What do Republicans have against clean water, anyway? Do they all have something against it? Sometimes you'd think so, given the ongoing anti-environmental assault by teahadists in Congress. Closer to home, check out the following press release from the Chap Petersen for Senate reelection campaign for yet another example of this phenomenon. In this case, we have another apparently fanatic, anti-environment, extreme Teapublican candidate opposing a crucial environmental law, one that passed the Virginia Senate AND House unanimously (and was signed by Gov. McDonnell), that was totally non-controversial, and that clearly needed. Why is she opposing it? Because she claims it "was using environmental laws to shut down a local business." This is, frankly, nuts. By Culipher's "reasoning" (to use the word VERY loosely), if a corporation wanted to dump nuclear waste and coal sludge in the middle of your neighborhood, any effort to oppose that would be going against business and should be opposed. I mean, seriously, where do Republicans FIND these crazy candidates?!? Anyway, I'm just glad that Chap Petersen's in the State Senate, and that he's likely to be reelected (overwhelmingly, if his opponent is really this extreme) in a few weeks. Go Chap!
A Clear Choice: Chap Petersen for Fairfax
Culipher attacks Petersen for standing up to the owners of the Pickett Road Tank Farm, saying, "It's not the role of the legislature" to protect our communities from a known environmental polluter.
Vienna, VA- At Thursday's debate at American Legion Post 177 in the Town of Vienna, Republican challenger Gerarda Culipher criticized Senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) for bringing legislation to clean up the Pickett Road Tank Farm, which has been a continuing source of petroleum spills and water contamination for the past twenty years.
"I'm proud to have stood up to the owners of the Pickett Road Tank Farm for their disregard for our families, our waterways and Fairfax, because legislation that I sponsored they will have to come up to current safety standards or shut down" said Senator Petersen.
OK, not that there was much doubt about it, but after watching this unhinged tirade, I think we can all agree that Morgan Griffith is completely, unequivocally nuts. He's also completely, unequivocally wrong, with every word he spews in his floor speech in the House of Representatives. What's truly astounding is that someone this ignorant, this angry, frankly this unstable, can possibly BE in the House of Representatives. For whatever reason, though, he is, and it's extremely unfortunate (emphasis on the word "extreme") for his district, for Virginia, and for America.
OK, enough of that looniness -- I feel like I need to take a hot shower after watching the Griffith video. Now, watch on the "flip" as Gerry Connolly demolishes Griffith and his fellow riders on the crazy "TRAIN." What "TRAIN" is that, you ask? I'll let Rep. Connolly explain:
...the bill is extraordinary even for the most anti-environmental House of Representatives in American history. The Republican leadership has attempted to pass over 110 anti-environmental bills, amendments, and riders, but the TRAIN Act would be one of the most destructive for America's environment and our public health. It appears that the Republican leadership took every anti-environmental bill, rider, amendment, and night-time fantasy of the Koch brothers and wrapped them into a single legislative package called the TRAIN Act.
If you're in DC, stop by the White House and express your support for these folks, staging a sit-in at the White House in an attempt to stop approval of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands Pipeline. Why are they doing this? Because, as Tar Sands Action explains, "The tar sands represent a catastrophic threat to our communities, our climate, and our planet. We urge you to demonstrate real climate leadership by rejecting the requested permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and instead focus on developing safe, clean energy." Why the urgency? Because "President Barack Obama will decide as early as September whether to light a fuse to the largest carbon bomb in North America...the 1,700-mile long Keystone XL Pipeline that would transport this dirtiest of petroleum fuels all the way to Texas refineries."
President Obama: say NO to this pipeline. It's wrong in every way, at a time when climate change is accelerating, and also when we urgently need to be getting off of fossil fuels and onto clean, renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, energy efficiency, etc.). This really isn't that complicated; in fact, the only reason it's even a question at all is that the oil industry, the wealthiest industry the world has ever known, has been applying enormous pressure on our politicians to "drill baby drill," regardless of the disastrous environmental consequences. In the case of tar sands, it's basically "drill baby drill" on steroids from an environmental damage perspective. Why on earth would we move in this direction, especially when there's a much, much better way? Well, we shouldn't, and the folks in front of the White House are putting their bodies on the line to try and stop this thing. For that, we should all be eternally grateful -- but even better, we should lend them every bit of support we can.
