The Clean Air Act is essential to protecting the nation’s health and ensures all Virginians have the right to breathe clean air. I am thankful to Virginia’s new Attorney General Jay Jones for recognizing the critical nature of this federal law. Virginia has rejoined a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a rule change that rolled back key protections.
Under the new rule, the EPA has let our nation’s biggest polluters completely off the hook from meeting pollution reduction requirements. After former Attorney General Jason Miyares removed Virginia from the lawsuit in 2024, siding with President Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry, Jones has fought back on the rule change, calling out the administration for putting big polluters first.
I commend Jones for wasting no time in taking action on environmental issues. In addition to rejoining the Clean Air Act lawsuit, Jones halted the state’s appeal of the court ruling that found former Gov. Glenn Youngkin unlawfully removed Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
The incoming administration is taking a stand for what’s right — prioritizing the health of frontline communities, and delivering on energy affordability.
Thank you for building an affordable future in Virginia where everyone can breathe.
Susan L. Feathers, Virginia Beach
Affordability?
I can’t understand what math new Gov. Abigail Spanberger is using to keep asserting that her administration is tackling the “affordability issue.” She must be a Democrat, because they seem to feel that government has all the answers to Virginia’s economy, and that she can legislate every issue we face in Virginia to the ground.
If she would listen, I would tell her that a free-market economy does not work that way. Government does not solve our problems, but it’s typically the embodiment of our economic problems. The truth is that in this case, less is more. Fewer taxes means more in our pockets, not this vicissitude of new tax upon new tax that her majority is trying to foist upon us.
This is certainly not the platform Spanberger ran on. Can she be impeached?
Sam Warren, Chesapeake
Redistricting
It’s extraordinary that former Attorney General Jason Miyares vows to stop redistricting efforts in Virginia. He states that two-thirds of Virginians agree that politicians shouldn’t be doing this. When he was in office, where was this fire when our president directed red states to redistrict? I don’t recall him lifting a finger or at least having some courage to say it out loud.
Now the voters of Virginia have had enough of the rhetoric from the pulpit and given the new governor a majority in both houses, not by chance, but because they do not like the direction of where the country is heading. As co-chairman of the Virginians for Fair Maps campaign, I hope Miyares and former Republican Congressman Eric Cantor can tell Texas and other red states to do the same. This tit for tat would never be an issue if our commander in chief did not start this mess. Miyares goes on to talk about affordability, which, if you listen to the president, is fake and a con job by Democrats. I hope he has the same vigor to defeat the plan in Virginia and at the same time tell his Republican fellows who started this game to go back to the way things were, otherwise this is a former attorney general preaching the gospel according to the GOP’s own power grab.
The power grab in both parties is going to leave this country in a mess. We the people are to blame, along with our elected officials, who believe the lies or won’t speak out. The likes of the late Sen. John McCain, a true patriot, is surely lacking in this country.
Ray Patel, Chesapeake