Natural gas proponents have a message for Virginia’s incoming Democratic governor: Embrace gas if you want to deliver on a campaign promise to lower energy costs.
Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger pledged on the trail to reduce Virginians’ electric bills and support local energy production.
The energy mix should include offshore wind development, she said in campaign materials, as well as solar projects in “commonsense locations” like abandoned mines and former industrial sites. While the document didn’t mention natural gas, Spanberger in August said that the fuel is going to “be part of the energy mix into the future.”
“She really does believe the energy demands that you see on the horizon in the commonwealth require all forms of energy, including gas,” said Bruce McKay, chair of the Natural Gas Coalition of Virginia.
McKay — who said the new coalition isn’t “anti-anything” — said natural gas sits “right at the intersection of reliability and affordability” and can be a “workhorse” along with other energy sources to address rising electricity demand. Environmental critics point to the fuel’s climate-warming emissions, even though it burns more cleanly than coal. They also emphasize projections of rising natural gas prices.
Spanberger’s campaign did not return a request for comment on the future of natural gas in Virginia.
During her campaign, she didn’t take a stand against natural gas or indicate that certain pipeline projects need to be stopped, according to analysts at strategy firm Capstone said.
Jack Buckley, a senior associate on Capstone’s energy team, said he didn’t think Spanberger’s administration would “really limit or disadvantage existing or new natural gas pipeline infrastructure” in Virginia.
“Given the demands of data centers, especially in Northern Virginia, where there’s a high concentration, and the subsequent affordability concerns that are spurred by this, I think that she will have to accept natural gas infrastructure given the significant energy needs of the state,” he said.
But environmental groups dispute the gas industry’s stance that more gas pipelines and plants would make energy more affordable.
Lee Francis, chief program and communications officer at the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, referenced recent analyses — including from the Department of Energy’s statistical arm — projecting an increase in natural gas prices.
“This election was won in part on promises to lower energy costs for Virginians, and I think building or approving lots of new gas infrastructure would be counter to that,” Francis said. “I think that’s how you raise people’s bills and keep them high for years to come.”
Spanberger’s victory comes more than five years after former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) into law that calls for major electricity providers to be carbon-free by 2045 and 2050, and mandating the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system for the power sector.
Francis said Spanberger’s comments on gas are aligned with Virginia’s existing energy laws.
“The thing I’m optimistic about is a Spanberger administration that actually wants to get serious about increasing renewables, instead of standing in the way — which is what we’ve seen in the past four years as electric bills have gotten higher,” Francis said.
The governor of Virginia is in charge of key appointments — such as the director of the Virginia Department of Energy and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, which oversee energy initiatives and permitting.
Jay Jones, the newly elected Democratic attorney general of Virginia, also ran on a pledge to lower electricity costs. Staff in the attorney general’s office argue rate cases and other utility issues at the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities.
But former Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, said in a statement that Spanberger’s “understanding of the importance of natural gas” — working with renewables — “will serve as a foundation for Virginia’s continuing economic growth and keep utility prices affordable for businesses and families.”
Landrieu is co-chair of Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, a natural gas advocacy group.
Power generation
With Election Day in the review mirror, Spanberger is now facing calls to revisit the 2020 law and adopt a more pro-natural gas stance as she prepares to take office in January.
Spanberger has said she’s “fine with keeping existing natural gas infrastructure — she’s a little skeptical of new infrastructure — but reality is going to come to her and show her that we need new natural gas infrastructure,” said Gabriella Hoffman, director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative nonprofit.
Even with its clean energy law and RGGI, Virginia hasn’t seen mass wind and solar adoption, she said.
Natural gas already accounted for more than 60 percent of electricity generation in Virginia in August, federal data shows, with nuclear power coming in a distance second at 24 percent of the mix.
While energy demand in the state stayed flat between 2006 and 2020, “unconstrained demand for power in Virginia is expected to double within the next 10 years, driven primarily by the data center industry’s growth,” a Virginia legislative commission said in a December 2024 report to the governor and the state’s General Assembly.
Northern Virginia is the world’s biggest data center market, the report said, and was home to some 13 percent of global data center capacity.
Utilities across the Southeast are pursuing natural gas projects as energy demand rises. In March, for example, Dominion Energy filed an application with a Virginia state agency to build a nearly one gigawatt gas-fired power plant in Chesterfield County, south of Richmond.
