Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 28.2 > Subtitle II > Chapter 5 - Oysters and Clams

• Advanced conductors: means hardware technology that can conduct electricity across transmission lines and that demonstrates enhanced performance over traditional conductor products. See Virginia Code 56-597
• Affected customer: means any customer of a natural gas utility receiving service at a premises served by eligible system expansion infrastructure. See Virginia Code 56-610
• Affiliate: means any person that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with an electric utility. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Affirmed: In the practice of the appellate courts, the decree or order is declared valid and will stand as rendered in the lower court.
• Aggregator: means a person that, as an agent or intermediary, (i) offers to purchase, or purchases, electric energy or (ii) offers to arrange for, or arranges for, the purchase of electric energy, for sale to, or on behalf of, two or more retail customers not controlled by or under common control with such person. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Allowed distribution revenue: means the average annual, weather-normalized, nongas commodity revenue per customer associated with the rates in effect as adopted in the applicable utility's last Commission-approved rate case or performance-based regulation plan, multiplied by the average number of customers served. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Bank: means a corporation authorized by statute to accept deposits and to hold itself out to the public as engaged in the banking business in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 6.2-800
• Business park: means a land development containing a minimum of 100 contiguous acres classified as a Tier 4 site under the Virginia Economic Development Partnership's Business Ready Sites Program that is developed and constructed by a locality, an industrial development authority, or a similar political subdivision of the Commonwealth created pursuant to § Virginia Code 56-576
• Candidate: means a person who seeks or campaigns for an office of the Commonwealth or one of its governmental units in a general, primary, or special election and who is qualified to have his name placed on the ballot for the office. See Virginia Code 24.2-101
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 56-603
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 6.2-100
• Commission: means the Marine Resources Commission. See Virginia Code 28.2-100
• Commissioner: means the Commissioner of Marine Resources. See Virginia Code 28.2-100
• company: includes all corporations created by acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, or under the general incorporation laws of this Commonwealth, or doing business therein, and shall exclude all municipal corporations, other political subdivisions, and public institutions owned or controlled by the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Conservation and ratemaking efficiency plan: means a plan filed by a natural gas utility pursuant to this chapter that includes a decoupling mechanism. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Cooperative: means a utility formed under or subject to Chapter 9. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Cost-effective conservation and energy efficiency program: means a program approved by the Commission that is designed to decrease the average customer's annual, weather-normalized consumption of energy, for gas and nongas elements combined, or avoid energy costs or consumption the customer may otherwise have incurred, and is determined by the Commission to be cost-effective if the net present value of the benefits exceeds the net present value of the costs at the portfolio level as determined by not less than any three of the following four tests: the Total Resource Cost Test, the Program Administrator Test (also referred to as the Utility Cost Test), the Participant Test, and the Ratepayer Impact Measure Test. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Covered entity: means a provider in the Commonwealth of an electric service not subject to competition but does not include default service providers. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Covered transaction: means an acquisition, merger, or consolidation of, or other transaction involving stock, securities, voting interests or assets by which one or more persons obtains control of a covered entity. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Covered voter: means :

