Del. Nadarius Clark

Presidential electors; National Popular Vote Compact. Enters Virginia into an interstate compact known as the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote. Article II of the Constitution of the United States gives the states exclusive and plenary authority to decide the manner of awarding their electoral votes. Under the compact, Virginia agrees to award its electoral votes to the presidential ticket that receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact goes into effect when states cumulatively possessing a majority of the electoral votes have joined the compact. A state may withdraw from the compact; however, a withdrawal occurring within six months of the end of a President's term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President has qualified to serve the next term. The bill also provides for the manner of appointing electors when such agreement does and does not govern the appointment of electors. This bill is identical to SB 322.

Land development; solar canopies in parking areas. Provides that any locality may include in its land development ordinances a provision that requires that an applicant must install a solar canopy over designated surface parking areas. Such provisions shall apply only to nonresidential parking areas with 100 or more new off-street contiguous parking spaces and may require coverage of up to 50 percent of the surface parking area. The bill provides that an ordinance adopted pursuant to this bill shall be subject to various additional requirements and shall allow for deviations, in whole or in part, from the requirements of the ordinance when its strict application would prevent the development of uses and densities otherwise allowed by the locality's zoning or development ordinance or when a property owner shows that the solar canopy, if installed as otherwise required under the ordinance, will generate less than 75 percent of the electricity that would be expected, given the nameplate capacity of the solar modules installed on such canopy, if the canopy were to be installed at another location in the locality without surrounding impediments to insolation such as buildings or shading vegetation. Finally, the bill provides that the applicant or owner may use the electric energy generated from such solar canopy to offset the consumption of the parking lot or adjoining building served under the same account. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2027. This bill incorporates HB 457 and is identical to SB 26.

Impersonating law-enforcement officer; penalties. Creates a Class 5 felony for impersonating a law-enforcement officer while wearing a facial covering, as that term is defined in the bill, and a Class 4 felony for a second or subsequent violation.

Custody and visitation; possession or consumption of authorized substances. Provides that no person shall be denied custody or visitation of a child, based only on the fact that the child's parent or other person responsible for his care, or the person petitioning for custody or visitation of the child, possessed or consumed legally authorized substances. The bill directs the Board of Social Services to amend its regulations, guidance documents, and other instructional materials to ensure that such regulations, documents, and materials comply with, and that investigations and family assessments are conducted by local departments of social services in accordance with, the provisions of the bill.

Elections; Voting Rights Act of Virginia. Revises provisions of the Voting Rights Act of Virginia (the Act) by (i) clarifying the legal standards for evaluating claims of alleged voter suppression and vote dilution, (ii) providing guidance to the courts to follow when determining whether a violation of the prohibition against voter suppression or vote dilution has occurred, and (iii) outlining the factors that the courts are permitted to consider and those factors that the courts are prohibited from considering. The bill expands the class of persons who may initiate a cause of action for an alleged violation of the Act to include organizations whose membership includes members of a protected class, organizations whose mission would be frustrated by a violation of the Act, and organizations that would expend resources in order to fulfill their mission as a result of a violation of the Act. The population thresholds for a locality to be designated as a covered locality for purposes of minority language accessibility pursuant to the Act are also amended. Current law designates a locality as a covered locality if, in the locality, (a) more than five percent of the voting age population or (b) more than 10,000 of the voting age population are members of a single language minority and are unable to speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process; the bill reduces those thresholds from five to three percent and from 10,000 to 5,000. The bill contains technical amendments for organizational purposes.

Certificate of public need; expedited review of certain projects; duties of the State Health Services Plan Task Force. Directs the State Health Services Plan Task Force to develop recommendations for designating areas of the state with an identifiable need for additional projects, taking into account numerous barriers of access to health care. The bill also directs the Board of Health to promulgate updated regulations for expedited application and review processes for certain projects. This bill is identical to SB 239.

Office of Working Lands Preservation; powers and duties; Forest Sustainability Fund. Adds management of the Forest Sustainability Fund to the powers and duties of the Office of Working Lands Preservation within the Department of Forestry. This bill is identical to SB 522.

Certain data from water users; water use consumption for domestic, commercial, and industrial purposes and from data centers. Requires any water user required to register water withdrawal and use data to the State Water Control Board that provides water to another person offsite to include in its report, submitted on its regular reporting schedule, the total volume of potable water and, reported separately, the total volume of reclaimed water, as defined in the bill, provided during each month for each of the following categories: (i) a data center with an air permit issued by the Department of Environmental Quality and (ii) to the extent available without utility billing system modifications, (a) domestic purposes, (b) commercial and industrial purposes, separately or combined as available, and (c) all other non-categorized purposes. The bill has a delayed effective date of January 1, 2027. This bill is identical to SB 553.

Minimum energy and water conservation standards; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning facilities and home appliances; Department of Energy; prohibited practices; penalty. Provides that if any product or product categories under the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (the EPCA) are removed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy or the federal government, the Department of Energy shall adopt energy or water conservation standards that shall be equivalent to the last applicable federal standards with a product compliance date of on or before December 31, 2025. The bill prohibits any such new products from being sold, offered for sale, leased, or rented in the Commonwealth unless such products meet or exceed such standards. The bill excludes any energy or water conservation standards set aside by a court or any product if federal law preempts the application of the minimum energy and water conservation standards to such a product, including any product or product categories where there is a requirement to develop a standard under the EPCA.

Child abuse or neglect; prenatal use of a controlled substance or drug as prescribed. Clarifies that a pregnant woman's prenatal use of a controlled substance or drug as prescribed by such woman's health care provider for opioid addiction recovery shall not solely be a reason to suspect that a child is abused or neglected.