Water in the 2011 Virginia General Assembly

The 2011 Virginia General Assembly convened January 12 and adjourned February 26. The reconvened (“veto”) session was held April 6. During the session, the Assembly considered 2965 measures (2692 introduced this year and 273 continued from 2010), passing 1599 of them and defeating 1366. The Assembly also considered amendments to the 2010-12 biennial state budget. In this article, Virginia Water Central lists 183 measures in the 2011 Assembly that dealt with water resources directly or with land uses or other activities that are likely to affect water. The list comes from the Legislative Information System (LIS) Web site, at http://leg1.state.va.us, in the categories indicated by sub-headings below. Bill summaries were also taken from LIS (edited in some cases for space or clarity). Bills are listed under only one category, even if LIS listed them more than once. The categories searched and the bills listed include all those with direct water relevance (such as bills in the “Water and Sewer Systems” category) as well as those with a potential or indirect relevance to water (such as bills dealing with land conservation and energy-efficiency, two activities that ultimately affect water resources). Water Central’s list below does not necessarily include all bills that potentially affect Virginia’s water resources. Within each category, bills are listed in order of their bill number, using the following abbreviations: HB = bill started in House of Delegates; HJ = joint resolution started in the House; SB = bill started in the Senate; and SJ = joint resolution started in the Senate. Numbers in the left-hand column have been added by Water Central for cross-referencing among the bills. A table at the end of the article lists several topics and bills from the 2011 Assembly that received attention in various news media. For a selection of online news articles about water-related legislation in the 2011 Assembly, please visit the Virginia Water Central News Grouper at http://www.delicious.com/araflo/11VaGenAssembly.