Category: Labor and Workforce
-
In Energy Studies, No Renewables, Please
By Peter Galuszka For years, Virginia Tech has operated the Center for Coal Research which is dedicated to studying bituminous product, enhance its marketability and make mining it safer and less environmentally destructive. The center receives funding and has sponsors and an advisory board made up of big utilities like Dominion, coal-hauling railroads like Norfolk…
-
Why Private Space Firms Need Oversight
—
by
in Business and Economy, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Environment, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Does bad news come in twos or threes? First, on Oct. 28, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket bound to supply the International Space Station exploded seconds into its take off at Wallops Island on the Virginia Eastern Shore. Three days later, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo designed for space tourism broke in two…
-
Dominion Responds to My Renewable Energy Post
By Peter Galuszka In recent days, there’s been a plenty of discussion about renewable energy. After I wrote two posts, Chester “Chet” Wade, a senior spokesman for Dominion Resources, called me to take issue with some of my ideas. I offered him space to explain Dominion’s views. Here is his response: Your follow-up column has…
-
No More Hippies in Old Sneakers
—
by
By Peter Galuszka Last week, I posted a blog item titled “Why Virginia Has No Renewable Energy,” which drew considerable comments from readers. The day after it ran, I got a call from Chester G. “ Chet” Wade, the vice president of corporate communications for Dominion Resources who had a complaint about my item. I…
-
Sticking it to the Chinese
By Peter Galuszka This is a review of “Factory Man,” a book about the Virginia furniture business and dealing with the inequities of Chinese trade by Beth Macy (Little Brown, 451 pages). This was first published in the October 2014 Bulletin of the Overseas Press Club of America in New York of which I am…
-
Brat’s Strange Immigrant-Bashing
—
by
in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Electoral process, Federal issues, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It must have been an interesting scene. Congressional candidate David Brat had been invited to a meeting of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce along with his Democratic rival Jack Trammell to outline his views on immigration and undocumented aliens. Brat, an obscure economics professor who nailed powerhouse Eric Cantor in a…
-
EPA Carbon Rules: Ask the SCC
By Peter Galuszka Last week, State Corporation Commission drew attention when its staff wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at the EPA’s request, to respond to one of the biggest proposed steps the nation has seen in cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The report sparked considerable interest and confusion over what the SCC staff actually…
-
Could Surry Be an 80-Year Nuke?
By Peter Galuszka Here’s a new twist on the carbon emission debate: Dominion Virginia Power is considering seeking federal approval run its 40-plus year-old Surry nuclear power station for another 40 or so years. The arguments in favor are that keeping the two-units at Surry (1,600 megawatts) going would be a lot cheaper than building…
-
More Coal Industry Propaganda
—
by
By Peter Galuszka If you read a blog posting just below this (the one with the coal miner with an intense look on his grit-covered face), you will see how hyperbole, confusion, misunderstanding, ignorance and one-sided arguments twist something very important to all Virginians – how to deal with carbon dioxide and climate change –…
-
Virginia Tech: What a Difference a Decade Makes
It’s probably been a decade since I’ve been to Virginia Tech. I spent a year living in Blacksburg about 30 years ago and I visited with some frequency during my tenure as editor and then publisher of Virginia Business magazine, but I haven’t had much cause to return to Hokieland recently until this weekend when…
-
Why We’re Being Railroaded On “STEM”
—
by
in Business and Economy, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka When it comes to education, a constant mantra chanted by the Virginia chattering class is “STEM.” How many times have you heard that our students are far behind in “STEM” (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics)? We have to drain funding from more traditional areas of study (that actually might make them better…
-
Burbs Beware: Office Jobs Moving Back to D.C.
Not only are Millennials migrating to the Washington metropolitan region’s urban core, it seems that businesses are, too, in a reversal of the decades-long trend of businesses moving out of the central city to outlying counties. Vacancy rates have risen in Washington, D.C., due to the contraction of legal services and government contracting tied to federal…
-
How to Revive a Lagging Regional Economy
by James A. Bacon Dr. James V. Koch’s “The State of the Region: Hampton Roads 2014” report probably won’t get much attention outside of Hampton Roads, but it should. Not only is Hampton Roads the state’s second largest metropolitan economy, which means that its fortunes and misfortunes send large economic ripples across the state, but Koch’s observations…
-
Health Insurance as Driver of Income Inequality
If you want to address increasing income inequality in the United States, a good place to start would be to bring runaway health insurance costs under control. Health care costs — not globalization, automation or corporate greed — are the biggest driver in income inequality today, argue Mark J. Warshawsky and Andrew G. Biggs in the…
-
Petersburg’s Renaissance
By Peter Galuszka Petersburg has been a special place for me. Years ago, when I’d pass through, I always felt I were driving onto the set of a 1950s or 1960s movie set in the South such as “Cape Fear” starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. A somnambulant ease pervades the place as does the…