Bacon's Rebellion

  • McDermid for Secretary of Administration

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    James A. Bacon

    Lyn McDermid

    The latest Glenn Youngkin appointment: Lyn McDermid as Secretary of Administration. Ordinarily, that is a low-key position. But, according to the press release, Youngkin is entrusting her with several high-profile tasks: revamping Virginia’s cyber-security system, fixing the Department of Motor Vehicles, repairing the Virginia Employment Commission, and the old chestnut, “root[ing] out waste, fraud and abuse.”

    McDermid has IT credentials out the wazoo — most notably, she served as chief information officer for the Federal Reserve Bank between 2013 and 2020 — and she is highly respected in the Richmond business community.

    There is one small but telling detail in the press release, which lists McDermid’s many affiliations by name, and mentions that she had served as chief information officer at an unnamed “Richmond based Fortune 500 company.” That company was Dominion Energy. Is Team Youngkin trying to distance itself from the company, which was the architect behind the Virginia Clean Economy Act and its goal of a zero-carbon electric grid? Stay tuned.

    — JAB

  • Time for Fireworks — Youngkin Appoints Trump EPA Chief

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    James A. Bacon

    Andrew Wheeler

    by James A. Bacon

    Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has signaled a major shift in Virginia’s environmental policy with two appointments: Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural Resources and Michael Rolband as Director of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

    “Virginia needs a diverse energy portfolio in place to fuel our economic growth, continued preservation of our natural resources, and a comprehensive plan to tackle rising sea levels,” Youngkin said. “Andrew and Michael share my vision in finding new ways to innovate and use our natural resources to provide Virginia with a stable, dependable, and growing power supply that will meet Virginia’s power demands without passing the costs on to the consumer.” 

    Wheeler is sure to be a lightning rod for environmental policy. As EPA chief, he attracted extensive negative attention from environmentalists. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) lost no time in denouncing him. “Governor-elect Youngkin has indicated that he is intent on making his first step on environmental issues a huge step backward,” said the activist group in a press release that arrived in my in-box even before Youngkin’s announcement. (more…)

  • A Fitting Bookend to Northam’s School Misrule

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    James A. Bacon

    Rosa S. Atkins

    by James A. Bacon

    Governor Ralph Northam has named Rosa S. Atkins as Virginia’s acting Superintendent of Public Instruction to replace the departing superintendent, James Lane. Atkins served 15 years as superintendent of the Charlottesville public school system before retiring to join the Virginia Department of Education as assistant superintendent for talent acquisition and development.

    “In Charlottesville, Dr. Atkins was a true pioneer as she engaged her community in courageous conversations and implemented strategic initiatives to expand opportunities for all students and eliminate disparities,” said Northam. “Throughout her career, she has made an amazing impact on public school students in Virginia.”

    Atkins probably will be a short-termer, providing continuity until Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announces his own selection for the position. But I was struck by Northam’s comment praising her for “courageous conversations” and initiatives to “eliminate disparities.” So, I thought I’d do some background research. As it turns out, Atkins has had an impact, but I wouldn’t call it “amazing.” (more…)

  • Virginia, Heed the EU’s Failed Climate Policy

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    James A. Bacon

    by Bill O’Keefe

    U.S. climate policy has been heavily influenced by actions taken by European nations, even when it was obvious that many of those actions were fraught with problems.

    Now the European Union (EU) may be on the verge of taking steps to reverse course and allowing economic and political realities to exert a greater influence on policy. The EU, which led the movement away from fossil fuels to green energy, mainly wind and solar, is seeing its dream become a nightmare — wind and solar don’t work the way they were supposed to, and energy costs are skyrocketing.

    On New Year’s Day, Reuter’s reported that the EU may be on the verge of reversing course. It has developed a proposal that would allow some natural gas and nuclear facilities to qualify as “green.”

    Since CO2 is the alleged threat to our future, nuclear power, which doesn’t emit CO2, is by definition “green.” Disposal of nuclear waste is an issue, but not a major one if you believe that the alternative is destruction of the planet. Similarly, natural gas emits far less CO2 than coal, and companies are investing in carbon capture technology. EU green advocates continue to build natural gas plants because gas is what they burn when wind and solar can’t meet the demand for electricity. (more…)

  • Indoctrination Nation

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    James A. Bacon

    The Daily Caller is a conservative, Washington, D.C.-based media organization with a national audience. This video documentary, “Indoctrination Nation,” focuses on the “parent-led rebellion against the left’s war on our kids” — here in Virginia. The video is important not only for the story it tells, which Bacon’s Rebellion readers already know, but for the fact that it was produced at all. Those loud cracking, splintering noises you hear are the sound of the liberal media monopoly busting apart.  — JAB

  • Northam’s Frozen Failure

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Let’s face it. Lots of us are cranky as we start the New Year.

    Thousands — shoot, probably hundreds of thousands — of air travelers were stranded around the country this week after flights were cancelled because of weather or staffing shortages.

