HB 1780

This bill requires eight localities in Southwest Virginia (the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell, and Wise, plus the City of Norton) to enter into a mandatory revenue-sharing agreement for any small modular reactor plant built in one of these jurisdictions. Under the agreement, the locality hosting the reactor would keep only 6% of the revenue generated from the facility, while the remaining 94% would be distributed among the other localities according to specified percentages, with Tazewell and Wise counties receiving the largest shares at 16% each. The bill also requires that infrastructure costs related to the reactor facility be shared proportionally among all localities based on their revenue percentages, and notably makes this revenue-sharing arrangement permanent rather than subject to renegotiation.