Regional Transition Authorities for a Just Transition in Virginia

Introduction

Through grassroots movement building and breakthrough policy victories over the past 10 years, Virginia has moved quickly to build a cleaner economy. The Virginia Clean Economy Act and Biden-era federal investments are driving visible change, from offshore wind and solar build-out to flood protection and grid modernization. Virginians want this work to continue; in 2023, 66 percent of registered voters supported the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and 62 percent supported the Virginia Clean Economy Act (CNU 2023). But broad public support is not a blank check. If the climate transition generates displacement, low-wage work, or a new round of extraction, legitimacy will erode. A transition that is not just will not last.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act drives clean energy generation but does not require shared ownership or community wealth-building opportunities. The Virginia Environmental Justice Act improves process and consultation but does not attach enforceable benefits to state-enabled projects. Flood programs finance walls, pumps, and buyouts, but they do not keep people rooted or insured in place. Labor and procurement statutes permit strong standards on public works, but most private energy investments sit outside those terms. In short, our current framework moves capital but not control. It lowers emissions but does not close the distance between investment and everyday security. The result is a gap between technical success and public legitimacy. Households see new infrastructure but still face rising premiums, unstable housing, and precarious jobs. Local governments face complex permitting and fragmented funding streams. The limited powers granted by the state under the Dillon Rule make it so local leaders can not take any action not explicitly permitted by the General Assembly. They also must juggle separate grant programs and timelines without a single venue that aligns energy, resilience, housing, and workforce decisions. Developers navigate duplicative processes and episodic negotiations over “community benefits,” which slow projects and produce uneven results. Bargaining happens on a case-by-case basis because there is no standing structure that sets clear expectations and links approval to measurable, durable benefits.

This brief proposes a practical solution to that structural problem: to create Regional Transition Authorities (RTAs) that make equity enforceable. An RTA is a state-chartered public body that operates at a regional scale, with a governing board drawn from frontline residents, labor, local governments, small businesses, and regional institutions such as community colleges and HBCUs. The purpose is to concentrate decision-making authority where people live and where projects are built, and to attach clear community wealth and workforce terms to any project that depends on state approval, state funds, or state-managed incentives.

Planning and accountability should match the geography of risk and investment. Energy corridors, ports, and floodplains are regional systems. So are labor markets and housing pressures. A regional authority can align decisions across jurisdictions in a way that single localities cannot. Virginia needs a framework that fits its legal and political landscape. Local governments operate under the Dillon Rule and often lack the authority or capacity to negotiate and enforce robust agreements. A state-enabled regional authority solves both problems by providing clear powers, common templates, and professional staff. It also creates a single table where residents, labor, and local leaders work with developers and agencies over time, not only at closing. That continuity is how trust forms and how lessons from one project improve the next.

This brief raises questions that must guide the next decades of climate policy. What does shared ownership look like when most of the capital is private and most of the risk is public? How should Virginia balance regional coordination with local democracy? What mix of revenue shares, bond authority, and rate design will fund community wealth building without undermining grid reliability? How should we measure success beyond megawatts and miles of floodwall? These are transformative questions that decide whether people experience the transition as something done with them or done to them.

The main argument of this brief is that Virginia can align climate ambition with democratic fairness by building the institution that is currently missing. RTAs connect energy and resilience investments to local ownership, housing stability, and good jobs. They turn consultation into commitment and one-off deals into a durable social contract. They also protect the pace of development by clarifying expectations up front and reducing conflict later. The policy problem, then, is not a lack of money or ambition. It is the absence of a structure that makes equity standard rather than optional. The policy solution is to create RTAs with three core tools:

• Community Wealth Guarantees that fund local ownership;
• Land Trusts and Flood Insurance Cooperatives that keep people in place; and
• Just Transition Agreements that protect workers and communities through economic change.

With this structure in place, Virginia can keep building wind farms and flood defenses while also building the community wealth and workforce pathways that make a just transition real in people’s lives. This happens when a transition changes the direction of your family and your neighborhood for the better; when a worker can move from a shuttered plant into a union job with a clear progression, when a tenant can return after redevelopment without being priced out, or when flood protection does not become a pretext for displacement. The following sections detail why the status quo cannot deliver on these goals, how RTAs would operate, and why they are urgently necessary. The goal is to give the Commonwealth a clear, enforceable way to tie every major transition investment to local security and shared prosperity, ensuring the clean economy belongs to the people of Virginia.

