More than 25 restaurants in the Richmond Region are celebrating National Pride Month and supporting local LGBTQ organizations through the Dine Out For Pride campaign on June 5-11.

With every signature cocktail sold at participating restaurants, $1 will be donated equally to VA Pride and the Richmond Region Tourism Foundation’s OutRVA campaign.

Dine Out For Pride restaurants include:

• Bar Solita
• Bell Cafe
• Cabo Fish Taco
• Casa del Barco Canal Walk
• Dave & Buster’s Glen Allen
• eazzy burger
• Heritage
• JewFro
• Main Street Steakhouse
• Ms. Bee’s Juice Bar
• Papi’s Downtown
• Pinky’s
• Restaurant Adarra
• River City Roll
• Sam Miller’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar
• SB’s Lakeside Love Shack
• SB’s Main Street Love Shack
• Shagbark
• Soul Taco
• Southbound
• Tang & Biscuit
• Tarrant’s Downtown
• Tarrant’s West
• The Locker Room
• Three Notch’d Brewing Company
• Wok This Way
• ZZQ Texas Craft Barbeque

VA Pride is a program of Diversity Richmond and produces dozens of events annually including VA Pride Fest on September 23. The organization also provides grants, sponsorships, and scholarships to support local LGBTQ people, organizations and allies.

Richmond Region Tourism’s OutRVA campaign has been promoting the Richmond Region as a welcoming destination for more than 10 years.

Richmond Region Tourism has launched a new, multi-channel $2 million marketing campaign to inspire travel to the destination. “Speaks for Itself” is a first-of-its-kind campaign for the Richmond Region, targeting potential travelers in East Coast and southern U.S. markets through an unconventional, sound-focused video approach centered around the genuine and authentic character of the region. It also marks a historic opportunity for Richmond Region Tourism to invest more than double its normal budget for tourism marketing.

A 60-second video preview was unveiled to the local hospitality community at Richmond Region Tourism’s 2023 Tourism Awards and Annual Meeting on May 11. The campaign video takes inspiration from popular ASMR content on social media to communicate what it’s like for visitors to experience the Richmond Region – a destination marked by an understated authenticity that even locals find hard to define.

“The Richmond Region speaks to every visitor in different ways,” said Jack Berry, President & CEO of Richmond Region Tourism. “Trying to find a pithy slogan to sum up the region simply wouldn’t do it justice, which is why we’re so excited by this campaign—it provides a platform for local voices and experiences to shine and encourages visitors to take in the many diverse sides of the region.”

The campaign also reflects an effort of community collaboration across the Richmond region. Six jurisdictions including the City of Richmond, Chesterfield County, Hanover County, Henrico County, Colonial Heights and the Town of Ashland contributed funds received from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) via Virginia Tourism Corporation, which must be used specifically for tourism recovery efforts.

“It’s the little moments that make a visit to a destination special, and this campaign embraces and celebrates those experiences in a uniquely Richmond way,” said Richmond Region Tourism Board Chair Dan Schmitt. “They could happen at a buzzy restaurant downtown or in a peaceful park in Henrico. This campaign is remarkable in how it can be embraced and adapted across the region’s many jurisdictions.”

Richmond Region Tourism partnered with ChamberRVA and the Greater Richmond Partnership to review a competitive set of proposals from more than a dozen marketing agencies and selected Richmond-based agency Padilla to create and deliver the campaign.

To ensure that the campaign authentically reflected the Richmond Region, Padilla interviewed more than 60 local leaders and community members during campaign concepting including the BLKRVA and OutRVA committees, business owners, government officials, museum staff, college administrators and more. Keeping with the “Speaks for Itself” theme, local influencers also are being tapped to create unique ASMR-style videos that will be promoted in the campaign’s target markets.

The campaign will run June 1, 2023, through June 2024, and is expected to reach more than 80 million potential travelers through connected TV in selected markets in the East Coast and southern United States, as well as on social media, digital display ads and out-of-home digital billboards in select markets.

