Author: Steve Haner
-
No Great Leap, But a Continuing Tide
The following was written for the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s Jefferson Policy Journal and distributed earlier today. Some themes repeat an earlier post. It’s hard to dissect a battle while the smoke is still clearing, but the June 11 Virginia primaries demonstrated again the state’s continued and steady move away from its conservative past. It was…
-
Primary Reading: Themes on the Partisan Blogs
How different will Virginia’s politics and political future be at close of business tomorrow? This time the big shift may come in tomorrow’s primaries rather than with the November general election that actually chooses 140 General Assembly members.
-
Dispatches. 75 Years Ago Tonight, Now, It Was On.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (AP) — Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast of France in tremendous strength by cloudy daylight today and stormed several miles inland with tanks and infantry in the grand assault which Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” German broadcasts…
-
More (But Not All) Cost Projections Filed About Ratepayer Bill Transformation Act
With some of its closest legislative allies facing primary challenges next week, much of what Dominion Energy Virginia filed Friday in response to questions about the consumer cost of its future plans is redacted. The story in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch (here) could only cover that portion of the data not kept secret. Three of the…
-
Rider E Case Shows Many Flaws With This Process
Dominion Energy Virginia’s pending application for a new charge on electric bills for coal ash remediation is both a fairly routine request and an illustration of what is deeply wrong with Virginia’s electricity regulation. When the major investor-owned utilities negotiated a return to regulation in 2007, the ability to create and collect these stand-alone add-on…
-
SCC Again Denies Escape from Dominion Monopoly
The State Corporation Commission has denied another request from a major Virginia retailer for permission to escape from Dominion Energy Virginia’s monopoly electricity service. The score for such petitions is now one approval, two denials, and the message is clear to all the other petitioners: Go fight it out at the General Assembly. The petition…
-
Long-Term Care: A Great Bet If Made Long Ago
It is just like your econ professor told you – insurance is nothing but a bet. It is a bet you often don’t want to win, but in one field you had a great chance of winning simply by hanging around and continuing to breathe. That field is (or at least was) long-term care coverage.…
-
Are PBMs Killing Pharmacies, Hiking Medicaid?
A form letter mailed this month announced the death of another local independent pharmacy, this one in the bustling community of Nellysford. Residents of Nelson County’s Rockfish Valley, including those in the large Wintergreen community, will join plenty of other rural areas in the U.S. without a pharmacy close by.
-
True Conservatism In Eight Simple Questions
Answer eight simple questions correctly and you, too, could be a true Virginia conservative, joining the ideological movement which continues to challenge chances for Republican success in the Commonwealth. Several high-profile candidates in next month’s contested GOP primaries have done so, earning good marks from a group calling itself Virginia Constitutional Conservatives. Two out of…
-
Meet GOP Carbon Tax Advocate Bob Inglis
There is a hotbed of carbon tax advocacy at George Mason University, led by a former GOP congressman sent packing by South Carolina voters because he’s ready to tax them into loving solar and wind.
-
Update: Aggregation Petition Moves to Full SCC
The debate over retail aggregation and choice for electricity underway at the State Corporation Commission is moving to another decision point, with a hearing examiner’s ruling May 21 on one of the many petitions.
-
Correction: DLS Was There At Energy Conference
There was a Division of Legislative Services staff person present at the recent National Regulatory Conference in Williamsburg. My piece yesterday was in error. Attorney Christine Noonan’s name was on the list and I missed it. She’s been at DLS for a while, but only this session started as staff support for the committees doing…
-
VA Energy Regulatory Conference All About Carbon
WILLIAMSBURG — “The environmentalists don’t want to admit when they’ve won, but they’ve already won.” That line was delivered by Joseph A. Rosenthal, principal attorney at Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel, during a discussion Thursday on the status electricity grid modernization efforts in his state and several others. It was a part of a day-and-a-half…
-
Now Everybody Has a Club on Abortion. Wonderful.
Watching the abortion issue being shoved into the coming Virginia elections by ideologues on both sides, it is fair to ask the question: Can the center hold? Are the many people who are fairly comfortable with the state of the law these last few decades going to be sorry with an outcome in either direction?…
-
A Horrible Abuse Case. The Daily Reality Behind It.
The news today is horrifying – the death, possibly from sexual abuse, of a 17-month-old. Our distracted minds are focused, for a while, and we all go into a collective shudder and wonder what monster could do such a thing. The daily reality is worse and doesn’t get enough attention. In the fiscal year ending…