Background

Virginia’s clean energy transition has unfolded within a policy framework that prioritizes decarbonization targets and market transformation but not the redistribution of political power or ownership. The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), passed in 2020, was heralded as a milestone in the state’s move away from fossil fuels (Vogelsong 2020). It established a 100 percent renewable electricity target by 2050, required monopoly investor-owned utilities to phase out carbon-emitting generation, and created new renewable portfolio standards to spur private investment. It was the first time Virginia positioned itself among states leading on climate legislation.

Yet, from the beginning, the VCEA was built around utility compliance and corporate procurement, not community control. Its mechanisms of renewable energy certificates, procurement mandates, and performance-based incentives depend on decisions made by large utilities and corporations. The law did not include binding provisions for community wealth, equitable siting, or labor standards. In practice, it has delivered rapid solar and offshore wind deployment but has not guaranteed that those economic gains reach the neighborhoods most affected by legacy pollution or current climate risk.

The VCEA was part of a broader legislative wave that reshaped Virginia’s energy and climate portfolio. The Clean Energy and Community Flood Preparedness Act (2020) enrolled the state in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and created the Community Flood Preparedness Fund, channeling roughly half of allowance revenue to local flood mitigation and low-income energy efficiency projects (Virginia §10.1-1330 2020). In 2021, the Coal/Carbon Facility Retirement Reporting Law required transparency around plant closures but offered no guarantees for worker transition or community reinvestment (Virginia Department of Energy n.d.). The 2023 utility rate reform package (HB 1770/SB 1265) restored oversight authority to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) and modestly curtailed the dominance of investor-owned utilities such as Dominion Energy (Paullin 2023).

These reforms have generated economic activity. The Solar Energy Industries Association ranks Virginia ninth nationally in installed solar capacity with over 6.8 GW online as of 2025, and the Department of Environmental Quality reports more than 5,600 MW permitted through its small renewable energy project program (SEIA 2026; DEQ n.d.). Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, a 2.6 GW build projected to power 660,000 homes, has reached roughly 60 percent completion and represents one of the largest single job creators in the state’s clean energy economy. State projections estimate over 1,000 local renewable energy jobs and $210 million in annual economic output from what will be the country’s largest offshore wind project (Dominion Energy 2025).

At the federal level, the situation has grown more precarious. The Justice40 Initiative and federal Community Benefits Plan requirements originally designed to ensure 40 percent of benefits reach disadvantaged communities were rescinded in early 2025 by the Trump administration (Northey 2025; EELP 2025). Virginia has several projects that operated under the Justice40 enforcement model in which benefits are scored up-front, written into agreements, and evaluated at decision gates. For example, the Virginia Department of Energy was selected for “Data Center Flexibility as a Grid Enhancing Technology,” which deploys battery storage at the Iron Mountain data center and includes a stated commitment to invest in community benefits, including workforce and community benefit agreements (DOE 2024a). However, without Justice40 frameworks this is no longer being monitored and enforced, leaving state-level equity mechanisms as the only meaningful lever for ensuring just outcomes in climate investment.

The Virginia Environmental Justice Act (VEJA) was meant to fill part of this gap by embedding environmental justice in state law. Enacted in 2020 and expanded in 2021, VEJA defines “environmental justice communities” and requires state agencies to consider environmental justice in their decisions. The companion statutes creating the Virginia Council on Environmental Justice give the council advisory power to review state actions and recommend policy changes. The 2021 omnibus amendment (H.B. 2074) required every state agency to adopt an environmental justice policy and integrate cumulative-impact analysis into its decisions (Virginia §2.2-234–235; §2.2-2699.8–2699.12). Yet VEJA remains procedural, not distributive. It improves the process by defining communities, mandating consultation, and requiring agency-level consideration, but it does not guarantee community ownership, benefit-sharing, or enforcement. Its interaction with VCEA and flood resilience laws is indirect. VEJA shapes the planning and consultation process, while the VCEA and resilience statutes shape where capital flows.

