Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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Court Backs Little Debbie In Tax Dispute
Don’t underestimate Little Debbie – the spunky tyke took on the Augusta County tax collectors and won. But the county still has her money. The Virginia Supreme Court has sided with manufacturer McKee Foods Corporation, which makes the Little Debbie snack products, in a dispute over the tax assessment on its 828,000-square-foot factory in Augusta…
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No Appeal Filed on RGGI Regulation, Now In Force
Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is now fully authorized under a new state regulation, and the deadline to appeal that regulation has now passed with no appeal filed. The text of the regulation is here. Language inserted by General Assembly Republicans into the current state budget merely puts RGGI membership and…
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$7 More on Dominion Bills for Transmission
Electricity bills for Dominion Energy Virginia customers jump again in September – almost $7 monthly for a residential customer using 1000 kilowatt hours – as it begins to collect on $845 million in transmission system investments over the past year. A similar level of investment is planned for next year. The rate hike will appear…
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New Industrial Rate Still Challenged By Microsoft
A hearing on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposal for a new market-based electricity rate for its largest customers opened Thursday with the announcement it had settled its differences with the State Corporation Commission staff and that part of the dispute was over. (The case file is here.) As the SCC staff lined up with the utility,…
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New Front In Dominion’s War Against Competition
Dominion Energy Virginia has opened a new and aggressive front in its economic war against companies seeking to offer Virginians retail choice for electricity service, directly attacking two firms promising 100 percent renewable energy to lure away environmentally minded customers. In separate filings on July 15, the utility charged that both Direct Energy Services LLC…
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Koch Blames Boards, Presidents for Tuition Hikes
Former Old Dominion University president and current emeritus professor of economics James V. Koch is willing to shoulder his share of the blame. “I was president for fifteen years, so I sang some of the same songs that presidents and administrators sing these days.” Those would be the siren songs sung when seeking major and…
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Health Insurance Check-Up; Migration to Medicaid
The number of Virginians buying health insurance as individuals is shrinking and may shrink more, with two trends getting most of the credit: Expansion of Medicaid eligibility and a change in the law that allowed those in business as sole proprietors to buy policies in the small group marketplace. Individual coverage peaked at 418,000 Virginians…
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Sense and Nonsense on Climate Armageddon
A good sense discussion on the Most Important Threat to Human History was provided July 14 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in a guest column from a retired University of Richmond biology professor. Few discussions of the climate change controversy have come closer to my personal views, but Dean Decker has that doctorate from North Carolina…
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Virginia Unemployment Fund Gains In Good Times
Laissez les bon temps roulez. Virginia’s strong employment climate is adding a financial spare tire to Virginia’s unemployment trust fund, now above 83 percent solvency by one actuarial measure and exceeding a federal recommended minimum balance on another measure. The annual unemployment fund status update for a legislative oversight commission Wednesday lasted about 30 minutes,…
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Virginia Mercury At One: Kicking GOP Butt
Success and quality demand recognition, so congratulations to the folks at Virginia Mercury for one year of e-publication. It represents the future of journalism, which is nothing short of tragic. Not that a deep progressive bent (or conservative for that matter) has been unknown in journalism. Most of the great early publications had political backers,…
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VRS Hybrid Plan Drawing Even Fewer Contributions
The percentage of state employees making voluntary contributions to their own retirement pot, contributions which are matched with free money, has continued its rapid decline over the past year. As of March 2019, fewer than half of state employees who should be investing in their own retirement are doing so, according to a Virginia Retirement…
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Yes, Mental Illness is Key, Says U.S. Secret Service
The United States Secret Service, probably not a tool of the gun-loving American right, has just issued a report on 2018 mass shootings with a strong focus on the mental health problems displayed by the shooters. Clearly it didn’t get the same memo received by our friends at Blue Virginia, who think any such discussion…
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Virginia Tax On Racinos Among Lowest in U.S.
If Virginia is going to sell its soul, we should at least get the market price. The Virginia Racing Commission is starting to publish monthly reports on the cash flow to Colonial Downs and to the government under the new state-granted monopoly to operate gambling dens. Any relationship to horse racing in these establishments is…
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Pollution Control Tax Break Not An Incentive
Not every tax policy decision should be made or measured on whether it stimulates more economic activity and thus more taxable revenue for the government. There are things the government should not tax. Yet, returning once again to the well-thumbed June report on manufacturing incentives produced by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, that…
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You Want Solar? Swear Fealty to the Monopoly
The push to create retail electricity choice about to start in Virginia is already fully underway in Florida, with the dominant utility there first proposing and then abandoning a stunning opposition tactic. It wanted to offer an attractive solar option only to customers loyal to its monopoly. The recent Miami Herald story (here), accompanied by…