Our electric grid is under pressure — and the warning lights have been flashing for years.
Electricity demand is rising due to data centers, electric vehicles and population growth, while reliable, dispatchable power sources — like coal, nuclear and natural gas — are being forced off the grid by federal subsidies and mandates that favor intermittent wind and solar.
Even the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — under the Biden administration —issued clear warnings. In its 2023 and 2024 reliability assessments, FERC concluded that the accelerating retirement of dependable power plants, without firm replacements, “presents serious challenges to electric reliability in the near term.”
This is not a partisan talking point. It’s a real and growing threat. Rolling blackouts have already hit places like California and Texas, and Virginia is not immune.
At the same time, ratepayers are seeing higher electricity bills. Nationwide, energy costs have outpaced inflation. Subsidies and mandates may lower the sticker price for one form of energy, but someone always picks up the tab — usually the taxpayer or the utility customer.
That’s why the energy policy reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law by President Trump on July 4, are a long-overdue course correction. The act rolls back permanent subsidies and tax credits that distorted energy markets under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. It phases out credits for wind, solar and electric vehicles — industries mature enough to stand on their own.
OBBBA does not ban renewables. It simply stops treating them as the only solution. It restores market balance by refocusing policy on reliability, affordability and national security.
The law also blocks taxpayer subsidies from flowing to foreign entities of concern, including those under the influence of China. That is not just sound policy — it’s common sense.
Here in Virginia, we should take note. The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) — with its arbitrary deadlines and rigid mandates — compounds the very problems OBBBA seeks to solve. When federal policy changes to reflect energy reality but state law remains frozen in ideology, ratepayers pay the price. Virginia must revisit the VCEA and bring its energy policy back in line with grid reliability and economic stability.
We’ve already seen the risks of over-promising. Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is years from delivering power. [Editor’s note: Dominion says it will go online in late 2026.] Solar development, especially at utility scale, unfairly burdens rural areas and faces regional transmission bottlenecks. Yet our utilities are legally required to hit clean energy targets, regardless of cost or feasibility.
Meanwhile, Virginians are facing a slow-moving affordability crisis, with utilities requesting and receiving significant rate increases to comply with mandates and build out politically favored infrastructure.
The better path is to build smarter — not just greener. That means supporting advanced nuclear, natural gas, geothermal and energy storage — technologies that provide firm, dependable power even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
It also means letting private capital — not government subsidies — determine which energy sources are viable. The OBBBA restores that discipline and ensures that American tax dollars aren’t used to fund unreliable, foreign-sourced infrastructure.
Some critics have pointed to modeling that suggests potential job losses or economic impacts, but many of these estimates come from organizations with a clear preference for government-driven decarbonization. What they overlook is that employment follows investment — and investment will now shift toward domestic energy production, grid reliability and manufacturing capacity.
Take Virginia’s Southside region: Microporous LLC is investing $1.35 billion in a battery separator facility in Pittsylvania County. That kind of advanced manufacturing will thrive under OBBBA’s framework, which supports U.S.-based innovation without sending subsidies overseas.
The energy reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act protect ratepayers, restore market discipline and put America’s energy future back in American hands. That’s a win for working families, job creators and the grid itself.
We cannot power a 21st-century economy with 19th-century weather patterns. It’s time to get back to what works — and OBBBA is a bold step in the right direction. Virginia would be wise to follow suit.
As a member of the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee and the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, I’ve seen firsthand the growing disconnect between state energy mandates and the realities of grid reliability and affordability. We owe it to the people of Virginia to revisit and reform those mandates in light of today’s changing energy landscape.
Sen. Mark Obenshain represents the 2nd District in the Virginia State Senate. He has served in the Senate since 2004 and sits on the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee and the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation.
