the market — a cost no Fairfax family can shop around, switch off, or vote down at the meter.
This is what one-party rule in Richmond costs a Fairfax household, measured on the one bill no family can opt out of. Spanberger’s administration ordered the re-entry. The Democrat trifecta — governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both legislative majorities — owns the result.
Here is what $156 a year buys you: nothing you can see. Not one new power plant. Not one lower bill. Not one kilowatt added to the grid your family draws from. The money leaves your account; the lights cost exactly the same.
They will tell you the planet is worth $156 a year of your money. They will not tell you their carbon charge cools nothing you can measure on your own thermostat.
Every seat in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates is on the ballot in November 2027. The Democrats who put this charge back on your bill will be asking for your vote. Make them answer for the bill first.