Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Did McDonnell Help Quash Pittsylvania Uranium Mining Resolution?
By Peter Galuszka For months, Pittsylvania County has been a hotbed of controversy as Virginia Uranium tries to get a decades-old moratorium on uranium mining lifted so it can mine and refine a rich, 119-million pound deposit of the radioactive material near Chatham. The latest intrigue involves a Board of Supervisors meeting in early September…
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Don’t Mess with Down Home
By Peter Galuszka Steamy and sticky in the late-summer humidity, U.S. 460 between Petersburg and Suffolk has the milieu of the Deep South with its rusting peanut processing plants, red brick small towns and the straight-as-an-arrow mainline of the Norfolk Southern slicing through occasional roads with warning lights at the sides. These days, curious little roadside…
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Virginia’s Hottest Contraband
By Peter Galuszka Somehow it seems as quaint as a black and white crime movie from the 1950s. A van pulls up to a country store in the dark of night. A gang of men led by gravel-voiced Robert Mitchum loads up on cartons of cigarettes, and sets off for the big city Up North…
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Forbes on Cutting Virginia’s Defense Sector
By Peter Galuszka A couple of days ago I went to my mailbox next to the brightly-bloomed crepe myrtles and there was a four-color brochure from my Congressman, Randy Forbes, whose district stretches from the military-saturated cities of South Hampton Roads to the southern part of Chesterfield County where I live. Randy Forbes is a…
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Virginia’s Pathetic Air Pollution Ranking
By Peter Galuszka Despite a glut of less-polluting natural gas as a source of generating electrical power, Virginia is still a significant air polluter, according to a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. One person who should take note is Gov. Robert F. McDonnell whose energy choices have always leaned heavily towards fossil…
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Hottest July on Record!
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Taxes, Water-waste water‘Nuff said. — PAG
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HCA’s Dr. EBITDA?
By Peter Galuszka Just on the heels of a blog posting praise for-profit HCA hospital company for “partnering” with doctors in Virginia to encourage “peer review” of best practices comes a devastating front page lead story in this morning’s New York Times. It seems that HCA got into big trouble in Florida when doctors ordered…
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The Dangerous Online Education Craze
By Peter Galuszka Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell sure seems to love lobbyists. When it came time select someone to be co-chairman of a “summit” on education in August, he chose James W. Dyke Jr., a former state secretary of education who is now a registered lobbyist for the big-time online, for-profit companies as The…
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Dulles Rail and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
by James A. Bacon The Dulles Rail project plods inexorably forward. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has issued a Request for Qualifications Information (RFQI) to solicit qualifications statements from potential bidders on the 11.5-mile rail line. Companies who submit applications will be narrowed down to a short list of five firms. The contract will be…
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The Desperate Need for Financial Regulation
By Peter Galuszka Regulation is the perpetual bug-a-boo among Baconauts, Boomergeddons and Blowhards of many ilk. Drop back to 2008 when our economy nearly crashed and the banking system all but collapsed. These folk will blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for giving out home mortgages to unqualified “under class” types. They conveniently forget that…
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Virginia’s Slipping “Best To Do Business” Rating
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Old Dominion politicians and economic boosters love to tout the state’s typically high ranking in various surveys of the “best states to do business.” But the latest such ranking, by CNBC, shows Virginia dropping from first place to third. One reason is roads. “Infrastructure – specifically the state’s perpetually clogged highways –…
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Hotter Than. . .
By Peter Galuszka …The Fourth of July. Sorry that I have to spell it out, but there are a number of climate change deniers at this blog, including the Big Blogger himself, so it may be necessary to make things simple. In case, you haven’t noticed, this Independence Day marks a period of some extreme…
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Remake Boards of Visitors Now
By Peter Galuszka An early summer calm has settled on the “The Lawn” at the University of Virginia following 16 days of pointless controversy that damaged the school’s reputation and raised serious questions about how Mr. Jefferson’s school should be run. The most important issues wafting up from the now-quiet battleground are not really whether…
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Finally, Good News on Immigration
By Peter Galuszka Long-simmering immigration issues are starting to bubble over now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given a partial victory in opposing Arizona’s racist law. The ruling follows a bold action by President Barack Obama to allow law-abiding young people who happen to be undocumented aliens to stay in this country. The court…