    Including me.

    As our taxi approached the New Orleans airport Monday morning my phone beeped. There it was: A text saying my flight to Norfolk was cancelled. Snow and ice at BWI.

    Saw that one coming. I’d been watching the Baltimore weather the night before with growing alarm. (more…)

  • Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the LCPS Board

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    sherlockj

    Jeff Morse – new and previous Loudoun County School Board Chair

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Loudoun County School Board has announced that it has appointed Jeff Morse of the Dulles district as its new chairman for the 2022 calendar year.

    Turns out Jeff was its former Chairman in 2017-2019. He was elected with five votes for and four abstentions.

    But whatever works.

    Jeff’s home page tells us “his youngest attends Freedom High School.” Freedom High School is the highest performing high school in Loudoun County. Freedom High’s demographics should set Jeff up to do a bang-up job once again.

    Doesn’t every school in Loudoun have a student population of 81% White and Asian and 14% Black and Hispanic?

    If not, sucks being them.

    Good luck, Jeff.

  • Bureaucrats Are Not Running Amok

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    In a couple of recent posts, much has been made of Governor-elect Youngkin’s comments about reviewing regulations. After thinking about this promise and remembering similar promises by former governors, I decided to undertake one of my favorite exercises: poking around in the Code of Virginia a little bit. I found two items directly relevant to this discussion: one I was vaguely aware of and one I was not aware of.

    First, the one that I was unaware of. This promise of Youngkin is no big deal because he will merely be following the law. Sec. 2.2-4017 requires:

    Each Governor shall mandate through executive order a procedure for periodic review during that Governor’s administration of regulations of agencies within the executive branch of state government. The procedure shall include (i) a review by the Attorney General to ensure statutory authority for regulations and (ii) a determination by the Governor whether the regulations are (a) necessary for the protection of public health, safety and welfare and (b) clearly written and easily understandable.

    I was vaguely aware of the General Assembly having some power to review new regulations. Indeed Sec. 2.2-4014 authorizes a standing committee of either house of the General Assembly to file an objection to any regulation proposed in its field of jurisdiction. Furthermore, the statute goes on to establish a procedure whereby the General Assembly may suspend the effective date of a final regulation and, subsequently, nullify all or a portion of the regulation. (more…)

  • Stuck in a Snowstorm: Better to Have a Gas- or Electric-Powered Car?

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    James A. Bacon

    Here’s what Interstate 95 looked like near Fredericksburg yesterday. Both northbound and southbound sections were closed due to snow and ice. Photo credit; Virginia Department of Transportation via the Associated Press

    by James A. Bacon

    Hundreds of motorists were stranded on Interstate 95 in freezing temperatures last night after two tractor-trailers jackknifed in a snowstorm and triggered a chain reaction as other vehicles lost control. Both lanes of the Interstate were closed. As night fell, reports the Associated Press, motorists posted messages on social media about running out of fuel, food, and water. Senator Tim Kaine, who was commuting between his residence in Richmond and the Capitol, said he was stuck in his car for 21 hours.

    NBC News correspondent Josh Lederman, who spoke on NBC’s “Today” show by video feed from his car, had this observation: “You really start to think if there was a medical emergency, someone that was out of gas and out of heat — you know it’s 26 degrees, and there’s no way that anybody can get to you in this situation.”

    People can live without food and, for a time, without water. If worse comes to worse, they can pee on the side of the road. But the potential killer is hypothermia. The AP account tells of one motorist who stopped his car engine at least 30 times to conserve gas and run the heat just enough to stay warm.

    I’m wondering how many of the stranded cars were electric vehicles and what happened to them. (more…)

  • Counting Parents

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    James A. Bacon

    In this post John Butcher, author of CrankysBlog, explores the relationship between K-12 academic outcomes, as measured by Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores and single-parent households. His conclusion: the data imply “a strong relationship” between the two. — JAB

    by John Butcher

    The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Web site includes Virginia household single-parent percentages by race and by Hispanic culture or origin. Juxtaposing those data for calendar 2010 to 2018 with the SOL pass rates for 2010-2011 through 2018-2019 produces some interesting graphs.

    Note: The VDOE database offers data for students who are, or are not, “economically disadvantaged” (here abbreviated ED and Not ED). The criteria are largely driven by eligibility for free or reduced price lunches. The ED/Not ED distinction is interesting in the SOL context because ED students generally underperform their more affluent peers by some fifteen to twenty points, depending on the subject. So, let’s look at the data for both ED and Not ED students. The ideal dataset would provide single-parent counts for both economic groups. The Kids Count data are totals for each race or culture so we’ll make do with that limitation.

    To start, the graph atop this post shows the reading pass rates over the nine-year period for Not ED Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White students v. % single-parent homes for ED + Not ED members of each group. (more…)

  • Virginia, Take Another Look at Nukes

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    James A. Bacon

    Terrapower’s technology is said to be safer than older nuclear technologies. Nuclear can provide a carbon-free electricity base-load that wind and solar cannot.

    by Brian Glass

    Dominion Energy, Inc., has ordered 176 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa for its 2.6-gigawatt offshore wind farm at a cost of $9.8 billion. Electricity consumers will pay for this generating capacity. Let’s take a look at whether or not we will be getting our money’s worth.

