During the General Assembly Session, the Virginia Chamber holds weekly "Legislative Roundtable" meetings for our members and other stakeholders to gather to discuss issues of importance to the business community. These informal, discussion based meetings allow attendees to update one another on bills and other items of note during the fast-moving General Assembly session.

 

All meetings are from noon-1:00 pm. Please note that all meetings will be held in the Speaker's Conference Room on the 6th floor of the General Assembly Building. 

 

This year's Legislative Roundtables will be held on the following dates:

Please feel free to forward this information to the lobbyist who represents your organization in Richmond during session, or the person who may handle your government affairs or public policy duties.

 

For your convenience, a list of bills that we are tracking can always be found at http://vachamber.com/advocacy/bills-were-watching/. 

 

Feel free to contact Ms. Ryan Fierst, Public Policy Director and Legislative Counsel, with any questions at 804-237-1459 or [email protected].

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently released a policy brief on the impact of regulations in Virginia. The brief  contains analysis performed with a tool known as RegData-a text analysis program capable of scanning lengthy bodies of legal text-that captures information in minutes that would take an ordinary person hours, weeks, or even years. RegData can quantify how much regulation exists by counting the number of restrictions in a regulatory code. Restrictions are words that signify legal constraints on the public's activities. These are words and phrases like "shall," "must," "may not," "prohibited," and "required."

The report found that:

• As of October 2016, Virginia Administrative Code (VAC) contained 8.8 million words and 133,094 restrictions. It would take an individual 490 hours-or over 12 weeks-to read the entire VAC.

• The top four industries subject to state regulation are chemical manufacturing, food manufacturing, animal production and aquaculture, and ambulatory healthcare services.

• In 2016, the top five state regulators (based on number of restrictions) included the Department for Health, State Water Control Board, State Air Pollution Control Board, the Department for Medical Assistance Services, and the Department of Social Services.

To view the full policy brief, click here.

The report, titled  "Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure." found that by 2030, 31 percent of U.S. electricity generation capacity would be removed should the rejection of pipeline infrastructure projects continue at its current pace and if baseload generation options go offline unnecessarily. This would threaten the delivery of vital oil and natural gas feedstock to power generation facilities and sacrifice the reliability of the electric grid. Because natural gas is increasingly used to create electricity, pipeline expansion is more critical than ever. Without more pipelines, natural gas - as well as oil for fuel and power - will not get to market.

To view the report, click here.