Virginia’s labor and procurement statutes illustrate both progress and limitation. The Virginia Public Procurement Act authorizes project labor agreements and prevailing wage requirements on public works. Adopted in 2021, these measures permit but do not require local governments and agencies to attach labor standards to projects (Virginia §2.2-4321.2–3 2021; DOLI n.d.). They apply mainly to publicly funded infrastructure, not private renewable developments, and carry no mandates for local hiring, apprenticeship, or community benefit. Repeal efforts continue annually, underscoring the fragility of these provisions (H.B. 1570 2025).

The state’s approach to flood resilience follows a separate legislative lineage but operates within the same climate economy. The Community Flood Preparedness Fund and the Resilient Virginia Revolving Loan Fund (2022) finance green infrastructure, buyouts, and stormwater projects (Wetlands Watch 2023). The state’s Coastal Resilience Master Plan identifies Norfolk as the highest priority adaptation site, where projects like the $399 million US Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Storm Risk Management project are underway (City of Norfolk n.d.; DCR 2021). These investments employ the same trades and contractors that drive renewable energy construction civil works, engineering, and logistics, making flood resilience a parallel job engine within the broader clean economy.

Virginia’s clean energy labor market overall is large and growing, with an estimated 119,551 clean energy jobs statewide with growth rates of 5.8 percent and 3.7 percent in 2022 and 2023 respectively (DOE 2024b). Offshore wind adds another roughly 900 construction jobs annually and 1,100 operations jobs once the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is online (Dominion Energy 2025). Despite this growth, the state has not yet matched expectations that the climate transition would automatically produce “good jobs and stronger, more affordable communities” (DOE 2024c). While unionization in clean energy has risen nationally, wage quality and job permanence remain uneven, especially in nonunion solar and construction subcontracting. Meanwhile, data-center expansion, high electricity demand, and rate structures have created affordability challenges for residents, prompting new SCC dockets and legislative debate over special rate classes and utility profits (Main 2025).

Policy Analysis

In Norfolk, equity challenges are stark. Billions in flood and redevelopment funding have flowed to the city, yet residents in St. Paul’s, Lambert’s Point have seen redevelopment translate into displacement. Norfolk’s St. Paul’s redevelopment shows the cost of leaving distributive outcomes to goodwill. Residents and civil-rights groups sued in 2020 under the Fair Housing Act, alleging that demolition and relocation would displace Black families and deepen segregation before replacement housing existed. The case later settled with additional commitments tied to relocation support and the right to return (NRHA 2021). Floodwalls and resilience projects protect downtown and port assets while failing to secure housing stability or wealth-building for working-class and Black residents (Hafner 2023). The VCEA, VEJA, and flood resilience legislation share a similar design flaw: They generate infrastructure and jobs but without statutory mechanisms to guarantee community benefit or ownership. Attempts to legislate stronger community protections have stalled. For example, H.B. 469 (2022) would have created a Just Transition Fund and a Transitioning Workers Program, but the House Commerce and Energy Committee did not recommend reporting it (H.B. 469 2022).

As a result, Virginia’s clean energy and resilience framework remains oriented toward emissions reduction without transformation of ownership or governance. The state has proven it can attract capital and build projects but has not developed legal tools to ensure those investments repair inequity rather than reinforce it. In Norfolk and across the Tidewater region, the same communities that bore the costs of industrial decline and environmental neglect now face a climate transition that risks repeating the pattern. The policy problem, then, is not a lack of ambition but a lack of legal structure to make equity enforceable. Without statutory requirements for community benefits, ownership stakes, or reinvestment, the clean energy economy will reproduce the same inequalities that define fossil fuels.

Virginia stands at a crossroads. The state has built one of the South’s most ambitious climate and clean energy portfolios, yet the framework guiding that progress still centers on technology, not people. VCEA set aggressive renewable targets and unleashed billions in private investment, but it was designed around utilities and developers rather than communities. VEJA affirmed equity as a value but gave agencies no binding authority to enforce it. Flood resilience programs fund infrastructure but not affordability or local ownership. These efforts have reduced emissions and strengthened physical defenses, but they have not changed who benefits or who decides. Clean energy is expanding, but communities from Tidewater ports to southwest mining towns still see projects happening to them rather than with them. The political risk is clear. When people see rising rates, rising water, and little local gain, support for climate action erodes. A transition that is not just will not be durable.