By Charlie Paullin

As Virginia continues down the road of speeding up the transition from gas-powered passenger vehicles to electric ones, new rules proposed by the federal government could also accelerate electrification of the state’s heavy trucks.

This April, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter tailpipe emissions limits for passenger vehicles as well as for heavy trucks. The new limits for passenger vehicles will have little impact in Virginia: As a result of 2021 legislation, the state follows stricter standards for light vehicles set by California, which will mandate that 100% of sales of new passenger cars be electric beginning in 2035.

But because the 2021 legislation only applies to vehicles weighing 14,000 pounds or less, Virginia must follow the federal emissions standards for heavy trucks, which if finalized will apply to trucks beginning with model year 2027.

While the EPA would allow manufacturers to choose their own method of meeting the stricter emissions standards, the agency projects up to 50% of vocational vehicles — heavy trucks used for particular industries or occupations — in model year 2032 could use electric batteries and fuel cell technologies.

“By proposing the most ambitious pollution standards ever for cars and trucks, we are delivering on the Biden-Harris Administration’s promise to protect people and the planet, securing critical reductions in dangerous air and climate pollution and ensuring significant economic benefits like lower fuel and maintenance costs for families,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement.

But Virginia Trucking Association President and CEO Dale Bennett said his group has some concerns about the faster pace the new rules would set for the transition to electric vehicles.

The trucking association expects that under the new rules, fleets will become 100% electric by 2055, given the roughly 30-year lifespan of a heavy truck.

With the trucking association counting about 45,870 heavy truck and tractor-trailer drivers in Virginia in 2021, Bennett said more rapid electrification of the fleet will require significant buildout of the electric grid.

He also voiced concerns about charge times, which can take about two hours to power a truck to travel about 200 miles, compared to about 15 minutes to fill up a truck with diesel to cover 1,200 miles; battery weight; and cost. While a new diesel truck can cost about $180,000, typical electric trucks go for $400,000, he said.

“We need to go at the speed of right, not at the speed of light,” said Bennett.

Trip Pollard, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, however, said the stricter standards will improve Virginia’s air quality. He pointed to recent research from the Union of Concerned Scientists estimating exposures to particulate matter from tailpipe emissions, which has been estimated to be responsible for about 95% of the global public health impacts from air pollution.

“EPA’s proposed federal heavy duty vehicle emissions standard will help to clean Virginia’s air — improving our health and our environment,” Pollard said by email.

California has more stringent regulations for heavy trucks, but Virginia hasn’t adopted those, Pollard noted. And while he acknowledged truckers will see an increase in upfront costs for vehicles, he said they can be recouped in three to seven years through savings on gas and maintenance.

If finalized, the rules will be implemented by heavy-truck manufacturers, including Volvo’s New River Valley plant in Dublin, Virginia, and its Mack Trucks facility just outside Roanoke.

Dawn Fenton, vice president of government relations and public affairs at Volvo Group North America, said the company supports the transition to zero-emission vehicles and has committed to 100% of its products being fossil free by 2040. Because the Dublin plant makes both electric and diesel heavy truck engines, the facility will be able to continue producing vehicles while adjusting to a faster transition, Fenton said.

“We see that we’re moving toward a zero-emission vehicle future,” Fenton said. “Our biggest concern is by far the question about the availability of charging infrastructure to be able to enable fleets to be able to adopt them.”

Fenton said “a lot” of Volvo’s current electric truck sales are happening in California, which has stricter heavy-truck emissions regulations and has also created incentives for charging infrastructure buildout and electric vehicle purchases.

In Virginia, House Republicans this past session for the second time killed legislation from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Arlington, to create a fund that would provide money for rural infrastructure development. The General Assembly has also repeatedly blocked proposals for state rebates for electric vehicle purchases in Virginia, although incentives are available from the federal level through the Inflation Reduction Act.