The mark of the most backwards and destructive governments in history has been their suppression of science, reason and intellectuals in favor of paranoid conspiracy theories.
So listen to likely GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Perry: "There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects."
You may have become so used to hearing such comments from right wing political rabble rousers and phone-hacking media outlets that they don't shock you anymore. If so, think about this: a man who could conceivably become president is proposing to lead a witch hunt against scientists for the crime of seeking the truth. In memory of the victims of past mass hysterias, let's call it The Climate Libel.
When times are bad, sometimes the people choose a leader like FDR, with the positive vision to pull them out of the rut into a better world. And sometimes, in desperation, they choose a leader like the guys FDR had to defeat.
Scapegoating is a tried and true political tactic almost as old as civilization itself. After a natural disaster, the ancient Greeks would drive a beggar, crook or disabled person into exile in order to purify the city. Scapegoating since has ranged from the Salem Witch Trials to Southern lynch mobs to the McCarthy era to the bloodbaths of Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda.
Many of these cases have a few characteristics in common. It's important to note these in order to anticipate the pattern and be ready to defend our scientists if they are indeed the next class to be thrown to the wolves so as to rile up the masses and distract everyone from what's really going on.
If past is prelude, there's no reason to believe those who would explore and develop uranium resources will be good stewards of Virginia's environment. What we do know is that when they do make common industrial mistakes or worse, we won't need a map and the damage will be irreparable.
Forget the fact that those on board with the uranium scheme are many of the same fighting the Environmental Protection Agency. Just look at the history and the environmental degradation already extant in Virginia. The contamination of our surface water is extensive. Uranium extraction offers the opportunity to do the same and more for groundwater. This map shows the effects of poor industrial practices on rivers and bays. The proposed process for extracting uranium promises to extend the opportunity for environmental damage to drinking water supplies. At least testing for the contamination will be much simpler; and offer another neat gadget for Brookstone stores to stoke sales.
Dear reader, for what do you think Virginia should be best known? Moniticello? Mount Vernon? The Shenandoah Valley? Chincoteague ponies? Great universities? Civil war history? Historic naval bases?
Hey, how about landfills?
If the latter didn't make your list, then you may not be a supporter of our Ayatollah General, Ken Cuccinelli, who recently filed a brief to protect the inalienable right of landfills to pollute your groundwater.
The case involves a couple who sued Campbell County after alleging that benzene, a carcinogenic chemical, had leaked from the county landfill into their groundwater. In 2010, they won a Circuit court case that awarded them $9 million. The county appealed to the Supreme Court -- and now your elected AG, using your tax dollars, is making the case for why the judgment should be overturned and the people with the poisoned well denied justice.
Granted, this should come as a surprise to no one. As I've written before, Cuccinelli consistenly displays a very un-Attorney General-like pattern of favoring powerful interests over everyday Virginia citizens.
Still, this is one of the stinkiest causes Cuccinelli has championed. And I for one think that, for decency's sake, it's time Cuccy kept his briefs to himself.
By Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Besa, cross-posted from Article XI
The gulf between rational Americans and the corporate manipulated Tea Party crazies is wider than the Grand Canyon when it comes to environmental protections. Unfortunately, most Americans for a variety of reasons are distracted and not aware that these right wing ideologues are stealing our country right from under us. Last week, Eric Cantor and the House Republicans approved an Appropriations bill for the Department of Interior and the US EPA that guts much our environmental law by denying funding and otherwise restricting agencies from doing their job. It is now up to the US Senate to perform environmental remediation on this toxic legislative Superfund site. Here is a sample of the House Republicans efforts to undo basic environmental protections:
Greenhouse GasesSec. 431. (a) During the one year period commencing on the date of enactment of this Act- (1) the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall not propose or promulgate any regulation regarding the emissions of greenhouse gases from stationary sources to address climate change.
Cleaner Cars &Fuel EconomySec. 453. None of the funds made available under this Act shall be used- (1) to prepare, propose, promulgate, finalize, implement, or enforce any regulation pursuant to section 202 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7521) regarding the regulation of any greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines that are manufactured after model year 2016 to address climate change.
Mountaintop Removal MiningSec 432. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to develop, carry out, implement, or otherwise enforce proposed regulations published June 18, 2010 (75 Fed. Reg. 34,667) by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement of the Department of the Interior.