Progressive climate advocates and watchdog groups have criticized Virginia’s current setup for letting utilities shift costs and risk onto ratepayers, for weakening or resisting clean energy requirements in implementation, and for treating community benefits as discretionary rather than enforceable. They point to the fight over Dominion’s Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center as a live example of how those structural problems show up. In December 2025, the State Corporation Commission suspended its approval to consider an appeal filed by Appalachian Voices, the NAACP, and Mothers Out Front, arguing that the SCC failed to analyze harms to “fenceline communities” as required by Virginia’s Environmental Justice Act and leaned too heavily on a contested “reliability” justification to clear a new gas plant under the Clean Economy Act’s standards (SELC 2025).

Additionally, critics note that the VCEA’s rate design, monopoly structure, and absence of community benefit requirements reproduce long-standing inequities in Virginia’s energy system (Heckt 2025). Historically, this imbalance traces back to Dominion Energy’s legislative influence, which shaped decades of rate and generation policy. That influence is waning slightly following the 2023 reforms, as the SCC and 501c(4) and PAC Clean Virginia have increasing leverage.

What makes this moment urgent is that Virginia’s window for inclusive transition is closing. Federal equity frameworks like Justice40 are no longer active, and the next wave of climate funding will depend entirely on state law and private investment. The VCEA and VEJA provide a strong foundation but not a binding guarantee of fairness. Without structural reform, Virginia will continue to build a low-carbon economy that looks much like the one it replaced.

Policy Proposal

The solution is to build an institutional bridge between policy ambition and public legitimacy. That bridge is the RTA: a single, comprehensive body that ties climate investment to community wealth, workforce opportunity, and long-term protection. An RTA would coordinate across state agencies, local governments, and industry, ensuring that every major project leaves behind not only infrastructure but ownership and economic security. At their best RTAs are not another layer of bureaucracy but a realignment of power. The current model fragments responsibility among dozens of agencies and municipalities, each limited by narrow mandates and the Dillon Rule. RTAs would consolidate authority where it belongs at the regional level, close enough to the people to be accountable but large enough to plan at scale. By bringing residents, labor, and local officials to the same table, Virginia can replace transactional project-by-project deals with an ongoing partnership that links economic growth to justice.

Support for this idea should come from across the political spectrum. State legislators should see RTAs as a way to deliver visible results in jobs, housing stability, and local investment. Local governments gain a seat at the table and shared capacity they cannot build alone. Developers and corporate investors gain predictability and faster permitting in exchange for clear, enforceable benefit terms. Labor organizations win stronger apprenticeships and prevailing wage guarantees. Frontline communities win lasting institutions like land trusts, insurance cooperatives, and community wealth funds that keep them rooted in place. RTAs would also strengthen Virginia’s political coalition for climate action. The state’s clean economy is often portrayed as a technical project, but it is also a moral one. Residents of Norfolk’s flood zones, coal workers in Wise County, and data center technicians in Loudoun all face different versions of the same uncertainty: Who controls the future economy, and who gets left out? A regional authority that unites these interests can turn competition into common purpose. It gives people a reason to believe that decarbonization and dignity go together.

Critics may worry that new authorities could slow development, but the opposite is true. RTAs would streamline and clarify what “community benefit” actually means. Standard templates for Community Wealth Guarantee Agreements and Just Transition Agreements would replace endless negotiations with clear expectations and timelines. Projects that meet these standards would move faster through permitting and financing, saving both time and public trust. The boldness of this proposal lies in its simplicity. Instead of scattering responsibilities across cities, agencies, and task forces, the Commonwealth would create a unified mechanism that connects energy, resilience, labor, and equity. The same structure that governs offshore wind in Tidewater could guide energy storage redevelopment in flood-prone neighborhoods across Hampton Roads. The logic is transferable and scalable: Every region builds the future with its own needs at the center.

RTAs would coordinate across regions to ensure that public investments in clean energy and flood resilience strengthen the people and places most affected by environmental and economic change. The VCEA, the VEJA, and related resilience laws have advanced important goals, but none guarantee that local residents gain ownership, protection, or lasting employment from the transition.

