According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Richmond ranks No. 1 among the 100 most challenging places to live with asthma in the United States.

But you’d never know that by the way the Virginia General Assembly deals with legislation sought by Dominion Virginia Power.

While the federal Environmental Protection Agency is working to clean up air and water and address climate change, Dominion is proposing to increase its carbon pollution by 30 percent over the next 15 years. Dominion Virginia Power’s dirtiest electricity plant in the state is just south of Richmond along the James River in Chesterfield County. It belches out mercury, soot and other toxic and harmful pollutants in prodigious amounts. But that old coal plant just got harder to retire with the leg- islature’s passage of SB1349 and the likelihood that Gov. Terry McAuliffe will sign this bill into law.

Adding insult to injury, SB1349 is as bad for our wallets as it is for our lungs.

Under the guise of a five year “rate freeze,” the General Assembly, at Dominion’s insistence, has exempted the state’s largest electric utility from the scrutiny of the State Corporation Commission, which up until this bill passed, had the power to refund overcharges to Dominion customers.

That power has now been suspended for the next five years. Although Dominion promised a 5 percent rate cut to customers with the passage of this bill, Dominion is actually still able to seek rate increases throughout the five-year term of the so called “rate freeze,” During that period, the SCC will not be able to reduce our bills.

In justifying this, Dominion blamed the EPA, arguing that the Clean Power Plan, a new rule to reduce the carbon pollution that fueling climate change will increase customers’ bills.

The truth is that in Virginia our electricity bills actually could go down with the implementation of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan through investments in energy efficiency.

Dominion is so far behind in energy efficiency that our electric bills are higher than what folks pay in most states. Residents in 43 states, on average, pay less on their electric bills than we do, according to 2012 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Attorney General Mark Herring’s office opposed SB1349, arguing that if the General Assembly prohibited the SCC from reviewing the electricity rates of our state’s largest monopoly, then “who would be regulating who?”

Unfortunately, that was not enough to prevent the General Assembly from going along with Dominion.

Why would legislation like SB1349 pass the General Assembly? The answer is simple, although disturbing. Dominion is the biggest political contributor to Republicans and Democrats in our General Assembly.

The good news is that even though SB1349 passed, the legislation has awakened the public to Dominion Virginia Power’s shenanigans. Next year, we’ll be ready.

GLEN BESA

Richmond

The writer is director of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.