Yes, this is a tough time to read the news. From the Republicans' economic terrorism to the bloodbath in Oslo, it's pretty grim out there. You just want to throw away your papers and smartphones and iPads and go for a walk in the park - except that then you might melt, since decades of inaction and denial on climate change have now produced Warmaggedon.
But don't give up hope. We - and the media especially - tend to focus on the bad news, but there's always progress being made too. Like, amidst the vast flock of politicians abandoning all principle and reason to kiss up to Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Kochs, the one the other day who said "Enough!"
That would be New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who pledged $50 million of his own smackers to the Sierra Club campaign to stop coal-fired power plants. We're talking real money here - as he put it in a tweet, "Bloomberg is all in."
Notice (on the "flip") how there's a big recycling image on the front of the Favola campaign's latest mailer? Well, that's not the recycling image you normally see on pro-environment candidates' mailers, indicating that the mailer was printed on recycled paper with soy ink, etc. Instead, this is just a stylized graphic meant to indicate how "green" Barbara is. Again, though, there's no recycling logo on the back of Favola's mailer, where it actually would mean something.
Also note, I have checked every single one of Favola's mailers - and I've gotten a lot of them the past few weeks! - and not ONE of them has been recycled (although they've all had the "union bug") or printed using soy ink. In contrast, ALL of Jaime Areizaga-Soto's mailers have been both labor and environmentally friendly, as all have had both the "union bug" and recycling symbols on the back.
Apparently, when it comes to the environment, as in so many other areas (e.g., taking money from developers with business before the County Board after agreeing not to do so, for ethical reasons), it's "do as I say, not as I do" for Barbara Favola! Also, if Favola runs her campaign in a non-environmentally-friendly manner, then what will she be like if she gets to Richmond, especially after her patron/mentor Dick Saslaw's energy and natural resource buddies have a few talks (and/or trips to uranium mines, coal-fired power plants, etc.) with her?
From the Virginia Sierra Club. At this point, just about every newspaper editorial board in Virginia has weighed in against state legislators taking this $10,000, all-expenses-paid, unethical (and illegal in most states) junket to France on the uranium industry's dime. There are at least three major issues here: 1) the question of whether Virginia legislators should have to abide by any ethical standards at all, such as those followed in these states (and no, "dislosure" is not sufficient, for a wide variety of reasons); 2) whether we're comfortable with the enormous influence corporations and lobbyists have over our legislative process, including wining and dining our legislators, heavily influencing which bills move forward and which bills die, and even writing their own bills to regulate their own industries; and 3) the specific issue in this case of uranium mining, which is what the Sierra Club focuses on.
For my part, I feel strong about all three issues: 1) Virginia legislators should have to abide by the highest ethical standards, as opposed to the essentially zero ethical standards they've got now; 2) corporate influence in Virginia government (and America more broadly) is completely out of control and needs to be reined in, big time; and 3) uranium mining, as the Sierra Club points out, "has never been mined safely. Ever." Other than that, these $10,000, all-expense-paid trips to France on "Air Uranium" are a great idea! Heh.
You've probably heard in the news this week that 14 Virginia legislators have accepted an all-expense paid trip to France from Virginia Uranium. At the same time, more than 150 citizens from across the Commonwealth have attended a summer workshop series to learn about the impact that uranium mining will have on Virginia.
These legislators accepted a nearly $10,000 first-class junket to France from the uranium industry and are calling it a "fact-finding mission." As stated by the Washington Post this week, "...this is no impartial fact-finding mission to assess the safety of uranium digging. There are no diverse or opposing viewpoints that legislators will hear during their tours."1
Here is the real story. Uranium has never been mined safely. Ever.
Welcome to the future of nuclear power in Virginia. Dominion Virginia Power announced on Tuesday that its second nuclear reactor in Surry stalled amid attempts to restart it after an April 16 tornado knocked out electricity in the area.
Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power, said that Unit 2 was shutdown on Monday following the detection of a problem in one of Unit 2's cooling ducts.
It remains unclear when another try will be attempted to restart the second nuclear reactor.
Let's face it, nuclear power has a number of drawbacks, and one of the least significant in the grand scheme of things is the inability of nuclear reactors to stay online when the electricity goes out.
We should also consider the elephant in the room: where to put all of the spent nuclear fuel.
