Here’s the rule of thumb in state capitals: To really know what a governor values, look at his or her nominees to top posts. “Personnel is policy” is the old political saying.
So, the Republican Youngkin is a pro-coal, anti-clean-energy fanatic who openly wears the label of climate skeptic. That statement is confirmed by his nomination of Andrew Wheeler to the state’s top environmental job, a former coal-industry lobbyist and Trump administration bomb-thrower at the Environmental Protection Agency. Even before Senate Democrats in Richmond sank Wheeler’s nomination for obvious reasons, Youngkin was busy figuring out other legislative schemes to pull the state out of a popular cap-and-trade market to reduce climate pollution from power plants.
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Most of Virginia’s largest companies — from Mars and Amazon in Northern Virginia to the good old boys at Dominion Energy in Richmond — have long…
