Category: Civil Rights, Individual Liberties
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Clash of Competing Values
Virginians need pipelines and transmission lines to keep the economy humming. But we also value our historical, cultural and historical heritage. The trade-offs are getting harder and harder. by James A. Bacon In the 1970s engineers at Dominion Virginia Power envisioned the need to increase the supply of electric power to the Virginia Peninsula one day.…
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Why T.J. Deserves a Place in Our Pantheon of Heroes
by James A. Bacon Students at the College of William & Mary have carried on a long tradition of festooning the campus statue of Thomas Jefferson with accouterments ranging from woolen scarfs to party hats. The latest fad is to append the effigy with sticky notes denouncing the founding father as a slave holder, a…
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“Cultural Attachment” the Latest Barrier to Infrastructure Projects?
by James A. Bacon Landowner and environmentalist groups have advanced a number of arguments against building more gas pipelines (see previous post), but among the more novel is the idea that the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) will disrupt the “cultural attachment” rural landowners feel for the land that would be traversed. What foes are contending here is…
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The Rule of Firsties
by James A. Bacon I was chatting the other day with a friend, a William & Mary professor living in Williamsburg, about the Surry-Skiffes Creek transmission line project (see “An Intractable Dilemma“). Despite the high stakes involved, he said, he hadn’t paid much attention to the controversy, finding it hard to generate sympathy for a…
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Why Doesn't Virginia Have More Wind Power?
Why hasn’t Virginia made more progress in generating energy from wind power? This map from the National Renewable Energy Lab highlights the problems we face. Unlike the plains states, where almost every square mile is wind blown, Virginia has few suitable locations. Wind power is practical only offshore and on scattered mountain ridges. Putting windmills…
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Why Doesn’t Virginia Have More Wind Power?
Why hasn’t Virginia made more progress in generating energy from wind power? This map from the National Renewable Energy Lab highlights the problems we face. Unlike the plains states, where almost every square mile is wind blown, Virginia has few suitable locations. Wind power is practical only offshore and on scattered mountain ridges. Putting windmills…
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Circuit Court Judge Upholds Pipelines' Right to Survey
A circuit court judge in Montgomery County dealt a setback to foes of the Mountain Valley Pipeline yesterday by finding constitutional a controversial state law allowing natural gas companies to survey private property without an owner’s permission. Turk said that the Virginia law allows a natural gas company to enter private property for surveying even…
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Circuit Court Judge Upholds Pipelines’ Right to Survey
A circuit court judge in Montgomery County dealt a setback to foes of the Mountain Valley Pipeline yesterday by finding constitutional a controversial state law allowing natural gas companies to survey private property without an owner’s permission. Turk said that the Virginia law allows a natural gas company to enter private property for surveying even…
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A Plethora of Pipelines
Four companies are talking about building gas pipelines through Virginia. How many are needed — and who decides?
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Alpha Natural Resources: Running Wrong
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Four years ago, coal titan Alpha Natural Resources, one of Virginia’s biggest political donors, was riding high. It was spending $7.1 billion to buy Massey Energy, a renegade coal firm based in Richmond that had compiled an extraordinary record for safety and environmental violations and fines. Its management practices culminated in a…
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Pipelines and Property Lines
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline wants to inspect land along a proposed 550-mile route. Legal challenges from landowners could re-write a 2004 law governing property rights in utility surveys.
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Renewable Energy: A Tale of Two Virginias
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By Peter Galuszka Call it a tale of two Virginias – at least when it comes to renewable energy. One is the state’s traditional political and business elite, including Dominion Resources and large manufacturers, the State Corporation Commission and others. They insist that the state must stick with big, base-loaded electricity generating plants like nuclear…
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Why Can't Dominion Do Big Wind Projects?
By Peter Galuszka Down in the swamplands and farmlands of northeastern North Carolina, construction has begun on a huge new wind farm that will be the largest so far in the southeastern U.S. Iberdrola Renewables LLC, a Spanish firm, has begun construction on the long-awaited $600 million project with financial help from Amazon, which also…
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Why Can’t Dominion Do Big Wind Projects?
By Peter Galuszka Down in the swamplands and farmlands of northeastern North Carolina, construction has begun on a huge new wind farm that will be the largest so far in the southeastern U.S. Iberdrola Renewables LLC, a Spanish firm, has begun construction on the long-awaited $600 million project with financial help from Amazon, which also…
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Memories of a Klan Rally
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Electoral process, Energy, Federal issues, Government Finance, Gun rights, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka I was looking through a some old clips today and spotted this Golden Oldie that ran in the Jan. 30, 2000 edition of BusinessWeek magazine where I worked for about 15 years. Bloomberg now owns rights to it and I hope they don’t mind me re-running it. Mindful of the lofty rhetoric…