  a. See Virginia Code 24.2-452

• Cultured hard-shell clams: means hard-shell clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) that have been spawned in a hatchery or controlled setting for the purpose of producing seed clams (juveniles), and planted on leased grounds, floating structures, or other privately controlled growing areas, and covered with netting or otherwise protected from predators until harvested. See Virginia Code 28.2-200
• Customer choice: means the opportunity for a retail customer in the Commonwealth to purchase electric energy from any supplier licensed and seeking to sell electric energy to that customer. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Decoupling mechanism: means a rate, tariff design or mechanism that decouples the recovery of a utility's allowed distribution revenue from the level of consumption of natural gas by its customers, including (i) a mechanism that adjusts actual nongas distribution revenues per customer to allowed distribution revenues per customer, such as a sales adjustment clause, (ii) rate design changes that substantially align the percentage of fixed charge revenue recovery with the percentage of the utility's fixed costs, such as straight fixed variable rates, provided such mechanism includes a substantial demand component based on a customer's peak usage, or (iii) a combination of clauses (i) and (ii) that substantially decreases the relative amount of nongas distribution revenue affected by changes in per customer consumption of gas. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Demand response: means measures aimed at shifting time of use of electricity from peak-use periods to times of lower demand by inducing retail customers to curtail electricity usage during periods of congestion and higher prices in the electrical grid. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Department: means the state agency headed by the Commissioner of Elections. See Virginia Code 24.2-101
• Distributor: means a person owning, controlling, or operating a retail distribution system to provide electric energy directly to retail customers. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Election: means a general, primary, or special election. See Virginia Code 24.2-101
• Electric utility: means any person that generates, transmits, or distributes electric energy for use by retail customers in the Commonwealth, including any investor-owned electric utility, cooperative electric utility, or electric utility owned or operated by a municipality. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Electric utility: means any investor-owned public utility that provides electric energy for use by retail customers, except investor-owned utilities subject to the provisions of § Virginia Code 56-597
• Electrification: means measures that (i) electrify space heating, water heating, cooling, drying, cooking, industrial processes, and other building and industrial end uses that would otherwise be served by onsite, nonelectric fuels, provided that the electrification measures reduce site energy consumption; (ii) to the maximum extent practical, seek to combine with federally authorized customer rebates for heat pump technology; and (iii) for those measures that provide measurable and verifiable energy savings to low-income customers or elderly customers, to the maximum extent practical, seek to combine with either contemporaneously installed measures or previously installed measures that are or were provided under federally funded weatherization programs or state-provided, locality-provided, or utility-provided energy efficiency programs. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Eligible expansion investment: means that portion of the total capital investment made by a natural gas utility in constructing eligible system expansion infrastructure that is in excess of those costs that would be considered economic under a natural gas utility's economic test, net of any contributions in aid of construction, up to the maximum level of investment per affected customer specified in a system expansion plan. See Virginia Code 56-610
• Eligible infrastructure: means storage, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, transmission and distribution facilities to be used in the delivery of natural gas, or supplemental or substitute forms of gas sources by a natural gas utility. See Virginia Code 56-605
• Eligible infrastructure replacement: includes natural gas utility facility replacement projects that are identified as a result of an enhanced leak detection and repair program. See Virginia Code 56-603
• Eligible infrastructure replacement costs: includes the following:

  1. See Virginia Code 56-603

• Eligible system expansion infrastructure: means natural gas main pipelines and associated facilities, including service lines, meters, and other pertinent facilities, that are constructed and operated by a natural gas utility to deliver natural gas service to affected customers located in an unserved area. See Virginia Code 56-610
• Eligible system expansion infrastructure costs: includes :

  1. See Virginia Code 56-610

• Energy efficiency program: means a program that reduces the total amount of energy that is required for the same process or activity implemented after the expiration of capped rates but does not include electrification of any process or activity primarily fueled by natural gas. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Enhanced leak detection and repair program: means a program that is designed to allow a natural gas utility to deploy advanced leak detection technologies to more accurately identify active leaks as part of the natural gas utility's leak management program and to prioritize the repair of leaks that present a risk to safety or the environment. See Virginia Code 56-603
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• farm: means any person that obtains at least 51 percent of its annual gross income from agricultural operations and produces the agricultural waste used as feedstock for the waste-to-energy technology, (ii) "agricultural waste" means biomass waste materials capable of decomposition that are produced from the raising of plants and animals during agricultural operations, including animal manures, bedding, plant stalks, hulls, and vegetable matter, and (iii) "waste-to-energy technology" means any technology, including but not limited to a methane digester, that converts agricultural waste into gas, steam, or heat that is used to generate electricity on-site. See Virginia Code 1-222.1
• Federal postcard application: means the application prescribed under § 101(b)(2) of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, Virginia Code 24.2-452
• Federal write-in absentee ballot: means the ballot described in § 103 of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, Virginia Code 24.2-452
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Fixed costs: means any and all of the utility's nongas costs of service, together with an authorized return thereon, that are not associated with the cost of the natural gas commodity flowing through and measured by the customer's meter. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Generator: means a person owning, controlling, or operating a facility that produces electric energy for sale. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Geothermal heating and cooling system: means a system that:

  1. See Virginia Code 56-576

• Germane: On the subject of the pending bill or other business; a strict standard of relevance.
• Grid-enhancing technologies: means a set of technologies that maximize the transmission of electricity across the electric distribution grid in a manner that ensures grid reliability and safeguards the cybersecurity and physical security of the electric distribution grid, including storage as a transmission asset, dynamic line rating, power flow control, and topology optimization. See Virginia Code 56-597
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Incumbent electric utility: means each electric utility in the Commonwealth that, prior to July 1, 1999, supplied electric energy to retail customers located in an exclusive service territory established by the Commission. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Investment: means costs incurred on eligible infrastructure replacement projects including planning, development, and construction costs; costs of infrastructure associated therewith; and an allowance for funds used during construction. See Virginia Code 56-603
• Investment: means costs incurred to deploy eligible infrastructure including planning, development, and construction costs and, if applicable, an allowance for funds used during construction. See Virginia Code 56-605
• IRP: means a document developed by an electric utility that provides a forecast of its load obligations and a plan to meet those obligations by supply side and demand side resources over the ensuing 15 years to promote reasonable prices, reliable service, energy independence, and environmental responsibility. See Virginia Code 56-597
• James River seed area: means that area in the James River and its tributaries above a line drawn from Cooper's Creek in Isle of Wight County on the south side of the James River to a line in a northeasterly direction across the James River to the Newport News municipal water tank located on Warwick Boulevard between 59th Street and 60th Street in the City of Newport News. See Virginia Code 28.2-200
• Joint resolution: A legislative measure which requires the approval of both chambers.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
• Low-income utility customer: means any person or household whose income is no more than 80 percent of the median income of the locality in which the customer resides. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Marine organisms: means those species other than marine finfish or marine shellfish which inhabit marine or estuarine waters. See Virginia Code 28.2-100
• Measure: means an individual item, service, offering, or rebate available to a customer of a natural gas utility as part of the utility's conservation and ratemaking efficiency plan. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Military-overseas ballot: means :

  a. See Virginia Code 24.2-452

• Month: means a calendar month and "year" means a calendar year. See Virginia Code 1-223
• Municipality: means a city, county, town, authority, or other political subdivision of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Natural gas utility: means any investor-owned public service company engaged in the business of furnishing natural gas service to the public. See Virginia Code 56-603
• Natural gas utility: means an investor-owned public service company engaged in the business of furnishing natural gas service to the public. See Virginia Code 56-605
• Natural gas utility: means any investor-owned public service company engaged in the business of furnishing natural gas service to the public. See Virginia Code 56-610
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Officer: means a member of the Virginia Marine Police. See Virginia Code 28.2-100
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means any individual, corporation, partnership, association, company, business, trust, joint venture, or other private legal entity, and the Commonwealth or any municipality. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Person: means natural persons, firms, associations, cooperatives, corporations, limited liability companies, business trusts, partnerships, and limited liability partnerships. See Virginia Code 56-605
• Person: includes individuals, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• political party: means an organization of citizens of the Commonwealth which, at either of the two preceding statewide general elections, received at least 10 percent of the total vote cast for any statewide office filled in that election. See Virginia Code 24.2-101
• Portfolio: means the program or programs included in a natural gas utility's conservation and ratemaking efficiency plan. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Previously developed project site: includes a brownfield as defined in § Virginia Code 56-576
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Program: means a group of one or more related measures for a customer class. See Virginia Code 56-600
• Public facilities: means (i) airports, landing fields, and air navigation facilities; (ii) educational facilities; (iii) flood control, bank and shore protection, watershed protection, and dams; (iv) hospital facilities; (v) judicial and court facilities; (vi) correctional facilities, including jails and penitentiaries; (vii) library facilities; (viii) military installations; (ix) parks so designated by the Commonwealth or by the locality in its comprehensive plan; (x) properties of historical significance so designated by the Commonwealth; (xi) law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, and rescue facilities; (xii) sanitary sewer, water or stormwater facilities; (xiii) transportation facilities including highways, roads, streets, and bridges, traffic signals, related easements and rights-of-way, mass transit, ports, and any components of federal, state, or local transportation facilities; (xiv) waste management facilities for hazardous, radioactive, or other waste; (xv) office facilities occupied by a public corporation; and (xvi) such other facilities that are necessary to the construction, maintenance, or operation of a public facility as listed in clauses (i) through (xv) and directly related thereto. See Virginia Code 1-219.1
• public service company: includes gas, pipeline, electric light, heat, power and water supply companies, sewer companies, telephone companies, and all persons authorized to transport passengers or property as a common carrier. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Qualifying project: means an economic development project requiring natural gas service as to which the natural gas utility has made a good faith determination that the following criteria are satisfied:

  1. See Virginia Code 56-605

• Rate: means rate charged for any service rendered or to be rendered. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Recourse: An arrangement in which a bank retains, in form or in substance, any credit risk directly or indirectly associated with an asset it has sold (in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles) that exceeds a pro rata share of the bank's claim on the asset. If a bank has no claim on an asset it has sold, then the retention of any credit risk is recourse. ^{Source: FDIC}
• regulation: include joint rates, joint charges and joint regulations, respectively. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Renewable energy: means energy derived from sunlight, wind, falling water, biomass, sustainable or otherwise, (the definitions of which shall be liberally construed), energy from waste, landfill gas, municipal solid waste, wave motion, tides, and geothermal power, and does not include energy derived from coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Renewable thermal energy: means the thermal energy output from (i) a renewable-fueled combined heat and power generation facility that is (a) constructed, or renovated and improved, after January 1, 2012, (b) located in the Commonwealth, and (c) utilized in industrial processes other than the combined heat and power generation facility or (ii) a solar energy system, certified to the OG-100 standard of the Solar Ratings and Certification Corporation or an equivalent certification body, that (a) is constructed, or renovated and improved, after January 1, 2013, (b) is located in the Commonwealth, and (c) heats water or air for residential, commercial, institutional, or industrial purposes. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Renewable thermal energy equivalent: means the electrical equivalent in megawatt hours of renewable thermal energy calculated by dividing (i) the heat content, measured in British thermal units (BTUs), of the renewable thermal energy at the point of transfer to a residential, commercial, institutional, or industrial process by (ii) the standard conversion factor of 3. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Resident: means any person who maintains his principal place of abode in Virginia with the intent to make Virginia his domicile. See Virginia Code 28.2-200
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Retail customer: means any person that purchases retail electric energy for its own consumption at one or more metering points or nonmetered points of delivery located in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Retail electric energy: means electric energy sold for ultimate consumption to a retail customer. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Revenue-neutral: means a change in a rate, tariff design or mechanism as a component of a conservation and ratemaking efficiency plan that does not shift annualized allowed distribution revenue between customer classes, and does not increase or decrease the utility's average, weather-normalized nongas utility revenue per customer for any given rate class by more than 0. See Virginia Code 56-600
• SAVE: means Steps to Advance Virginia's Energy Plan. See Virginia Code 56-603
• SAVE plan: means a plan filed by a natural gas utility that identifies proposed eligible infrastructure replacement projects and a SAVE rider. See Virginia Code 56-603
• SAVE rider: means a recovery mechanism that will allow for recovery of the eligible infrastructure replacement costs, through a separate mechanism from the customer rates established in a rate case using the cost of service methodology set forth in § Virginia Code 56-603
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Shoals: means subaqueous elevations covered by water less than four feet deep at mean low water. See Virginia Code 28.2-200
• State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Virginia Code 24.2-452
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• state agency: means the same as that term is defined in § Virginia Code 1-206
• Supplier: means any generator, distributor, aggregator, broker, marketer, or other person who offers to sell or sells electric energy to retail customers and is licensed by the Commission to do so, but it does not mean a generator that produces electric energy exclusively for its own consumption or the consumption of an affiliate. See Virginia Code 56-576
• sworn: means "affirm" or "affirmed. See Virginia Code 1-250
• System expansion plan: means a plan filed by a natural gas utility that identifies the level of eligible system expansion infrastructure costs that are projected to be incurred over the term of the plan and provides the calculation of a system expansion rider. See Virginia Code 56-610
• System expansion rider: means a recovery mechanism that will allow for recovery of the eligible system expansion infrastructure costs from affected customers, through a separate mechanism from the customer rates established in a rate case using the cost-of-service methodology set forth in § Virginia Code 56-610
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Total annual energy savings: means (i) the total combined kilowatt-hour savings achieved by electric utility energy efficiency and demand response programs and measures installed in that program year, as well as savings still being achieved by measures and programs implemented in prior years, or (ii) savings attributable to newly installed combined heat and power facilities, including waste heat-to-power facilities, and any associated reduction in transmission line losses, provided that biomass is not a fuel and the total efficiency, including the use of thermal energy, for eligible combined heat and power facilitates must meet or exceed 65 percent and have a nameplate capacity rating of less than 25 megawatts. See Virginia Code 56-576
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trust business: has the meaning assigned to it in § Virginia Code 6.2-800
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255
• User fees: Fees charged to users of goods or services provided by the government. In levying or authorizing these fees, the legislature determines whether the revenue should go into the treasury or should be available to the agency providing the goods or services.
• utility: means any investor-owned public service company engaged in the business of furnishing natural gas service to the public. See Virginia Code 56-600