Fossil fuels and transmission fees are driving up utility bills in southwest Virginia. New state lawmakers like Lily Franklin can help fix that.
Many households in rugged and rural southwest Virginia are already struggling to make ends meet. But they pay some of the highest electric rates in the nation, with prices that have risen at more than three times the pace of inflation over the last decade and a half.
Last week, residents of the Appalachian region voted to do something about it, joining Americans around the country in electing candidates who made affordability and spiking electricity bills central to their campaigns.
To wit: Voters in Montgomery and Roanoke counties elected Lily Franklin, a Democrat and former schoolteacher from Blacksburg, as their representative to the state House of Delegates. With 51% of the vote, she beat out a Republican incumbent in a district that voted for President Donald Trump three times in a row…