Virginia Bills

Requires the governing board of each public institution of higher education to implement guidelines for the adoption and use of low-cost and no-cost open educational resources and low-cost commercially published materials in courses offered at such institution.

Provides that, when determining custody, the court's primary consideration of the best interests of the child shall include whether joint legal or joint physical custody is appropriate.

Provides that a locality's comprehensive plan may consider strategies to provide broadband infrastructure that is sufficient to meet the current and future needs of residents and businesses in the locality. In the preparation of a comprehensive plan, broadband infrastructure shall be included among the matters that the local planning commission shall survey and study.

Creates the Kinship Guardianship Assistance program (the program) to facilitate child placements with relatives and ensure permanency for children for whom adoption or being returned home are not appropriate permanency options. The bill sets forth eligibility criteria for the program, payment allowances to kinship guardians, and requirements for kinship guardianship assistance agreements. The bill also requires the Board of Social Services to promulgate regulations for the program.

Creates the executive branch position of Special Assistant to the Governor for Coastal Adaptation and Protection (the Assistant). The bill provides that the Assistant shall be the lead in developing and in providing direction and ensuring accountability for a statewide coastal flooding adaptation strategy. The bill directs the Assistant to initiate and assist with economic development opportunities associated with adaptation, to advance academic expertise at the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding and Resiliency, and to pursue federal, state, and local funding opportunities for adaptation initiatives.

Authorizes the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services to undertake research through the establishment of (i) a higher education industrial hemp research program, to be managed by institutions of higher education, and (ii) a Virginia industrial hemp research program. The bill classifies all participants in any research program as either growers or processors and replaces the current licensing requirement, which requires a police background check, with a registration requirement.

Requires local school boards to provide (i) a minimum of 680 hours of instructional time to students in elementary, except for students in half-day kindergarten, in the four academic disciplines of English, mathematics, science, and history and social science and (ii) a minimum of 375 hours of instructional time to students in half-day kindergarten in the four academic disciplines of English, mathematics, science, and history and social science. The bill authorizes local school boards to include and requires the Board of Education to accept, elementary school, unstructured recreational time that is intended to develop teamwork, social skills, and overall physical fitness in any calculation of total instructional time or teaching hours.

Establishes a floor on the 2.1 percent sales tax imposed on motor vehicle fuels sold in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. The average distributor price of gasoline, as determined by the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles, on June 1, 2018, shall be the initial floor. If the average distributor price rises in future determinations, the new higher average will become the floor, until such time as the average distributor price of gasoline is determined to be equal to or greater than the average wholesale price of gasoline in the Commonwealth on February 20, 2013, which is the date of the floor used for the calculation of the state gasoline tax. After this threshold is met, the average distributor price used for the calculation of the regional tax will be the same as the average price used to calculate the state tax.

Directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services to amend the Medicaid demonstration project (Project Number 11-W-00297/3) to create the Priority Needs Access Program to (i) increase the income eligibility for adults with serious mental illness from 100 to 138 percent of the federal poverty level; (ii) expand program eligibility to individuals with a diagnosis of mental illness, substance use disorder, or a life-threatening or complex chronic medical condition; (iii) include in the benefit package inpatient hospital and emergency room services; (iv) and include the demonstration project in the Commonwealth Coordinated Care Plus managed care program. The bill also directs the Department of Medical Assistance Services to add 144 new Community Living waiver slots, 1,847 new Family and Individual Support waiver slots, and 305 new Building Independent waiver slots; the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to establish and operate a statewide alternative transportation system for adults and children who are subject to temporary detention orders; the Department of Medical Assistance Services to ensure that children in the Medicaid and FAMIS programs are screened for adverse childhood experiences; and the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services to expand neurobehavioral services used to assist persons with brain injuries in returning to work and community living and avoid inappropriate institutionalization of persons with brain injuries. The bill will not become effective unless an appropriation effectuating its purposes is included in the general appropriations act passed in 2018 by the General Assembly that becomes law.

Adds to the duties of the Workers' Compensation Commission (the Commission) in its role as administrator of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund (Fund) the obligation to (i) identify and locate victims for whom restitution owed to such victims has been deposited into the Fund and (ii) collect and disburse such unclaimed restitution to such victims. The bill directs the Commission to include in its annual report information on all unclaimed restitution that it disburses. The bill provides that clerks shall deposit into the Fund by November 1 of each year restitution collected for victims who can no longer be identified or located, or state that there is no such restitution to be deposited. The bill requires that clerks record the receipt of restitution payments in the automated information system operated by the Supreme Court or a system established and maintained by a circuit court. The bill also provides that the restitution form used by the court shall include the victim's contact information, including address, telephone number, and email address.

