Virginia Bills

Allows for any registered voter to vote by absentee ballot in person beginning on the second Saturday immediately preceding any election in which he is qualified to vote without providing a reason or making prior application for an absentee ballot. The bill makes absentee voting in person available beginning on the forty-fifth day prior to the election and ending at 5:00 p.m. on the Saturday immediately preceding the election. The bill retains the current provisions for voting with an absentee ballot by mail or in person prior to the second Saturday immediately preceding the election, including the application requirement and the list of statutory reasons for absentee voting. The provisions of the bill do not become effective until the November 3, 2020, general election, and the State Board of Elections is required to submit a report on the procedures and instructions it promulgates for conducting absentee voting pursuant to the provisions of the bill. This bill is identical to

Provides that, for purposes of the real property tax exemption for the elderly and disabled, certain improvements to exempt land and the land such improvements are situated on shall be included as part of the dwelling and exempt from tax. This bill is identical to

Requires Dominion Power and Appalachian Power Company to a seek approval for a three-year program of energy conservation measures providing incentives to low income, elderly and disabled individuals in an amount not to exceed $25 million in the aggregate for the installation of measures that reduce residential heating and cooling costs and enhance the health and safety of residents. The measure also requires the utilities to develop a program of energy conservation measures providing incentives, open to low income, elderly and disabled individuals who also participate in the above-described incentive program, in an amount not to exceed $25 million in the aggregate, for the installation of equipment to develop electric energy derived from sunlight. The measure provides that the utilities may provide such incentives directly to customers or to organizations that assist low income, elderly and disabled individuals. The measure directs that in developing such incentive programs, each utility shall give consideration to low income, elderly and disabled persons residing in housing that a redevelopment and housing authority owns or controls.

Directs the State Corporation Commission to establish a pilot program that affords the opportunity for any locality to participate in net energy metering if it is a retail customer of a certain type of investor-owned electric utility. In order to qualify for the program, the locality is required to own and operate a renewable generating facility with a generating capacity of not more than two megawatts that is located on the municipality's premises and is intended primarily to offset all or part of the locality's own electricity requirements. Under the pilot program, a municipal customer-generator that generates electricity in amounts that exceed the amount of electricity consumed by the municipal customer-generator, determined annually, to credit one or more of the municipality's target metered accounts in order that the generation energy charges on the electric bills of the target's metered accounts are reduced by the amount of excess generation kilowatt hours apportioned to the metered account multiplied by the applicable generation energy rate of the target's accounts. In Appalachian Power's service territory, metered accounts of the public school division of a locality may be target accounts. The amount of generating capacity of all generating facilities that are the subject of a pilot program are limited to (i) five megawatts if Appalachian Power is the pilot program utility, though the utility may increase the amount to up to 10 megawatts or (ii) 25 megawatts if Dominion Power is the pilot program utility. Such aggregated capacities of the generation facilities that are the subject of a pilot program constitute a portion of the existing limit of the utility's adjusted Virginia peak-load forecast of the previous year that is available to municipal customer-generators, eligible customer-generators, eligible agricultural customer-generators, and small agricultural generators in the utility's service area. The duration of the pilot program is six years. This bill is identical to

Provides that contempt of court for willful failure to appear may be punished summarily. The bill also requires judges to indicate, in writing, the reason for a charge and punishment of contempt when punished summarily. As introduced, this bill is a recommendation of the Virginia State Crime Commission.

Conforms Virginia law to the provisions of the federal 2018 Farm Bill by amending the definitions of cannabidiol oil, marijuana, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to exclude industrial hemp in the possession of a registered person, hemp products, or an oil containing no more than 0.3% THC. The bill defines "industrial hemp" as any part of the plant

Allows the Counties of Caroline and Essex, in adopting a voluntary boundary agreement, to attach to their petitions to the circuit court a Geographic Information System (GIS) map depicting the boundary change. Under current law, such use of a GIS map, rather than a metes and bounds description, is permitted only regarding the boundary agreements of certain named localities. This bill incorporates

Extends the duration of an exception, for municipal dredging, to the right of a person to lease oyster-planting grounds, and establishes a procedure for determining compensation to such a leaseholder when his grounds are disturbed by such a dredging project.