Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Feds: Whales Must Be Protected from Turbines
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Soon after a group of opponents to proposed East Coast offshore wind projects hired a law firm with environmental regulation expertise, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced a new plan to protect North Atlantic Right Whales and…
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Suggestions to Ease Virginia’s Housing Crisis without Additional State Money
by James C. Sherlock The Richmond Times-Dispatch, on cue, wrote in an editorial the other day that more state money was needed to fund local housing. Maybe. But that is not the first place to look. The governor wants to condition development aid to local communities on their reforming land-use policies to permit more construction.…
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Profoundly Unethical: UVa Children’s Hospital Hides Child Gender Transition Information from Public Scrutiny
by James C. Sherlock I published a series of articles earlier this year that criticized the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital on its approach to gender transition in minors as young as 11. As a result, the hospital made at least some movement towards change by announcing it was assigning pediatric clinical psychologists to join…
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No Climate Crisis. Very Little Climate Change.
by Steve Haner Wednesday’s climate propaganda sermon in the Richmond Times-Dispatch focused on the most recent failure of alarmist media messaging concerning the now-completed Atlantic hurricane season, which turned out to be average. It was predicted to be far more active than average, so once again the prophets of doom were wrong. Folks in Florida…
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Batting Zero on Virginia Energy Policy Reset
by Steve Haner One year later, a series of energy policy goals for Virginia proposed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy remains just as valid and also remain unaccomplished. Gridlock has favored the flawed status quo. Compared to a year ago, more Virginians have awakened to the reality that they will soon be…
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Virginia Should Enforce Threat Assessment Laws. Noting Lack of Compliance Not Enough.
by James C. Sherlock I have written about the Threat Assessment Teams (TAT’s) of two state universities, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. I assessed Tech to be compliant with state law. I reported that UVa is not. That of course raises the issue of the rest of Virginia’s colleges and universities. The Virginia…
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Petersburg Resumes Important Actions Against City Code Violators — Homeless Needs Increase
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes absolutely necessary actions have more than one outcome. Such is the case in Petersburg. Joyce Chu of Petersburg’s indispensable Progress- Index last evening initiated a multi-part series on the impacts of the city’s closure due to safety violations of two motels used by otherwise homeless people. Her first article makes…
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SCC Urged To Focus on Wind Construction Risk
by Steve Haner Advocates made their case Monday for a proposed settlement that offers Virginia consumers some protection from construction cost overruns on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed offshore wind project. Not everybody said it was superior to an earlier proposal that protected consumers from future operational failures, but all saw it as unlikely to kill…
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SCC’s Jagdmann Resigns, Leaves December 31
by Steve Haner The (Very) Honorable Judith Jagdmann has resigned from Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, effective at the end of the year. The 2023 General Assembly now has two seats to fill on that crucial body, having failed through all of 2022 to fill an existing vacancy on the three-judge panel. Jagdmann, who joined the…
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Richmond Slashes Permit Backlog and Delays
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The city government of Richmond has often taken a beating on these pages, usually deservedly so. Now, there is some good news to report. David Ress of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the city has significantly improved its permit processing times. For example, the time to process a building permit application dropped…
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The Commissars of Charlottesville
by James C. Sherlock Leon Trotsky, who headed the Red Army from 1917-22, did not trust it. On 6 April 1918, he wrote in Isvestia: The military commissar is the direct political agent of Soviet power within the army. His post is of the highest importance. Commissars are appointed from the ranks of exemplary revolutionaries,…
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East Coast Ocean Wind Projects Faltering
by Steve Haner In recent days several proposed offshore wind projects, which unlike Virginia’s are not guaranteed by captive ratepayers, are showing cracks in their pylons. Multinational developer Avangrid recently told Massachusetts regulators that its proposed 1.2 gigawatt Commonwealth Wind project is no longer economically viable. It seems to be seeking to renegotiate the power…
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Miyares Retreats from Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The big risk with Dominion Energy Virginia’s planned offshore wind extravaganza has always been that either the wind out in the Atlantic blows too little or it blows too much. Too little and the ratepayers are paying an inordinate amount…
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Virginia Drops from A+ to C in Worker Freedom — Largest Decrease in the Country
by F. Vincent Vernuccio Virginia’s ranking fell more than any other state in the Commonwealth Foundation’s 50 State Labor Report “The Battle for Worker Freedom in the States: Grading State Labor Laws.” Virginia plunged from an “A+” ranking in 2019 to a dismal “C” this year. This was due to what the report called “[t]he…
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Physicians, Hospitals and Gender Dysphoria in Minors- Fundamental Disputes
By James C. Sherlock What about the doctors in this controversy? What about hospital and state oversight? What do laws and regulations require and on what are they silent? We’ll look. The dispute among physicians on the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors is primarily an ethical one. They agree on the diagnosis and some…