Provides that, in lieu of the biennial review proceedings previously required, Dominion Energy Virginia (DEV) and Appalachian Power (APCo) will be subject to triennial reviews of their rates, terms, and conditions for generation, distribution, and transmission services. The measure advances the termination of the Transitional Rate Period for DEV by three years, to December 31, 2016. The termination of the Transitional Rate Period for APCo remains December 31, 2017. DEV's first review after its Transitional Rate Period will be held in 2021, which is one year earlier than currently scheduled, and will utilize the four 12-month test periods beginning January 1, 2017, and ending December 31, 2020. APCo's first review after its Transitional Rate Period will be held in 2020, which is unchanged, and will utilize the three 12-month test periods beginning January 1, 2017, and ending December 31, 2019. The measure also: (i) requires the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to enter its final order on petitions for approval of a voluntary rate or rate design test or experiment by the earlier of not more than six months after the filing of the petition or three months after the hearing on the petition; (ii) excludes from the definition of "public utility" for purposes of the Utility Facility Act a company that provides storage of electric energy that is not for sale to the public, if the company is not organized as a public utility; (iii) authorizes an investor-owned electric utility, if a cable operator does not elect to relocate facilities underground when the electric utility relocates its facilities underground, to either convey poles to the cable operator or retain ownership of the poles; (iv) provides that an energy efficiency program proposed by an electric or natural gas utility is in the public interest if the net present value of the benefits exceeds the net present value of the costs as determined by any three of four benefit cost tests; (v) exempts large general service customers from being charged any costs of new energy efficiency programs; (vi) establishes a new rate adjustment clause category for expenses of electric distribution grid transformation projects, which include advanced metering infrastructure, intelligent grid devices, automated control systems for electric distribution circuits and substations, communications networks for service meters, certain distribution system hardening projects, physical security measures at key distribution substations, cyber security measures, certain energy storage systems and microgrids, electrical facilities and infrastructure for electric vehicle charging systems, LED street light conversions, and new customer information platforms; (vii) declares that electric distribution grid transformation projects are in the public interest; (viii) provides that the costs of such projects may be recovered either through a rate adjustment clause or through a customer credit reinvestment offset; (ix) directs the SCC to approve, without consideration of their reasonableness or prudence, the costs of the conversion of an investor-owned electric utility's existing overhead distribution tap lines with new underground facilities if the average cost per customer does not exceed $20,000 and the costs per mile do not exceed $750,000; (x) requires SCC to enter an order on a petition for approval of an electric distribution grid transformation project within six months after the petition's filing; (xi) increases the amount of capacity of solar and wind generation facilities constructed by a utility that are in the public interest from 50 megawatts to 5,000 megawatts, including rooftop solar installations with a capacity of not less than 50 kilowatts; (xii) declares that electric distribution grid transformation projects, offshore wind generation facilities with a capacity of not more than 16 megawatts, and all onshore wind generation facilities, are in the public interest and that the costs thereof may be recovered either through a rate adjustment clause or through a customer credit reinvestment offset; (xiii) provides that if DEV has not commenced construction of an offshore wind generation facility by July 1, 2023, the SCC may cease its rate adjustment clause and roll the costs into its rate base without increasing base rates; (xiv) requires certain costs related to generation plant facilities fueled by coal, natural gas, or oil or for automated meter reading electric distribution service meters and costs associated with projects necessary to comply with state or federal environmental laws, regulations, or judicial or administrative orders relating to coal combustion by-product management that the utility does not petition to recover through a rate adjustment clause to be deemed to have been recovered through customer rates during the test period under review unless doing so would place the utility in an under-earning position, in which event the SCC is required to authorize deferred recovery of such costs and allow the utility to amortize and recover the deferred costs over future periods; (xv) bars the SCC, in the first triennial review proceeding conducted after January 1, 2021, from ordering a rate increase for DEV and from ordering a rate decrease of more than $50 million; (xvi) allows utilities to reduce or eliminate amounts of overearnings that otherwise would be required to be credited to customers by applying a customer credit reinvestment offset for expenses on new solar and wind generation facilities and electric distribution grid transformation projects, if the utility has invested in such projects an amount not less than 100 percent of amount of its overearnings; (xvii) provides that costs associated with new utility-owned solar or wind generation facilities or with electric distribution grid transformation projects that are the subject of a customer credit reinvestment offset are not recoverable through the utility's base rates or a rate adjustment clause; (xviii) requires APCo to continue funding its pilot program for energy assistance and weatherization for low-income, elderly, and