"Nonprofit Appalachian Voices is suing Virginia to force the release of a document that allegedly contains an opinion from the attorney general’s office that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin cannot pull the state out of a regional carbon market.
The suit, filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court, claims that the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and Office of the Attorney General “have unlawfully withheld a public record … by erroneously relying on a statutory exclusion that does not apply.”
The Southern Environmental Law Center is representing Appalachian Voices, a regional environmental and economic development nonprofit, as well as its Virginia policy director, Peter Anderson.
The case stems from a comment made by air board member Hope Cupit at an April meeting that she “got an opinion from the attorney general’s office back in March saying that it’s not the responsibility of the board” to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative but “that it’s the responsibility of the General Assembly.”"
Sarah Vogelsong reports for the Virginia Mercury August 4, 2022.
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