Virginia

As the South experiences extreme heat and increased flooding, we are at a critical time for our environmental future. Together, we can protect our remarkable natural resources and help turn the tide on climate change. SELC was built for this.

Your support enables us to do this work. 

Rooted in the South, we use strong legal and policy work, strategic vision, and pragmatic problem solving in all three branches and at all levels of government. When one door is closed, we find another way. With our commitment to place, SELC is building on nearly 40 years of success in Virginia and five other states, and driving results that resonate across the nation. That’s why we say, “Solutions Start in the South.”

Now is the time to act. Join us.

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Tackling the causes of climate change

SELC and partners have succeeded in passing and defending laws that advance clean energy, cut air pollution from cars and light-duty trucks, and help ensure all Virginians benefit from this transition. This year, we once again led a successful defense of the Clean Cars program from six bills introduced to repeal it. The Clean Cars Standards took effect in January and will generate the largest reduction of carbon pollution of any measure Virginia has adopted. And as the Youngkin administration tries to circumvent the legislature and withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, we are challenging this move in court on behalf of an association of professional energy efficiency upgrade installers. The market-based RGGI program has already cut carbon pollution from power plants and brought in millions of dollars for flood planning and energy-saving measures for low-income households. We also coordinated efforts to pass six solar bills that, once signed into law, will expand access to shared community solar and rooftop solar and incentivize projects on sites like landfills, brownfields, dual-use agricultural lands, and parking lots, and more.

Virginia can limit the complex impacts of data centers 

Northern Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers in the world, and companies like Amazon are projecting massive, immediate expansion of these energy-guzzling facilities that power the internet and AI. Most data centers are Dominion Energy customers, and the utility claims this growth requires keeping all existing fossil fuel power plants online — while also building a new, dirty methane gas-fired power plant at Chesterfield. The air pollution from a gas plant at this site would fall on low-income communities and communities of color, some of whom have lived in the shadow of Dominion’s coal plant on the same site for nearly 80 years. SELC is joining with local groups to push back hard against the unjust Chesterfield proposal. The state has begun a comprehensive study of data center impacts. We are offering input and will use its results, and our own analysis, to advocate for effective policies to limit the industry’s negative impacts and steer it in a direction consistent with Virginia’s clean energy goals and role as a nationwide leader in tackling climate change.

Solutions start in Virginia.

Hear from Sarah Francisco, SELC’s Virginia Office Director, on the importance of stopping the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Accelerating cleaner transportation 

For decades, SELC has been at the forefront of reforming Virginia’s transportation system to cut tailpipe pollution, provide alternatives to driving, and oppose highway projects that would harm natural and historic areas, farms, and rural lands. We played a lead role in bringing more electric vehicles to Virginia through adoption of the Clean Car Standards, but because EVs are not a silver bullet for eliminating Virginia’s largest source of carbon pollution, our work here is much broader. We helped secure record levels of funding for rail and transit, ensure right-sized improvements for I-81 instead of wholesale widening, tamp down plans for a second beltway around our nation’s capital, and establish a decision-making process (Smart Scale) that has set a national model by forcing officials to spend state highway funds more judiciously and take environmental impacts seriously. This year, we helped defeat legislative attempts to weaken Smart Scale and repeal Clean Cars and helped secure legislative approval of nearly $150 million in new funds for transit in Northern Virginia and the D.C. area.

Keeping toxic chemicals out of Virginia’s water   

Neighboring states are dealing with contamination of major watersheds with cancer-causing industrial chemicals like PFAS. In Virginia, we are responding to discrete pollution incidents and identifying other opportunities to get ahead of this issue. SELC’s litigation in other states has prompted EPA to start using existing authority to tackle this pollution at its source, and we will leverage this progress in Virginia and throughout the region.

Solutions for a healthy environment start in Virginia. Your support helps make our wins possible.

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Fighting for environmental justice  

SELC is working alongside local partners to help ensure just environmental outcomes for Virginia’s communities. In 2021, together with the Pittsylvania County NAACP, we secured a victory on environmental justice grounds when state officials denied a permit for the Lambert Compressor Station. Recently, the developer announced it would shorten the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate project, eliminating the need for this polluting facility. We are celebrating this victory for Pittsylvania County and continuing our opposition to the larger pipeline. In Hopewell, we are advocating for strict air pollution controls for an AdvanSix facility. One of the world’s largest production sites for ammonium sulfate fertilizer, this facility has a history of noncompliance and is located near five other major sources of air pollution in this community whose population is 43 percent Black. 

Protecting Virginia’s National Forests 

For nearly four decades, we have worked to conserve our Southern Appalachian national forests for clean water, wildlife, recreation, and more. Today, SELC and our partners are championing designation of the Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area in the heart of the George Washington National Forest. We also filed an innovative lawsuit in Washington, D.C., to challenge the Forest Service’s practice of setting “timber targets,” which drive logging levels across our national forests without considering climate consequences. Forests are powerful carbon sinks, but in recent years, the national timber target has been as high as four billion board feet — enough lumber to circle the globe thirty times.