disabled individuals at no less than the existing levels, and requires DEV to fund its similar pilot program at no less than $13 million annually; (xix) directs the SCC to find that prior to January 1, 2024, the construction or purchase by a public utility of certain solar or wind generation facilities, or the purchase by a public utility of energy, capacity, and environmental attributes from such solar facilities is in the public interest, and requires 25 percent of the generation capacity from such facilities to be from the purchase by a public utility of energy, capacity, and environmental attributes from solar facilities owned by persons other than a public utility; (xx) requires all of such solar generation capacity located in the Commonwealth to be subject to competitive procurement but allows a public utility to select solar generation capacity without regard to whether such selection satisfies price criteria if the selection of the solar generating capacity materially advances non-price criteria if such non-price solar generating capacity selected does not exceed 25 percent of the utility's solar generating capacity; (xxi) requires electric utilities to file updates its integrated resource plan (IRP) in each year immediately preceding the year the utility is subject to a triennial review filing rather than annually; and (xxii) requires each electric utility's IRP to evaluate long-term electric distribution grid planning and proposed electric distribution grid transformation projects and developing a long-term plan for energy efficiency measures to accomplish policy goals of reduction in customer bills, reduction in emissions, and reduction in carbon intensity. The provision creating the customer credit reinvestment offset expires on July 1, 2028. The measure also includes enactment clauses that (a) establish a pilot program consisting of the approval of the underground construction of two electrical transmission lines and directs the SCC to approve as a qualifying project a transmission line that appears to track the I-66 Hybrid Route that has been considered in the application of DEV for the Haymarket transmission line project in Prince William County and approve a rate adjustment clause to allow the utility to recover from the utility's Virginia jurisdictional customers the costs of the project; (b) bar APCo bar from recovering $10 million of incurred fuel costs; (c) require DEV to provide current customers voluntary bill credits of $133 million in 2018 and $67 million in 2019; (d) require reductions in the rates for incumbent electric utilities to reflect reductions in federal tax liability resulting from the enactment of federal tax legislation, including reductions in 2018 of $50 million by APCo and $125 million by DEV; (e) direct the SCC to conduct pilot programs for the deployment of electric power storage batteries with capacity limits of up to 10 MW for APCo and 30 MW for DEV; (f) allow certain large nonresidential customers that enter into a three-year minimum exclusive supply agreement to receive a Manufacturing and Commercial Competitiveness Retention Credit that reduces their base generation charges by two percent; (h) require DEV to consider in its next IRP whether the construction or purchase of one or more generation facilities with at least one MW of generating capacity that use combined heat and power or waste heat to power are in the customer interest; (i) require APCo and DEV to investigate the feasibility of providing broadband Internet services using utility distribution and transmission infrastructure; (j) require the SCC to submit annual reports that assess, among other things, new construction and development of new utility-owned and utility-operated generating facilities utilizing energy derived from sunlight; (k) require APCo and DEV to develop programs of energy conservation measures, with APCo's program costing not less than $140 million and DEV's program costing not less than $870 million; (l) require APCo and DEV to investigate and report upon its economic development activities and assistance provided to Virginia localities in the area of economic development in each utility's respective service area; (m) require APCo and DEV to investigate potential improvements to net energy metering programs; (n) require DEV's IRPs to incorporate policy goals of reduction in customer bills, reduction in emissions, and reduction in the utility's carbon intensity; (o) require the SCC to submit annual reports assessing the reliability of electrical transmission or distribution systems, the integration of utility-owned or customer-owned renewable electric generation resources with the utility's electric distribution grid, the level of investment in generation, transmission, or distribution of electricity, and related matters; (p) provide that the provisions of this measure apply retroactively to applications regarding new underground facilities or offshore wind facilities pending with the SCC on or after January 1, 2018; (q) require APCo, subject to SCC approval, by July 1, 2018, to construct or acquire solar generation facilities in Virginia with an aggregate capacity of not less than 200 MW; (r) provide that no more than one half of the combined capital investment amount attributable to investments in new utility-owned solar or wind generation facilities, electric distribution grid transformation projects, undergrounding distribution facilities, undergrounding two transmission lines, and energy efficiency programs shall be investments in undergrounding distribution facilities, undergrounding two transmission lines, and electric grid distribution transformation projects solely designed for physical security at distribution substations; and (s) requires the SCC to report after each triennial review on all investments made by the utility during the test period or periods under review in new utility-owned generation facilities utilizing energy derived from sunlight or from onshore or offshore wind and electric distribution grid transformation projects, with analysis of the financial effects of such investments.