It is cliché to use the phrase, "I was in the right place at the right time," but today more than 300 people gathered in Virginia Beach because it is the right place and right time for Virginia to move forward with the development of offshore wind.
Offshore wind represents clean, renewable energy for Virginia. The winds blowing off our coast could power 750,000 homes in the Commonwealth within the next 15 years, but clean energy is not the only benefit of offshore wind.
Harnessing the energy of the wind has the potential to create thousands of good jobs for Virginians. From the building and maintenance associated with turbines in the seabed to the supply chain that manufactures the parts, if Virginia acts now we stand to reap huge economic gains from this burgeoning industry.
It's for these reasons that the Virginia Sierra Club has partnered with some unlikely allies, including Dominion Virginia Power and McGuire Woods, to host this wind conference. We realize the opportunity that offshore wind gives Virginia and we're committed to making it a reality.
Our number one priority at the Sierra Club is addressing climate change. To mitigate the worst impacts of climate change the United States, and indeed the entire world, will need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in the near future. To accomplish this requires that we bring renewable energy to scale. This means that we want to see major investments in efficiency, solar, wind and biomass that will gradually displace older more polluting sources of energy.
Building a clean energy future will require new ways of doing business for all of us. It means groups like the Sierra Club need to partner with and support the clean energy industry. That's why the Club took the lead on Virginia's first offshore wind conference. We are hopeful that today's conference will be an important step along the way to realizing a clean, renewable, profitable energy revolution in the Commonwealth.
(Cross posted from Article XI - promoted by lowkell)
In what amounts to a paid vacation for 14 of Virginia's state legislators, Virginia Uranium Inc. has reportedly financed a trip for the 5 legislators to visit a closed mine in western France.
According to the Washington Post, the closed mine in western France was mined for 50 years until the late 1990s.
The 5 legislators arrived in Paris on Wednesday and will soon be followed by 9 more this coming Tuesday.
The Post reports that the 5-day trip is expected to cost $10,000 per person, including a number of days in Paris.
Virginia Uranium is interested in ending the 1982 ban in Virginia on uranium mining and the General Assembly can do just that.
Aside from the fact that western France does not share the same ecological conditions as southern Virginia and cannot therefore be fruitfully compared with a high degree of validity, the trip appears to be more than a fact-finding mission by Virginia's state legislators.
Indeed, the days spent in Paris appear to be an unethical way for Virginia Uranium to court the favor of the legislators in question, regardless of the similarities and supposed safety of the uranium mine in western France.
If Virginia's legislators truly care about the interests of Virginians and the perceptions of their constituents, they will reject the offer to stay in Paris on the dime of a special interest whose goals are not in line with those of the rest of Virginia.
Many of these legislators will no doubt take the offer, however, rejecting all principles of ethical governance in the process.
But we're only talking about the welfare of thousands of Virginians, right? No big deal.
So you weren't among the 100+ Virginia state legislators invited by Virginia Uranium on an all-expense-paid trip to France? To, you know, be educated about uranium mining, while perhaps sipping a 1990 vintage red Bordeaux accompanied by a fine plate of charcuterie?
Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm quite sure your invite got lost in the mail, just like mine.
So, here's the good news - there is an alternative. Granted, it ain't France, but it's an even better opportunity to find out the truth about the pending proposal to mine uranium in Virginia, and all the risks to our health and environment that such mining could pose.
I'm talking about the series of free workshops now being conducted by the Virginia Conservation Network, Virginia League of Conservation Voters-Education Fund, the Sierra Club and Keep the Ban. The one in Richmond has passed, but there are five more coming up soon:
- June 21 - Charlottesville (Community Design Center - City Space)
- June 23 - Virginia Beach (Croc's Eco-Bistro)
- June 30 - Arlington (Central Library Auditorium)
- July 19 - Roanoke (Higher Education Center Room #408)
- July 21 - Harrisonburg (Clementine's Café Lounge)
Granted, the Arlington Central Library and Roanoke Higher Education Center can't quite compare with the Louvre and Notre Dame. But maybe they'll provide a few croissants. (Dinner is included!)
More importantly, you'll learn what you can do to keep our beautiful state, its streams, farms, wildlife and population centers free of harmful radiation. And that'll be worth the trip.
It will not be long before people look back on our era and say "Why didn't they do something? ANYTHING?"
