Agriculture, Chesapeake And Natural Resources

Wednesday, January 28, 2026·51m·▶ Watch / Listen

The Virginia House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources advanced a wide range of environmental and agricultural bills, including a contested RGGI re-entry bill (HB 397, 14-6) and a unanimous vote to authorize the state park acquisition of Oak Hill, former President James Monroe's home, at no general fund cost. The committee also re-referred four energy and land-use bills to other committees and continued one fisheries climate bill to next year.

Key Actions

·HB 500 – Oak Hill State Park Acquisition (Loudoun County)Passed

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Controversies

HB 397 – Characterization of auction proceeds percentage as a 'loss'

Delegate Bloxam referred to a percentage kept by the auction house as something 'lost' and asked whether it would be added to percentages allocated to the Department of Housing and the Department of Conservation. Delegate Herring directly pushed back: 'I'm not going to agree with the qualification that something is lost,' and later stated she could not respond to his estimates and that 'the percentages are in there. So it says what it says.'

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Notable Quotes

“We have entered Reggie, Mr. Chair, and we were illegally taken out of Reggie. This is something where hundreds of millions of dollars have come into the Commonwealth because of this program to deal with flood resilience, to make sure that communities that were hit hard by extreme weather incidents like Buchanan county and Alexandria City has been helped.”
Delegate Charniele L. Herring, bill sponsor of HB 397 — Delegate Herring was arguing in favor of HB 397, which would re-enter Virginia into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction program, asserting that Virginia's prior withdrawal was unlawful and that the program had delivered significant funding for flood resilience.

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Votes

Report HB 134 – Tribal conservation easement holdersPassed

Report HB 256 – Environmental justice strategy in comprehensive plansPassed

Report HB 291 with substitute – Fishing tackle recycling webpagePassed

Report HB 397 with substitute – RGGI auction program re-entryPassed

Report HB 521 with amendments – Wetlands no net lossPassed

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TranscriptPreview

Morning, everyone. We want to make sure we get started on time. We have a lot of bills we need to get through this morning. Before we begin, however, we have four administrative matters I'd like to address. Oh, yeah, let's first, let's take attendance. Mr. Clerk, if you can open up the big board for attendance. All right. 17 of us are here. Good. All right, I'd like to go first to a series of motions. We need to re refer four different bills to other committees. The first bill that's on the electronic docket, not on our paper docket, is delegate Maldonado's bill. HB 672 need to re refer to the committee on labor and Commerce. So moved, Seconded. Moved and seconded. It's a voice vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? All right, next bill is HB899. We need to also refer Delegate Shin's bill to the Committee on Labor and Commerce. So. All right. All those in favor say aye. All is opposed. Good deal. Oh, I'm sorry. My fingers are moving pretty fast here. Okay. Fast enough. Are we good? Can we go to the next one? Yep. All right. The…

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