Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Can Teaching Be Fixed to Transform It From a Burnout Job? – A Professional Approach
by James C. Sherlock K-12 teachers all over the state and country report burnout. There are lengthy discussions — OK, arguments — about the reasons for that situation. But no one denies it is happening. One of the attractions of teaching when I was a kid and a young man was that teachers, largely then…
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Wind: SCC Rejects Deal Signed By Its Staff
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Rejecting an agreement that its own staff reached with Dominion Energy Virginia, the State Corporation Commission has imposed at least some level of financial risk on the utility’s shareholders should its $10 billion offshore wind project fail to match the…
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Delayed Fuel Costs May Include Interest Now
by Steve Haner Dominion Energy Virginia wants its customers, not its shareholders, to pay an interest penalty for the privilege of taking three years to pay off the recent explosion in its fuel costs. The company is paying about $1 billion more for fuel than it planned when the fuel portion of bills was set…
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Social Theory vs. Science in K-12 Discipline in Virginia – Fraud or Just Wrong?
by James C. Sherlock American school children have in my lifetime been the subject of widespread experiments in theory disguised as breakthroughs in education. Consider the “new math” and the “reading wars” as prominent examples. Now we have social theory on school discipline created by federal civil rights lawyers piggybacking on what may or may…
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Portsmouth, Norfolk and Newport News – New Applications for Section 8 Vouchers, Public Housing Mostly Closed
by James C. Sherlock I authored a piece here recently about the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA) and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. I made the point that it is very difficult to find housing that can profitably be rehabbed to Section 8 standards. I note that the only open waiting list…
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Wojick on Whales III: The Noisy Driving of Piles
by David Wojick The Virginia wind-versus-whales story has taken a turn for the worse. Worse for the severely endangered Right Whales that is. My research has found what may be some really bad news. Meet Tethys. Not the real Tethys, the mythical Greek Titan of the sea, but the U.S. Department of Energy’s center for…
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Solar Development Continues to Erode VA Farmland
by Barbara Hollingsworth First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginia lost about 2,000 acres of productive farmland per week in 2021, according to data released in February by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are many reasons why farmers sell off their land, including development pressures, lack of interest by younger members…
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Bill to Bury Fauquier Powerline Comes to You
by Steve Haner One of the key skills in politics is to make your constituents happy with money provided from those far, far away. It is happening again as Fauquier County’s leaders want the General Assembly to force all Dominion Energy Virginia’s ratepayers to pay to bury a 230-kv power line out of sight from…
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Five Reasons to Reject Offshore Wind
by Steve Haner Researchers at the University of Virginia are part of an ongoing effort to redesign wind turbines to be both more efficient and better protected from storm-scale winds, as described in this video you can find on a university website. What is the problem to be addressed? Says one of the engineers: As…
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Public Featherbedding at the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority?
by James C. Sherlock Daniel Berti published an excellent investigative report this morning in The Virginian-Pilot. “Norfolk’s housing authority is in ‘dire’ financial condition, bloated after years of failing to downsize” details what may prove to be waste and abuse at that agency to preserve jobs as the administrative requirements and funding of the mission…
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Gender Dysphoria Treatment for Children Needs Some Rules in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock Virginia needs, for the protection of children, parents, and physicians, a law to specify minimum age requirements and require court orders for voluntary medical intervention in child sexual development. When there are physical abnormalities involved, the court can order those treatments as well. On the other hand, I propose a ban…
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Regulations and the Costs of Doing Business in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock About the only category I found interesting in the “Top States for Business” rankings by CNBC, other than the progressive metrics that are featured in many of the categories, is “Cost of Doing Business.” Virginia’s worst score among the six categories of metrics is that one. The methodology used for costs…
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The Crisis of Reducing Costs and Maintaining Standards at Virginia’s State Colleges and Universities
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s state-funded colleges and universities are too expensive. Tuitions are the headline numbers. But student fees and food and housing costs are as important to the budgets of families and individual students as tuition. Costs within the college system have gone up because of a general lack of management systems and…
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Wind Farm Threat to Whales is Next Big Argument
by David Wojick The massive offshore wind (OSW) project proposed by Dominion Energy may pose a serious threat to the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale population. A comprehensive environmental impact assessment is required to determine the extent of this threat and the mitigation it might require. The same is true for the other proposed Mid-Atlantic…
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New Fed Policy Would Hide CMS Data on Patient Safety Records of Hospitals
by James C. Sherlock One of the most disturbing commentaries I have read in a long time relating to federal efforts to improve hospital patient safety reports a major step backwards in that program. I have written here many times of the power of the hospitals over Virginia’s politics. A proposed new federal rule shows…