The Age of Climate Disruption is not something to expect to wait for in the distant future -- it has arrived. We are seeing, right before our eyes, an unending cycle of droughts, killer heat waves, crop failures, floods, hurricanes, record tornados.
And still our "leaders" do nothing, nothing, nothing about the crisis staring us all in the face. The reigning approach can be summed up in a single word: denial. (Latest of endless examples: the House voting to prevent the Dept. of Homeland Security -- that includes FEMA -- from spending a single penny on adaptation to climate change; Rush Limbaugh insisting that only candidates who lie about climate science are qualified to be president.)
Among our conservative friends, facts are becoming an increasing casualty -- not to be simply wounded, but tortured, stomped upon and forced to endure grisly, painful deaths.
According to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the NRA, the US Chamber of Commerce, and Republican members of the US Congress, the nefarious plans of the US Environmental Protection Agency include:
- Regulating milk spills: Yes, this one came from the esteemed Wall Street Journal -- the completely false and absurd claim that EPA was planning to regulate spilled milk the same way it regulates oil spills. And GOP Congressman like Jeff Flake (AZ) and Danny Rehberg (MT) bought it and denounced the "idea" on the House floor. Like, c'mon, no point crying over non-existent spilled milk rules...
- Controlling cow farts: The myth that EPA is planning to regulate bovine flatulation came from one of those industry astroturf groups, the Western Institute for Study of the Environment, which applied an impressive act of gymnastics to derive this silly idea from a proposed EPA rule to regulate...automobiles. See if you can follow their "logic". I sure can't.
Virginia, the site of many great historical battles, is in the opening stages of another -- this time, not over independence, or slavery, or freedom from discrimination, but freedom from radioactivity,and all the horrors that go with it.
A Canadian company is trying to overturn a 30-year-old ban on uranium mining in the state of Virginia, despite the fact that pretty much all commercial uranium mining in the US to date has been done in arid, lightly populated Western states. Mining uranium in Virginia would make us the guinea pigs in an experiment to see what happens when you unearth millions of pounds of radioactive material, and dispose of the resulting waste, in a wet climate, surrounded by waterways and densely populated areas.
In the West and elsewhere in the world where uranium has been mined, according to the Virginia Conservation Network, problems have included "contamination of ground and surface water; millions of tons of radioactive mining waste; and increased birth defeats, leukemia, and childhood cancer for the surrounding public." In order to prevent such curses from being visited on Virginia, a new broad-based coalition has come together called Keep the Ban.
It's interesting to note that Gov. McDonnell touts merely the total number of projects that his transportation funding plan supports instead of focusing on the quality of the improvements to be made.
Instead of worrying about how many projects are being undertaken, it would be better to focus on making high-quality adjustments to Virginia's transportation infrastructure. One such adjustment would be high-speed rail, something glaringly absent from McDonnell's transportation projects.
What McDonnell also failed to mention was the cronyism that is rampant in the contracts being granted under the transportation funding plan. Not surprisingly, those who contributed to McDonnell's gubernatorial campaign are being given first dibs on highway construction contracts and other transportation projects.
Left out of these debates as well is the environmental toll that these new transportation projects will have and consequently, the economic impacts as well.
In other words, the McDonnell administration completely fails to "get it" when it comes to energy and environmental issues. Specifically, they don't understand that building more highways just encourages sprawl. In addition, they clearly don't understand that: 1) sprawl worsens our oil addiction, while harming our national security and our economy; 2) building more roads, as opposed to investing all-out in "smart growth" options, delays the inevitable - and crucial - transition from a 19th/20th century (dirty) energy economy to one suitable for the 21st century; and of course 3) all of this harms the environment, both locally and globally, not that the dirty-energy-funded, Pat Robertson-educated types like Bob McDonnell care about that, given that the Rapture is coming soon (so who cares what we do to the planet).
There's a great deal of buzz right now over a new study by Cornell professors on the topic of natural gas' environmental impact. Specifically, the Cornell study calls into question the status of natural gas as a supposedly clean-burning alternative to coal, potentially a "bridge fuel" between oil and coal on the one hand, and clean energy on the other. The problem is this:
While natural gas has been touted as a clean-burning fuel that produces less carbon dioxide than coal, ecologist Robert Howarth warns that we should be more concerned about methane leaking into the atmosphere during hydraulic fracturing.
Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide (CO2), Howarth said, adding that even small leaks make a big difference. He estimated that as much as 8 percent of the methane in shale gas leaks into the air during the lifetime of a hydraulic shale gas well -- up to twice what escapes from conventional gas production.
"The take-home message of our study is that if you do an integration of 20 years following the development of the gas, shale gas is worse than conventional gas and is, in fact, worse than coal and worse than oil," Howarth said. "We are not advocating for more coal or oil, but rather to move to a truly green, renewable future as quickly as possible. We need to look at the true environmental consequences of shale gas."
Given these findings, several stark questions arise. First, as Brendan DeMelle notes at DeSmog Blog, "the widely-held perception that gas is the 'cleaner' darling of the fossil fuel trio is a myth." Second, if this is true, then the Obama administration's inclusion of natural gas as part of its "clean" energy mix might be badly mistaken. Finally, if natural gas is no better than coal or oil in terms of its greenhouse gas implications, not to mention its other adverse environmental impacts, then the concept of using gas as a "bridge fuel" "to a clean-energy future" appears to be badly mistaken.
The bottom line is clear: if natural gas isn't clean, in fact if it's worse than oil or coal from an environmental perspective, then all the more reason to just skip the "bridge" and go right to the solution - clean energy sources like wind, solar, and efficiency.
Overall, I think that PolitiFact Virginia does a pretty good job in sorting out the lies from the truth among Virginia politicians. Unfortunately, PolitiFact doesn't always do a good job. For instance, I recently wrote about PolitiFact rating an audacious claim by Bob McDonnell on supposedly "balancing" Virginia's budget as "barely true." Wait a second, how can something that's totally false, by PolitiFact's own analysis, be "barely true?" Got me.
In a newsletter to his 5th District constituents, Hurt detailed his efforts to cut the Environmental Protection Agency's budget. The freshman congressman wrote he is "a co-sponsor of H.R. 153, which would prohibit any funds at the EPA from being used to implement a cap-and-trade system that would harm our agriculture and manufacturing sectors, destroy over 50,000 jobs in Virginia, and amount to a job-crushing national energy tax when we can least afford it."
If you wade down into the PolitiFact article, you'll find that, in fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office clearly says that although jobs in carbon-intensive fuels like coal would probably decrease, employment would "increase in sectors that require fewer emissions, such as nuclear, solar and wind power," resulting in "only a small effect on total employment" overall.
In addition, if you wade further into PolitiFact's analysis of Hurt's outright lie, you'll also find that Hurt cited "solely from a short report by the National Association of Manufacturer...an opponent of the legislation." Yeah, that's really credible (not)!
Apparently, in PolitiFact Virginia's world, as long as you can attribute something to a "study," even a completely biased and phony one by opponents of the very thing they're supposedly "studying," PolitiFact Virginia won't just outright say it's false. Lame.
In reality, as Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel points out, "the NAM analysis ignores the jobs that would be created due to a growth in new, non-emission technologies." The bottom line, as Frankel explains, is that "most economists would agree...the jobs created would approximately equal the jobs lost."
To summarize: there's no indication whatsoever, at least from anyone unbiased and knowledgeable, that Hurt's claim about cap-and-trade "destroy[ing] over 50,000 jobs in Virginia" is in the slightest bit true. So why the extremely lenient, "barely true" rating from PolitiFact Virginia? This one should be "pants on fire" all the way!
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If past is prelude, there's no reason to believe those who would explore and develop uranium resources will be good stewards of Virginia's environment. What we do know is that when they do make common industrial mistakes or worse, we won't need a map and the damage will be irreparable.
Dear reader, for what do you think Virginia should be best known? Moniticello? Mount Vernon? The Shenandoah Valley? Chincoteague ponies? Great universities? Civil war history? Historic naval bases?
By Virginia Sierra Club Director Glen Besa, cross-posted from 
Cross-posted at 
From the 
Cross posted from 
Cross posted from 
In what amounts to a paid vacation for 14 of Virginia's state legislators, Virginia Uranium Inc. has 
Cross posted at 
Among our conservative friends, facts are becoming an increasing casualty -- not to be simply wounded, but tortured, stomped upon and forced to endure grisly, painful deaths.
Virginia, the site of many great historical battles, is in the opening stages of another -- this time, not over independence, or slavery, or freedom from discrimination, but freedom from radioactivity,and all the horrors that go with it.
Another 
Cross-posted from 
Overall, I think that 
