After the 2017 election of Governor Ralph Northam in Virginia, the state began to make preliminary moves to join RGGI. However, the move was stopped in 2019 when the Republican-controlled state legislature wrote a provision in the budget bill prohibiting the state from joining RGGI. The move to join RGGI was re-introduced as part of the 2020 General Assembly. With a democratic majority in both the House of Delegates and the General Assembly, the measure passed and was signed into law. Virginia will effectively join RGGI on January 1, 2021, pending the lifting of state budgetary restrictions set to expire on July 1, 2020.