In a recent integrated resource plan update last month, Dominion said that under its preferred plan for the next 20 years it would build 17.5 gigawatts of solar, 2 GW of storage, six small modular reactors, 3.4 GW of offshore wind, and 8.5 GW of gas-fired assets.
“Tech companies, lawmakers, stakeholders — everyone across Virginia, regardless of politics or the political background — has said that we need to have natural gas in the equation, not only to meet this rising demand from [artificial intelligence] data centers, but because right now existing natural gas especially still is overwhelmingly cheaper,” Hoffman said.
Still, in its latest monthly report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said the U.S. benchmark gas natural price is expected to average $4 per million British thermal units in 2026, up over 14 percent from the estimated average of $3.50 for 2025, due to increased liquefied natural gas exports and plateaued production.
Higher natural gas prices have pushed up renewable and coal-fueled electricity production in the U.S.
Natural gas affects households and small businesses in two ways: through utility services for heating and cooking, and the fuel’s role in power generation, said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program.
People are using natural gas as a fuel for power plants and in homes at the same time the U.S. is exporting record levels of LNG — forcing up demand and prices as EIA noted, Slocum said.
The more exposure Virginia has to natural gas, he said, the more expensive that energy bills will become.
“Gas is only going to get more expensive going forward,” Slocum said. “You can build more pipelines in Virginia or anywhere else, but that extra natural gas is still going to be competing with folks in Berlin and Beijing for access to the U.S. gas.”
In a statement, Landrieu said prices rise when supply is constricted.
“If we want to meet the growing energy needs in Virginia and other states across the country, the answer is more natural gas infrastructure to move more energy supplies where it’s needed to address this record demand impacting residents and businesses,” Landrieu said.
McKay with the Natural Gas Coalition of Virginia said his group is focused on ensuring that the “additional gas that might be needed for power [generation] can get where it is needed, when it is needed, to support that piece.”
Spanberger will take steps to start address the state’s energy crisis even before she gets into office, McKay said.
“It’s a high priority and my guess is she’ll get after it, probably before she’s sworn into office,” he said.
Pipeline plans
Another focus for the oil and gas sector is tying the answer to energy affordability to more natural gas pipelines.
And like Virginia, New Jersey recently elected a Democrat to be its next governor — Rep. Mikie Sherrill — with energy issues on the table.
“The governors-elect in both New Jersey and Virginia identified natural gas as critical to a more affordable energy future,” Amy Andryszak, CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said in a statement. “But to deliver on that promise, we will need more pipelines and infrastructure to deliver the fuel to homes and businesses.”
In May 2023, Spanberger joined fellow House Democrats from Virginia in submitting an amendment to the House Rules Committee that sought to strip out a provision expediting approvals for the Mountain Valley pipeline from a debt ceiling law.
In a news release at the time, the lawmakers said permitting for the line had “nothing to do with our nation’s spending” and that green-lighting Mountain Valley “undermines our efforts to accelerate the deployment of clean-energy technologies and curb harmful greenhouse gas emissions.”
Still, the provision stayed in the measure that became law and the Mountain Valley pipeline began operating last year. It transports natural gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia.
Mountain Valley is actively working to extend the 303-mile pipeline with the Southgate amendment project, which would add 31 miles of 30-inch diameter pipeline. Last week, a North Carolina agency approved a water quality certification for the project.
In a post-election analysis, Capstone said the Spanberger administration could “pose headwinds to new natural gas infrastructure projects” in Virginia, while adding that she “has campaigned on an energy platform that supports continued use of natural gas.”
“I think when it comes to new natural gas infrastructure, that’s where we really need to be focused and sort of thinking carefully about the lifespan of those projects and whether indeed they are the most cost-effective solution,” Spanberger told Inside Climate News earlier this year.
Still, last month, the Virginia Department of Energy announced a new energy industry partnership to undertake a “comprehensive study identifying opportunities” to increase natural gas power generation, including identifying locations in southwest Virginia “where new natural gas pipeline infrastructure can support new power generation facilities.”
And potential pipelines are on the drawing board for Virginia.
The proposed MVP Southgate and Southeast Supply Enhancement projects would cut through Virginia to North Carolina, which Francis said is doubling down on gas.
The pipeline projects would each involve laying new pipe in sections of both states.
“The fossil fuel developers are fighting with each other on how to get into that market, and Virginia is really kind of a sacrificial lamb in the energy race to get to North Carolina,” said Francis of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. “That’s what’s been going on with a lot of these pipeline projects.”