An RTA would be a state-chartered public body operating within defined regions such as Tidewater, Southwest, Southside, Richmond, Central, and Northern Virginia. Each authority would include representatives from frontline communities such as tenant unions, organized labor, local governments, small businesses, and regional institutions such as HBCUs or community colleges. Some seats would also be filled through regional elections. This mix makes the institution democratic, durable, and accountable to the people most affected. The goal is to create a standing table where those most affected by the clean energy transition can shape it while maintaining the speed and predictability that agencies and developers need. RTAs would not replace state agencies like the Department of Environmental Quality or the Department of Energy. Instead, they would attach community wealth and workforce standards to projects that already receive state support or approval.

In Tidewater, an RTA might include residents from Norfolk and Hampton—both flood-risk neighborhoods—labor representatives from port and construction trades, city officials, small business owners around redevelopment areas, and a representative from Norfolk State University. These members would be nominated locally and confirmed by the General Assembly to balance community accountability with oversight. Their mandate would be to ensure that every dollar invested in flood infrastructure, offshore wind, or grid modernization builds community stability rather than displacement.

The first policy tool within the RTA’s portfolio would be the Community Wealth Guarantee (CWG). Modeled after Charlottesville’s Affordable Housing Fund, CWGs would set clear but flexible terms for how projects deliver local benefits (City of Charlottesville n.d.). Each agreement would meet particular standards or dedicate a small share of project revenue or public contribution into a regional Community Wealth Fund managed by the RTA. Alternatively, it could also include equity stakes ensuring long-term dividends. That fund could support different needs across communities: down payment assistance linked to community land trusts, start-up capital for worker cooperatives, grants for small contractors, or direct payments. While the VCEA promotes clean energy generation, it does not require shared benefit or ownership. The CWG fills that gap by making local reinvestment a condition of participation.

RTAs would also allow localities to create Community Land Trusts and Flood Insurance Cooperatives that keep residents in place as property values rise or risks increase. Municipalities often lack authority or financing to form these institutions on their own. By giving RTAs bonding power and access to CWG funds, the Commonwealth would enable regional trusts that acquire land in vulnerable neighborhoods, preserve affordability, and manage buyouts without displacing residents. Flood insurance cooperatives could work alongside them, pooling risk for renters and homeowners who face rising premiums, with the state providing reinsurance to ensure stability. These measures transform resilience from a construction program into a long-term protection system, fulfilling the intent of VEJA while providing the ownership structures that law does not yet contain.

A third tool of the RTA would be to negotiate Just Transition Agreements (JTAs) tied to the public decisions that make projects possible, including permits, rate recovery, and public incentives. JTAs would set enforceable standards for job quality and worker power, including prevailing wages, registered apprenticeship pathways, local hire targets, and clear career ladders. They would also require a real right to organize in new workplaces. In plain terms, that means employers must stay neutral during union drives and recognize the union when a majority of workers sign union authorization cards, instead of stalling workers through delay tactics. JTAs would also include retraining and placement guarantees so transition is not a promise, but a pathway. States like Colorado and New Mexico have created similar programs through their Just Transition Offices, but Virginia lacks a permanent framework. Locating this authority regionally would connect statewide energy goals with workforce opportunities. This matters because job loss in places like Southwest Virginia is not abstract. In Buchanan County, coal employers have repeatedly announced large layoffs in recent years, including a 135-worker reduction in 2023 and additional layoffs announced in 2025 (Radmacher 2024). A JTA framework would not stop market volatility, but it would change what happens to workers next by pre-negotiating training slots, income supports, hiring commitments, and union-protected job standards tied to the investments that follow. Current laws have weak commitments to local control and anti-displacement measures, if any. RTAs and their associated policy tools provide local control, build community wealth, and stop displacement.

