This article was submitted by activists in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
After championing tax credits for solar power for years, Reeves finds himself on defense.
Bryce Reeves (R-Spotsylvania), a Fawn Lake resident and State Senator, was among the loudest voices condemning the solar farm being planned by solar company SPower in February.
Among the highlights from Reeves’ speech from that day, according to the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star:
“Reeves accused solar interests of gobbling up profits while enjoying tax breaks and told the crowd and supervisors, he did not support the project. He was among several opponents who targeted Sustainable Power Group’s credibility and intentions, along with other residents whose comments varied from well-organized, sincere and insightful to confusing, irate and political.”
There’s only one problem: SPower was lured to Spotsylvania by the legislation Reeves helped pass, he voted for the tax incentives that he condemned in that speech, and he voted for the change in the law
allowing the increase in the size of the solar farm.
In 2018, Reeves voted for SB966, which “increases the amount of capacity of solar and wind generation facilities constructed by a utility that is in the public interest from 50 megawatts to 5,000 megawatts, including rooftop solar installations with a capacity of not less than 50 kilowatts”. This legislation directly enabled a solar farm the size of that proposed by SPower, and was supported by the Sierra Club at the
time.
Reeves voted against most of the Senate GOP caucus on that vote.
In 2016, Reeves also voted for a bill creating a tax exemption for solar energy equipment- HB1305. According to the Virginia LIS database, the bill created a “Sales and use tax exemption and real and personal property tax exemption; solar and wind energy equipment, facilities, and devices.”
Even in 2019, Reeves voted for HB2741, for the state to create a loan program for low-income people to install solar power in their homes.
One of the criticisms Reeves had of the solar farm was the encouragement of subsidies as being “unconservative”; yet it appears that less than a month after giving that speech, he voted for such a subsidy program in Virginia.
Reeves’ ties to SPower are strong; his personal attorney, local land use attorney Charlie Payne, also represents SPower, according to the Free-Lance Star.
With his strong historic support for Solar, why is Reeves trying to tear down the project he incentivized?
Incurring the wrath of the NIMBY neighborhood opposition may have something to do with it.
Reeves lives in Fawn Lake, a gated golf course community described by one longtime nearby resident as “the rich people from DC, behind their walls, who try to tell the rest of us what to do”.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the four main Fawn Lake opposition leaders, Charmaine Mueller, Sean Fogarty, David Walsh, and Kevin McCarthy all have one thing in common.
They have all either donated to no Republicans at all, or they only donated to one: Bryce Reeves.
Mueller alone has donated more than $10,000 to Reeves.
Could Mr. Reeves be telling his big donors one thing in Fawn Lake, then doing another in Richmond?
Mr. Reeves faces a Republican primary next month and is on the ballot in November in a district Barack Obama carried twice.
