Category: Environment
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ALEC, the Tea Party and the Feral GOP
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Gun rights, Immigration, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Virginia’s conservatives have gone through a spasm of controversy as they struggle to find their message. They desperately need to balance their ideas of fiscal discipline and limited government with a wide spectrum of unrelated hard-right social issues. The clearest evidence yet of the quandary for their soul involves the American Legislative…
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Dulles Rail: “Good Night, John Boy”
By Peter Galuszka The convoluted schemes of Virginia state politicians to avoid paying for rail service to Dulles International Airport are as frustrating as they are self-defeating and unfair. Just a few days ago, it seemed that the General Assembly would consider adding $300 million to extend Metrorail to Dulles on the Silver Line when…
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Closely Watched Trains
By Peter Galuszka A few weeks ago, I was making another trip to the area near Matewan, W.Va., a small, historic town of red brick buildings a stone’s throw across the Tug Fork River from Kentucky. Matewan is noted for its coalfield labor strife caught dramatically in John Sayles superb 1987 movie of the same…
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Studying the Study Group
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell administration hosted a hastily assembled meeting yesterday to address, in the words Deputy Sectretary of Natural Resources Maureen Matsen, the “perceived lack of transparency in the conduct of [the] Uranium Working Group.” The meeting was attended by a couple dozen stakeholders, administration officials and members of the press. If the…
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Expanding U.S. 460 and the Chinese Connection
By Peter Galuszka In the past day or so, there’s been a bit of buzz about a decades-old plan to expand the northwest to southeast route U.S. 460 takes through Virginia’s peanut country on its way to Tidewater. This latest bit of boosterism posits that giant ships inbound to Virginia via the widened Panama Canal…
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Five Ways Virginia Sucks
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Gun rights, LGBQT, Money in politics, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka An alternative blogger is listing five ways Virginia may be the worst state in the union, a.k.a. “Bob Land.” Tara Lohan of AlterNet notes that generally, watching the news these days is like going through a time warp when it comes to debates about birth control or teaching science in the classroom.…
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Even NAS Braniacs Have Unanswered Questions about Uranium Mining
by James A. Bacon The National Academy of Sciences report on uranium mining in Virginia covers a lot of ground, as anyone who peruses the 290-page document can attest. But the panel of co-authors attending a public presentation of the report in downtown Richmond last night conceded that there was a lot that they didn’t…
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What Baconauts Won’t Discuss
By Peter Galuszka Reading the Bacon’s Rebellion Blog always displays breathtaking contradictions. Chief among them is the huge contradiction between pushing “smart growth” and shunning any form of increasing gasoline taxation. The crux is that we have lots of horrendous sprawl in the state such as all of Northern Virginia, Route 3 in Fredericksburg and…
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IG of the Day: Virginia’s Impaired Waters
Virginia’s waters aren’t necessarily getting more polluted, but the Department of Environmental Quality is doing a better job of sampling Virginia’s rivers and streams, with the result that more dirty stretches of waterway are being found. This map shows the varying water quality across the state. Not much of it is pristine. Read the report.…
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The Uranium Quagmire
By Peter Galuszka For the 50 or so people sitting in the quaint Pepsi-Cola building Tuesday in Danville’s tobacco warehouse district, the information seemed to spawn more frustration than clarity. They had gathered to hear two economic impact reports regarding controversial plans by Virginia Uranium to mine an ore deposit a dozen miles to the…
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Big Oil… Big Solar… Big Algae?
President Obama may rue the day when he touted algae-based biofuels as a long-term solution for rising energy costs. Conservatives from Newt Gingrich to Charles Krauthammer have subjected the idea to endless mockery. Google “Obama algae for fuel” and you’ll hit a treasure trove of ridicule and satire. Lucky thing for Obama that the late night comedians…
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Tracking Sea-Level Rise on Virginia’s Coast
by James A. Bacon Scientists Scott Hardaway and Bryan Watts, both affiliated with the College of William and Mary, have made a specialty of studying hummocks along the Chesapeake Bay coastline. Hummocks, which are stands of trees growing in patches of dry land surrounded by marsh, are a visible gauge of rising sea levels. As…
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The “Agenda 21” Nutbars
By Peter Galuszka A half a century ago in rural places like the tobacco and corn fields of Eastern North Carolina, there used to be billboards with strong and aggressive messages. One said: “This Is Klan Country.” Another advocated: “U.S. Out of the United Nations.” Both represented frightening, hard-right elements. The source of the first…
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¡Viva la Revolución!
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterEstimado Jefe! Usted nunca debe salir de la ciudad, señor! Ahora que usted está ausente, la revolución comienza! Amados lectores de ya no ver los artículos que glorifican a los ricos y privilegiados. Vamos a ayudar a la tierra y los pobres y redistribuir los fondos de cobertura. ¡Viva la Revolución!
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A Pathetic Half-Time
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By Peter Galuszka It’s so-called halftime at the Virginia General Assembly, and with conservative Republicans holding sway and many serious problems facing the Commonwealth, here’s what we’ve come up with so far: Women exercising their constitutional right to have an abortion now will be forced to undergo and pay for an ultrasound before the procedure.…