    The Virginia Clean Economy Act went into effect on July 1, 2020, with a goal of a carbon-free electric grid by 2050. The timetable for installing the first 880 megawatts turbines is 2024, with Phases Two and Three scheduled for 2026. Assuming a projected life span of 30 years, the useful life of the turbines will end between 2054 and 2056, just a few years after the Commonwealth’s zero-carbon deadline.

    This doesn’t seem logical to me. The State Corporation Commission, which has received Dominion Energy’s application for the project, should take a hard look at whether or not it can meet the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act beyond the arbitrary 2050 deadline. (more…)

  • Medical Facility State Inspector Shortfalls An Urgent Matter for the Governor and General Assembly

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginians are blessed to have a person running the Department of Health Office of Licensure and Inspection (OLC) who may be the best public servant in the Commonwealth. She desperately needs help to do the work she is assigned in order to protect us.

    Kim Beazley, the Director of that Office, has been quoted at length by me before. On November 30th, 2020 I published Ms. Beazley’s response to a series of FOIA requests to get an update on a 2017 Office of the State Inspector General report that found major shortfalls in the staffing levels of the OLC.

    Ms. Beazley’s answers showed that nothing had changed in three years.

    The shortfalls were based upon laws and budgets that purposely reduced the authorized staff significantly below that sufficient to meet its statutory inspection requirements. (more…)

  • Charter Schools Looking Like a Political Winner

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    James A. Bacon

    Sen. Chap Petersen.

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia has long been one of the most difficult states in the country in which to form charter schools — publicly funded schools independent of school board control. There are only seven such schools in the state, and they enroll only 1,300 students. But the odds of change look better than ever.

    N0t only has Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin vowed to create at least 20 new charter schools in Virginia’s public school system — the first time a Virginia governor has made charter school reform a top priority — but two key Democrats in the state Senate are open to easing the restrictions.

    Sen. Joe Morrissey

    Virginia Democrats are nearly monolithic in their opposition to charters, which they regard as a threat to educational equity. With a 21- to 19-seat majority in the state Senate, they are in a position to block any legislative initiative proposed by Youngkin. But Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, are dissatisfied with the educational status quo and have signaled a willingness to work with Republicans on the issue.

    Also critical to the political calculus, public opinion in Virginia may be more receptive to charter schools than ever in the past. A parents’ revolt against “progressive” policies that water down educational standards in the name of racial “equity” helped elect Youngkin. At the same time, the Northam administration has presided over the greatest collapse in public school learning since the implementation of Standards of Learning (SOL) testing, and, arguably, in the state’s history. (more…)

  • This Could Be Interesting… Virginia to Get a “Chief Transformation Officer”

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    James A. Bacon

    Eric Moeller. Photo credit: McKinsey & Company

    by James A. Bacon

    This evening Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announced several new key appointments, including his chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. But it is the appointment of Eric Moeller, a partner at McKinsey & Company, as “Chief Transformation Officer” that I find most intriguing.

    I don’t believe that the Governor’s Office has ever included anyone by that title before. The  press release from Team Youngkin does not specify what Moeller will be doing, but it doesn’t take much imagination to speculate that appointing a partner of McKinsey, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, is for the purpose of taking a close look at the organizational structure and business processes of state government.

    Chopping regulations is one of those old saws like eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” that Republicans say they want but is easier said than done. This is pure speculation, but perhaps Moeller will lead such an effort. (more…)

  • Youngkin Expounds on His Expansive Economic-Development Vision

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    James A. Bacon

    Glenn Youngkin. Photo credit: Virginia Business

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia’s economy has grown at a sluggish 0.9% compounded annual rate of growth over the past eight years, says Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, and he wants to get it “really cranked up” to a normalized rate of 2.5%. To accomplish that goal, he tells Virginia Business magazine, he proposes to do three things: (1) cut taxes, (2) bring down the cost of living, and (3) cut regulations.

    In practical terms, that includes not shutting down the economy with COVID-19 lockdowns and shutdowns. It means keeping schools open. And it means no vaccine mandates.

    Says Youngkin: “Executive orders that mandate that state employees have to get a vaccine and wear a mask, or an executive order that makes children [in] K-12 have to wear a mask — we’ll work with [the new commissioner of health and new Board of Health] to rescind that.”

    While Youngkin says he wants to provide tax relief to Virginians, he does not sound like a small-government conservative. Citing the link between K-12 education and workforce development, he touts his plans for “the largest education budget in the history of Virginia” — more money for teacher salaries, for school facilities, and funding of special education programs. The governor-elect also wants to expand mental health programs, high-speed internet access across Virginia, and spending on law enforcement. (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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