Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Apex Encounters Headwinds in Botetourt Wind Project
by James A. Bacon An interesting player is emerging in the Virginia renewable energy scene — Apex Clean Energy. The Charlottesville-based company has announced that it has erected two test towers for a proposed wind farm in Botetourt County to gather data about wind strength and frequency. The company has proposed constructing up to 25 wind turbines…
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A Plethora of Pipelines
Four companies are talking about building gas pipelines through Virginia. How many are needed — and who decides?
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The Next Battle in Virginia's Sharing Economy: Airbnb
by James A. Bacon The fracas in Virginia over Uber and Lyft has settled down. The two “transportation network companies” have submitted to regulation requiring background and safety checks of drivers, and nearly 19,000 vehicles have registered with the state, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The next legal front in the sharing economy is likely to focus…
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The Next Battle in Virginia’s Sharing Economy: Airbnb
by James A. Bacon The fracas in Virginia over Uber and Lyft has settled down. The two “transportation network companies” have submitted to regulation requiring background and safety checks of drivers, and nearly 19,000 vehicles have registered with the state, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The next legal front in the sharing economy is likely to focus…
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Next Step for Offshore Wind
Earlier this year Dominion Virginia Power received a bid for building two experimental offshore wind turbines that exceeded internal cost projections by more than half, making the proposed project unlikely to win State Corporation Commission approval. In a July stakeholder meeting, DVP executives laid out their analysis of what went wrong. Now stakeholders will convene in…
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Clean Power Plan: What Comes Next?
by James A. Bacon I may be like the proverbial three-year-old playing with matches with this blog post, but as I decipher the Clean Power Plan, Virginia’s final CO2 emission goals should be fairly easy to attain — far easier than anyone was anticipating based upon the draft goals published last year. According to the EPA’s…
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Comments on a Book Review
Yesterday, on this site, a book entitled “Ethics and Economics ,” authored by Mr. Wight,was discussed. The review raised a few points that were a bit unclear to me. One of the points made was that the government lacks knowledge about society. This is a bit surprising since the Bureau of Labor Statistics,…
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Market Failure and Government Failure
by James A. Bacon Jon Wight, a business school professor at the University of Richmond, is a huge fan of Adam Smith, best known for his classic economic treatise, “The Wealth of Nations.” Wight thinks Smith is one of the greatest economists who ever lived, not as much on the grounds that he championed “free markets,” as…
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Will Virginia COPN Study Group Ask the Critical Questions?
by James A. Bacon State Certificate of Public Need (COPN) programs come in many shapes and sizes across the United States. Fourteen states have abolished the health-care regulatory program entirely, while states that continue to regulate capital investments in health care facilities and high-end equipment vary widely in what they regulate. Among states with COPN, Virginia…
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Alpha Natural Resources: Running Wrong
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Four years ago, coal titan Alpha Natural Resources, one of Virginia’s biggest political donors, was riding high. It was spending $7.1 billion to buy Massey Energy, a renegade coal firm based in Richmond that had compiled an extraordinary record for safety and environmental violations and fines. Its management practices culminated in a…
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Pipelines and Property Lines
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline wants to inspect land along a proposed 550-mile route. Legal challenges from landowners could re-write a 2004 law governing property rights in utility surveys.
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Renewable Energy: A Tale of Two Virginias
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By Peter Galuszka Call it a tale of two Virginias – at least when it comes to renewable energy. One is the state’s traditional political and business elite, including Dominion Resources and large manufacturers, the State Corporation Commission and others. They insist that the state must stick with big, base-loaded electricity generating plants like nuclear…
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Stricter Penalties, Safer Roads
by James A. Bacon I will concede this upfront: Bacon playing with statistics is like a toddler playing with a gun. Nothing good can come of it. With that word of warning, I ask readers to indulge me for a moment. WalletHub, the financial advisory website, has come up with yet another listicle — a…
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A Glimpse into the Byzantine World of Virginia Health Care
by James A. Bacon To call the United States health care system Byzantine is to cast a slur upon the ancient empire of that name. A glimpse of the bizarre, Rube Goldberg-esque way in which the system functions in Virginia can be seen in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch article about the state’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) program.…
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The Ironies of Virginia's Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…