Figure 1: Gaps in Current Programs, RTA’s Proposed Benefits

	Local Control	Community Wealth	Anti-Displacement
VA Clean Economy Act
VA Environmental Justice Act	X
Community Flood Preparedness Act			X
VA Public Procurements Act	X
Regional Transition Authorities	X	X	X
Community Wealth Guarantees	X	X
Community Land Trusts	X	X	X
Flood Insurance Cooperatives	X		X
Just Transition Agreements	X		X

The combined effect of these tools would be substantial. Roughly half to two-thirds of Virginia’s climate-related investment such as flood mitigation, energy infrastructure, and resilience projects would likely fall under RTA oversight because these projects rely on state funds, tax incentives, or permits. Assuming $10 to $12 billion in climate investment over the next five years, even a 2 percent CWG contribution could yield between $50 and $60 million for community wealth funds, land trusts, and insurance cooperatives. Those resources could preserve affordable housing, fund retraining for thousands of workers, and provide seed capital for small businesses across the clean economy. Creating RTAs rather than scattering these tools among localities offers both administrative simplicity and political strength. Local governments in Virginia operate under the Dillon Rule and need explicit state authority to act. A regional framework allows for shared capacity while avoiding duplication. It also builds coalitions that are broader and more stable than single-issue efforts. Labor, local government, and community leaders would sit together in ongoing negotiations, making equity an expectation rather than a plea. Over time, that cooperation could become the foundation of a more resilient political culture in which every participant has a stake in the success of the transition. The RTA model draws on the strengths of Virginia’s existing laws while addressing their blind spots. It turns policy into practice by linking climate action with community ownership and long-term economic justice. If the Commonwealth adopted this approach, it would not only build wind farms and flood walls; it would also build the civic and economic infrastructure needed to sustain them.

Conclusion

Virginia has proven that it can build wind farms, solar arrays, and flood defenses. What it has not proven is that those investments can anchor stable homes, fair work, local ownership, and an affordable life. That is the core problem this brief set out to solve. We are reducing emissions without changing who benefits or who decides. The result is a clean energy economy that grows in megawatts and concrete while household budgets tighten and trust frays. The solution proposed is straightforward: create Regional Transition Authorities with clear powers and tools to make equity enforceable. Use Community Wealth Guarantees to seed local ownership, stand up land trusts and flood insurance cooperatives so people can afford to stay, and negotiate Just Transition Agreements when industries shift so workers are protected and small businesses can compete. Tie these tools to the projects that already need state permits, funding, or rate approval and, in doing so, align climate ambition with everyday security and affordability.

A “just transition” is not a slogan; it is a set of binding commitments that further the public good. In practice it means a parent in Norfolk can insure a home in a flood zone without choosing between premiums and groceries. It means a mineworker in Wise County sees a path from a retiring mine to a good job with training and wage support during the change. It means a small contractor in Portsmouth can win work on resilience projects because the rules reserve room for local firms and apprentices. Justice becomes visible when it shows up in a mortgage payment, a paycheck, and the right to remain in the place your family has been for generations.

The urgency is greater because of the national context. A Trump-led push to gut public spending and weaken government capacity has not spared Virginia. Cuts to food assistance, health coverage, and basic services are sold as discipline but function as a transfer to wealthy donors and large corporations. When federal equity frameworks fall away, states must choose whether they will step up or shrink back. If we do nothing, communities already on the edge will face higher costs, thinner safety nets, and rising water. A regional authority model helps Virginia hold the line by building capacity where people live, pooling risk, and enforcing benefits through state law rather than temporary federal guidance.

At the same time the headline economy looks strong, AI and data center growth expands the tax base and props up construction and utility revenues. Yet the gains are not reaching most households. Wages for many trades and service workers lag. The cost of living—housing, energy, healthcare, and groceries—have moved out of reach for too many. The benefits of an AI boom are concentrated, while the burdens are diffused through higher rates, land pressure, and strained infrastructure. A just transition cannot ignore this affordability crisis. It must confront it directly. That is why this brief ties a progressive affordability agenda to the climate build-out. Community Wealth Guarantees, Land Trusts, Flood Insurance Cooperatives, and Just Transition Agreements are affordability tools as much as climate tools. The choice before the Commonwealth is stark. We can continue to tinker with processes while wealth and risk concentrate, or we can build institutions that make fairness standard. If we choose the first path, people will be left behind, communities will be allowed to crumble and sink, and despair will take root in one of the richest states in one of richest countries on earth. If we choose the second path, Virginia can prove that climate action, affordability, and dignity belong together. Regional Transition Authorities are not a silver bullet, but are a practical bridge between what we are already building and the just outcomes people have been promised. We can build a low-carbon economy that all can afford to live in, turn climate projects into community assets, and make the transition both fast and fair.