Category: Planning
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Richmond’s Redskins Deal Gets Even Weirder
By Peter Galuszka The deal for the Washington Redskins to build a summer training facility gets richer, more one-sided and more questionable by the day. The latest wrinkle, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch, is that the City of Richmond will use money from its school and jail budgets to pony up a $10 million…
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Clouding NoVa’s Planning Horizon: A Higher Washington Skyline?
by James A. Bacon One of the most important decisions affecting human settlement patterns in Northern Virginia is under review by the Washington, D.C., city council and Congress — and there is absolutely nothing anyone in Virginia can do about it. I’m not talking about the future of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) or…
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Is Now the Time for a Carbon Tax?
By Peter Galuszka With the 2012 election decided, there seems to be some movement towards considering establishing a carbon tax to cut greenhouse gases and mitigate climate change. Despite the Kyoto Protocols of 1997, which the U.S. did not sign, and a slew of renewable energy projects in places such as Europe, there has been…
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The Scary New World of Uneven Sea Water Levels
By Peter Galuszka Ten days later, New York City and parts of the New Jersey and New York coast are still reeling from Super Storm Sandy as yet another nor’easter packing 50 mile per hour winds approaches. Scientific evidence points out that sea level rises caused by melting polar icecaps caused, in turn, by climate…
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President Barack Obama!
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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, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, 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 waterBy Peter Galuszka President Barack Obama’s re-election and success with Virginia in Tuesday’s contest could provide a fresh opportunity to solidify more economic recovery than what have otherwise may have happened. It could be a real chance for bipartisan progress. Here’s my takeaway at 2:30 a.m.: Virginia has again shown that it is morphing into…
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Thinking the Big Thoughts about Transportation Planning
by James A. Bacon Under the auspices of updating the VTrans 2035 transportation plan, the McDonnell administration is executing a far-reaching overhaul of Virginia’s strategic planning process. The new approach would use performance metrics for such criteria as safety, congestion, the economy and the environment to create a data-driven system for prioritizing transportation projects. The…
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No Need for Question 1 on Eminent Domain
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Environment, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention during this campaign, but Virginia will decide Tuesday whether to go with an amendment resulting in the toughest law in the country regarding eminent domain. Virginia has a law already that requires fair market compensation for private property taken for “Public Good” such as building…
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Celanese: The “War on Coal” Versus Reality
By Peter Galuszka The “War on Coal” has marched on Giles County and the propaganda is flying. Yet the problem is a bit more complicated. The latest skirmish involves a Celanese Acetate plant that makes products for cigarette filters and other items. The largest employer in the mountainous county, Celanese opened its chemical works on…
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Sandy, Nukes, the Internet and Climate Change
By Peter Galuszka Super-storm Sandy raises more issues about nuclear power, the internet and also about global warming. As the storm struck the New Jersey coast and flooded New York City, three nuclear rectors were shut down because of problems with high water levels and electricity. Another reactor went on standby “alert” because its water…
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Sandy’s Subliminal Messages
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Insurance, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & Technology, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka You have to love the Richmond Times-Dispatch. They never miss an opportunity to showcase their beloved Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell. As Hurricane Sandy approached, our intrepid governor was pictured everywhere: giving a statement about a state of emergency; looking very leader-like in a command center; appearing concerned as in this TD…
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The New Reality of U.S. Energy Few Admit
By Peter Galuszka When it comes to energy, the 2012 election campaign may present one version of reality but another world – that of cold, hard economics – presents something else. In the process, a number of myths are being shattered. The most recent news is that Richmond-based Dominion is shutting down its Wisconsin-based Kewaunee…
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Tell George Allen: U.S. Coal Exports to Europe Reaching Record Highs
By Peter Galuszka This just in from the trenches of “The War on Coal.” How can it be that the U.S. coal industry is heading towards extinction because of Barack Obama’s “war” on the sector when American coal exports to Europe are approaching record highs? Yes, I have that right. It’s actually an unusual flip…
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The Problem Privatizing Virginia Ports Won’t Solve
By Peter Galuszka Many years ago – 37 years to be precise – I stood in the fancy dining room of a blocky-looking Japanese cargo ship and drank a toast to the captain with his Suntory scotch. The ship was docked at Portsmouth Marine Terminals, part of the Virginia Port Authority, and it was an…
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A Rising Tide Raises… Questions. Lots of Questions.
A new William & Mary Law School clinic will address prickly legal and policy questions arising from endemic flooding in Virginia’s vulnerable Tidewater lowlands. by James A. Bacon No one knows how fast the sea level off Virginia’s coast will rise by the end of the century. It could be more than a foot, if…
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What Massey Energy? What Mine Disaster?
By Peter Galuszka A follow up on the “Governor’s Conference on Energy” in Richmond this week. Yesterday, I attended a session titled “Coal: Rhetoric Versus Reality.” As expected, the “rhetoric” was that of environmentalists and the “reality” was what was presented by two coal company executives and a lobbyist from the American Coalition for Clean…