Category: Economic development
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Does This Highway Need to be Widened to Six Lanes?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There is a campaign underway to expand a stretch of I-64 from Richmond to James City County. Currently, the Interstate highway is a four-lane divided highway. The proposal is to add an additional lane in each direction. The Department of Transportation estimates the cost of the project at $750 million. The first…
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Economic Development in the Era of CRT and COVID
by James A. Bacon George Allen is no longer engaged in the rough and tumble of partisan politics. But as a Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar with the Young America’s Foundation, he still gives a fair number of speeches. And when he does, he sounds the Reaganesque themes that he championed as Governor and then U.S.…
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Another Try for Natural Gas to Hampton Roads
by Steve Haner Natural gas pipeline companies have applied to federal regulators with another proposal to enhance supply into Virginia’s Hampton Roads region, despite the earlier failures of two similar high profile efforts. Columbia Gas Transmission, part of TC Energy which is best known for the recently-rejected Keystone XL pipeline, is proposing to replace 48…
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We Need to Help That Poor Billionaire Out
by Dick Hall-Sizemore With all the huffing and puffing about CRT, face masks, and “wokeism” at UVa, Bacon’s Rebellion has ignored what could be the biggest scam in the General Assembly: the subsidization of an ultrarich guy and his plan to build a football stadium and surrounding “mini-city” in Northern Virginia. The General Assembly is…
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Taking One More Brick from the Green Wall
by James C. Sherlock The green wall preventing businesses from operating at some level of certainty when and if their development proposals will be approved is missing a brick today. The days of a Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board and State Water Control Board overruling the findings of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality…
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Warren Harris: From Economic Development Director To Embezzler
by Kerry Dougherty Does anyone believe that if they stole almost $80,000 from the city of Virginia Beach, they’d be able to walk? Not spend a day in jail? Get a slap on the wrist? Of course not. But the rules are different for crooked city officials. Yesterday, the former head of Virginia Beach Department…
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Impractical Solar Power, Illustrated With the Math
by David Wojick This was first published at cfact.org and is reproduced with Wojick’s permission. Many states and the utilities they regulate are talking about replacing their coal and gas fired generators with solar and wind power. For example, I recently wrote about how the crazy-named Virginia Clean Economy Act already has almost 800 square…
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Can Financially Failing Coal Plant Be Closed?
by Steve Haner The economic decision on whether and when to cut and run from a losing investment is always complicated. The debate over the future of Dominion Energy Virginia’s economically failing coal plant in Wise County will be complicated by power politics. The State Corporation Commission has been asked to accept an agreement between…
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Youngkin Expounds on His Expansive Economic-Development Vision
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s economy has grown at a sluggish 0.9% compounded annual rate of growth over the past eight years, says Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, and he wants to get it “really cranked up” to a normalized rate of 2.5%. To accomplish that goal, he tells Virginia Business magazine, he proposes to do three…
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How’d Virginia Do in “The Great Pandemic Migration?”
Glenn Youngkin was right. Yes, Virginia, we have a problem. by Chris Saxman Most mornings start with brewing a large pot of coffee, letting the dogs out into the fenced in backyard, and waiting for the papers to be delivered. Usually I can skim through the local old soldier, the Richmond Times Dispatch, before the…
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Northam’s Economic-Development Legacy
by James A. Bacon Business Facilities magazine has ranked Virginia first in the nation for its overall business climate, while Tennessee and Massachusetts snagged top spots for business dealmaking and the best workforce/education system, respectively. The site-selection publication cited Virginia’s location adjacent to Washington, D.C., its pro-business work environment, and its strong workforce and educational…
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Dodging a Bullet
Virginia voters have swept Terry McAuliffe into the dustbin of political history, so one might reasonably ask if there is any point in re-hashing more of the GreenTech Automotive story than Bacon’s Rebellion has already detailed in a recent five-part series. The answer is yes. One part of the tale is still worth retelling —…
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Welcome to Loudoun – Just Avoid Route 7
by James C. Sherlock Saw this headline in the Washington Business Journal. “Toll Brothers pushes big residential plans in Ashburn — and a tribute to enslaved people who once lived there.” Behind the headline: This is to be a development of 1,300 residences in a project named Mercer Crossing. Since it is being built by…
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In Praise of Two Great Public Servants
by James A. Bacon Virginia has been blessed to have had many superb public servants over the years. They may not be remembered in the history books, which have a bias toward elected politicians, but we are reminded of the indispensable contributions of at least two of them in today’s news clippings. One is leaving…
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The Ten-Year Tab for Economic Development Incentives: $3 Billion
by James A. Bacon Virginia spent $3 billion on economic incentive programs during the decade of the 2010s (between FY 2011 to FY 2020), equivalent to 1.5% of the total General Fund budget. Although there is considerable variability from year to year, incentives grew roughly twice as rapidly as the rest of the total budget,…