Year: 2012
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Trimmed Transportation Bill Lurches Forward
Governor Bob McDonnell’s omnibus transportation bill has undergone significant revisions during the General Assembly session, sloughing off two of its more controversial proposals, but it still has the environmental and smart-growth lobbies up in arms. A House subcommittee amended HB 1248, a legislative behemoth that could be usefully broken into five or six separate bills,…
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Oilfield Reality Check
By Peter Galuszka One has to laugh at just how fantastic the debate over energy has become. Conservatives are trying to make President Barack Obama a goat for not bowing to the propaganda about the Keystone XL pipeline which would take unusually dirty oil from Canadian tar sands all the way to the U.S. Gulf…
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Thinking about P3s
Ron Utt, a Virginia-based Heritage Foundation scholar, and William G. Reinhardt, publisher of Public Works Financing, have offered a balanced appraisal, from a conservative perspective, of public-private partnerships (P3s) as a solution for America’s transportation woes. They cite Virginia’s successes with the Capital Beltway HOT lanes and Hampton Roads tunnels in their essay, “Can Public-Private…
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Another Flight from Reality
by James A. Bacon A debate is brewing in Richmond over how much money the Commonwealth of Virginia and local governments should contribute to the Virginia Retirement System, and a key issue revolves around which actuarial assumption to make regarding future VRS financial performance. According to Times-Dispatch writer Michael Martz, Gov. Bob McDonnell and his…
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“The Iron Lady”
By Peter Galuszka “The Iron Lady,” a biopic starring Meryl Streep, has brought fresh attention to the policies and philosophies of Margaret Thatcher, the ground-breaking leader who served as Great Britain’s Prime Minister for 11 years – from 1979 to 1990. Always controversial, Thatcher pioneered much of the conservative framework still in play today, such…
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No More Welfare for Drug Abusing Moms
by James A. Bacon During my urban homesteading days in Richmond’s gritty Church Hill some 20 years ago, I lived on a block that, at any given point in time, had two or three crack houses. Gunshots were common background noise. There was a triple homicide in one house, and a separate triple shooting (only…
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Innovation Uber Alles
Personal-driver enterprise can revolutionize transportation services by James A. Bacon On Dec. 15, San Francisco startup Uber brought its “personal driver” service to Washington. The selling proposition: Any time you want a car ride, just pull out your smartphone and tap the Uber app, and a luxury car will respond within minutes. You can even…
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From Rising Temperatures to Big Government In Six Easy Steps
by James A. Bacon When the United Kingdom’s Met Office released its 2011 global temperature numbers back in November, the results were ambiguous enough that both the Global Warming (GW) establishment and skeptics felt vindicated. A compilation of the world’s three leading global temperature databases — the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, the NOAA Climate…
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A VDOT Breakthrough in Paving Productivity
by James A. Bacon America’s Interstate highways are reaching the end of their design lives. Reconstructing them could cost Virginia billions of dollars and cause massive disruptions to traffic while they are under repair. Fortunately, the Virginia Department of Transportation has developed a system for cutting the costs and slashing construction times that could make…
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Taking a Closer Look at the Jobs Governor’s Industrial Policy
by James A. Bacon Tax subsidies for businesses locating in the proposed 55-mile Route 460 Corridor-Interstate 85 Connector Economic Development Zone could add up to $50 million over 2015 and 2016, if HB 1183 is passed into law. Remarkably, no one seems to be questioning the propriety of such aggressive use of the tax code…
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Legislators Spike Mandatory PLA for State Projects
Virginia legislators delivered a rebuke to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) yesterday when both the House and Senate passed bills that would prohibit government-mandated Public Labor Agreements (PLA) on state and state-assisted projects in Virginia. The MWAA board had previously declared its intention to mandate a PLA requiring a union workforce for Phase 2…
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Virginia Population Hits 8.1 Million
Virginia’s population grew 1.2% in 2011, reaching 8.1 million, according to the official population estimate developed by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Nationally, population growth hit 1.0%. Virginia posted the 13th highest growth rate and the seventh largest numerical gain. Consistent with long-standing trends, the largest gains were concentrated in…
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MWAA’s Double Standard
Rob Whitfield, a member of the Dulles Corridor Users Group, raises a good point regarding Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) governance. Earlier this year, the board refused to seat two new members appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell in accordance with federal legislation that expanded Virginia’s representation on the board. MWAA officials justified their defiance by…
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LeMunyon Seeks to Restructure CTB Representation
Del. Jim LeMunyon, R-Oak Hill, has proposed reorganizing representation on the Commonwealth Transportation Board to give more power to Virginia’s fast-growth areas. The idea is simple: Instead of appointing a member from each of the state’s nine transportation districts, in which Virginia’s major metro areas are under-represented, his bill would appoint a member from each…
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Keeping Virginia Colleges Accountable
by James A. Bacon At last we have a critical look at Virginia’s system of higher education — not from within the system itself, or even from within Virginia but from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Kudos do go, however, to the Beazley Foundation of Portsmouth for underwriting the report, “The Diffusion of…