Category: Manufacturing
-
Big Pharma Greed — or Low Risk Tolerance?
by James A. Bacon “All over this country, the American people are asking why it is that they pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders noted in a screed published a couple of years ago. “Why is it that nearly one out of every four adults…
-
Caves, Hokie Stone, and Crayons
by Dick Hall-Sizemore This year’s Virginia Geological Field Conference was held in Radford the weekend before Election Day. Like the one I attended last year in the Mt. Rogers area, it was an opportunity to go back in time as well as get a brief respite from the drumbeat of politics. The tenor of this…
-
Virginia’s New Blue Collar Boom Town
by James A. Bacon The Hampton Roads region will need 40,000 skilled workers over the next six years to support growth of the maritime and offshore wind industries, says Hampton Roads Workforce Council President and CEO Shawn Avery. Most of those jobs will require blue-collar skills now in short supply. Newport News Shipbuilding will need…
-
Virginia Risks Running Out of Other People’s Power
By Steve Haner An electricity drought is looming, not only for Virginia but also for much of the United States, if the political hostility toward the most reliable forms of electricity generation is not reversed. Warnings that wind and solar power alone will not be sufficient resonated like a drumbeat from the podium of a…
-
The Strike at the AdvanSix Chemical Plant in Hopewell – A Complex Story
by James C. Sherlock We don’t see very many industrial strikes in Virginia. Regular readers know that I have often supported blue collar unions in the private economy. My family roots are linked to Pennsylvania coal mines. Those miners’ strongest claims were for their own safety. Followed very closely by their demands for living wages.…
-
The More Things Remain the Same
by Joe Fitzgerald Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Hopewell chemical plant where Kepone was born and raised has been cited 66 times over the past eight years for releasing toxic chemicals into the air and into the James River. The Richmond Times-Dispatch tells the story better than I do. What makes this…
-
Petersburg Seeks State Funding for Projects Linked to Public Health and the Appomattox River
by James C. Sherlock While all of the attention in the state press has been on Petersburg’s proposed casino, the estimable Bill Atkinson of the Petersburg Progress-Index provided insight into other Petersburg requests to the General Assembly for budget amendments. Badly needed infrastructure projects and a tourism initiative are each tied to the health of…
-
Why Did Youngkin Spurn a $3.5 Billion Investment?
by James A. Bacon When you nix what might have been a $3.5 billion investment creating a reported 2,500 jobs in one of Virginia’s most depressed regions, you’d better have a good explanation. But when mammoth economic development deals are wrapped in secrecy backed by non-disclosure agreements, it’s difficult providing that explanation. That’s the pickle…
-
Consumers Be Wary When Energy Elephants Dance
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The Virginia House of Delegates is expected to vote this week to exempt certain Virginia manufacturers, which ones to be determined later, from the coming wave of energy costs created by Virginia’s rapid transition to unreliable forms of power generation.
-
How Many Pieces Did You Say It Will Take To Build This Plant?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There is more good news for the Commonwealth. As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Youngkin announced on Wednesday that the Lego Group will invest at least $1 billion to build a new manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County. It would be Lego’s only manufacturing facility in the United States. The company projected…
-
Commonwealth Set for Major Broadband Expansion
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the issues underlined by the pandemic was the need for all areas of the state to have access to broadband internet. Without access to broadband, kids (and adults) in rural areas cannot take advantage of courses offered online. To the extent that more people will be working remotely, rural areas…
-
The Defense Production Act as a Political Tool to Boost Solar Farms
by James C. Sherlock We have had multiple discussions, good ones, on the issues surrounding solar farms in Virginia. Jim Bacon wrote an excellent column about it in February of 2021 titled “The Political Economy of Solar Farms.” It was good then and prescient as of yesterday. He wrote another one two days earlier. From that…
-
Why Not Virginia for Semiconductor Manufacturing Expansion?
by James C. Sherlock Among the things that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made clear is the vulnerability of Taiwan and with it, the access of the U.S. economy to the 90% of advanced computer chips manufactured there. The national security requirement for domestic chip manufacturing brings opportunity. It is the nation’s most urgent…