Category: Business and Economy
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RGGI Tax, On Path to Repeal, Reaches $524 Million
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by Virginia electricity plants dropped to below $13 a ton in the most recent sale of CO2 allowances conducted by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). That meant Virginia collected only…
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Housing Cost Burdens in Virginia – A Survey
by James C. Sherlock With all of the public policy discussion of housing in Virginia, it is useful to examine how burdened Virginians are by the costs of their housing. Based on brand new data from the Bureau of the Census, the average Virginia homeowner is in pretty good shape compared to others in America.…
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Why Does Dominion Fear a Wind Output Promise?
By Steve Haner While we await a decision by the State Corporation Commission on competing approaches for protecting consumers from unexpected offshore wind costs, some additional relevant information is worthy of notice. Two items call into question Dominion Energy Virginia’s refusal to assume financial risk for poor turbine performance.
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Data Dump
by Bob Rayner Modern marketers understand the value of data — no matter how trivial. That’s how we know, or at least can consider the possibility, that Virginia is the 10th sleepiest state in the union, tied with Pennsylvania, a numbers nugget delivered by MatressInsider.com, the bedding retailer. The company gathered county health data from…
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Feds: Whales Must Be Protected from Turbines
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Soon after a group of opponents to proposed East Coast offshore wind projects hired a law firm with environmental regulation expertise, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced a new plan to protect North Atlantic Right Whales and…
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Virginia’s Northam Learning Gap
by L. Scott Ligamfelter It should surprise no one. After the ill-conceived March 2020 closing of Virginia’s public schools by former Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, it should have been evident that children would suffer academically. We now know the extent of that damage to fourth and eighth grade students. Virginia’s Secretary of Education, Aimee Rogstad Guidera,…
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Whiplash on Virginia’s Economy
by Dick Hall-Sizemore “Our beloved Commonwealth is in a ditch.” Glenn Youngkin, May 7, 2021.also see here. “The commonwealth has never been in a stronger financial condition.” Glenn Youngkin, Nov. 21, 2022
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Batting Zero on Virginia Energy Policy Reset
by Steve Haner One year later, a series of energy policy goals for Virginia proposed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy remains just as valid and also remain unaccomplished. Gridlock has favored the flawed status quo. Compared to a year ago, more Virginians have awakened to the reality that they will soon be…
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SCC Urged To Focus on Wind Construction Risk
by Steve Haner Advocates made their case Monday for a proposed settlement that offers Virginia consumers some protection from construction cost overruns on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed offshore wind project. Not everybody said it was superior to an earlier proposal that protected consumers from future operational failures, but all saw it as unlikely to kill…
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Afghan Immigrants and Their Children in Virginia – Part 1
by James C. Sherlock The flow of Afghan refugees into Virginia has been at a much higher volume than is generally appreciated. I have data on Virginia resettlements of Afghanis from 2016 through the middle of 2021, when the total was 8,560. The current total is far higher as a result of the Kabul airlift.…
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JLARC Agrees: Index Virginia Taxes to Inflation
by Barbara Hollingsworth Inflation is eroding the value of each dollar earned by Virginians, making it harder for them to afford decent housing, put food on the table and educate their children. But what many Virginians don’t know is that they have also been paying more in state income taxes while their real income has…
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The Commissars of Charlottesville
by James C. Sherlock Leon Trotsky, who headed the Red Army from 1917-22, did not trust it. On 6 April 1918, he wrote in Isvestia: The military commissar is the direct political agent of Soviet power within the army. His post is of the highest importance. Commissars are appointed from the ranks of exemplary revolutionaries,…
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Internships and Upward Mobility
by James A. Bacon From time immemorial, it has been a priority of Virginia governors of both parties to promote workforce development through community college, job training programs, apprenticeships, and the like. An under-utilized strategy, suggests Beyond Academy, is college internships. Beyond Academy, which markets international internship programs, has published a report ranking the 50…
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East Coast Ocean Wind Projects Faltering
by Steve Haner In recent days several proposed offshore wind projects, which unlike Virginia’s are not guaranteed by captive ratepayers, are showing cracks in their pylons. Multinational developer Avangrid recently told Massachusetts regulators that its proposed 1.2 gigawatt Commonwealth Wind project is no longer economically viable. It seems to be seeking to renegotiate the power…
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Miyares Retreats from Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The big risk with Dominion Energy Virginia’s planned offshore wind extravaganza has always been that either the wind out in the Atlantic blows too little or it blows too much. Too little and the ratepayers are paying an inordinate amount…