2012 GENERAL ASSEMBLY
RECONVENED SESSION & BUDGET UPDATE
The General Assembly was back in town on April 17th and 18th for a special budget session and the reconvened “veto” session where they voted on Governor McDonnell’s amendments and vetoes to legislation passed during the regular session.
In a surprising reversal of their Tuesday vote, the state Senate abruptly passed the two-year, $85 billion state budget on a 21-19 vote on Wednesday. The deciding vote was Senator Chuck Colgan (D-Prince William).
While Colgan had been pushing Gov. McDonnell for $300 million to extend Metrorail to Dulles International Airport, Colgan said the governor had not come through with funding. Colgan said he had simply come to the conclusion that the need to pass a state budget outweighed the need to secure funding for the project.“Nothing’s different,” he said when asked why his position had changed. “It’s just a new day.”
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) did approve the Governor’s request to authorize up to $100 million to delay imposition of tolls in Hampton Roads.In the reconvened session, the House and Senate both rejected the key components of the Port/Rt. 460 amendments (HB 1183/SB 578) that would have created yet more tax breaks to incentivize an unnecessary sprawl-inducing toll highway in rural farmland.While the General Assembly failed to provide adequate funds to the Dulles Rail and Midtown/Downtown tunnel projects, the whole debate of how these critical projects take a backseat to the Administration’s priorities of the Charlottesville Bypass and Rt. 460 has been elevated. Legislators seem poised to fully analyze transportation funding sources including the whole PPTA process. Senator Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) explained her thoughts on the Charlottesville Bypass by stating, “The bridge to nowhere, right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”Probing for explanations is a promising step toward better transportation policy and funding decisions in future legislative sessions.
We can already expect that the 2013 General Assembly will revisit unfinished business of 2012 including but not limited to the “Omnibus” transportation bills (HB 1248/SB 639) that centralize land use planning decisions with the CTB and VDOT, the Ports/Rt. 460 tax incentives, and rail and transit funding.
VALCV is grateful to all of our supporters who picked up the phone, wrote an email, or came to Richmond to meet with their legislators. Your actions help advance the good bills, defeat the bad and make all the difference!
Now that the 2012 General Assembly votes have been cast, VALCV staff will be compiling the votes for our Conservation Scorecard. The full release will be issued in June but a sneak preview will be available at our May 19th Legislative Recognition Event, an ”Evening at Claybrook.” Please plan to join us to recognize our legislative leaders who stood for conservation this year.
2012 GENERAL ASSEMBLY UPDATE
Stand up, give yourself a little room and take a step forward. Now take two steps backward and another forward. Next, take two more backward.Despite the feeling of occasionally moving forward, you will see you are actually pretty far away from where you started. While this is a common move in many dances, it made for a fairly significant policy shift on numerous issues considered during the 2012 Virginia General Assembly.
While the session was full of lunges in all directions, its safe to say that the overall direction was backward.
Delegates and Senators concluded their sixty-day session on Saturday, March 10th as planned, but without a state budget and with adoption of policy decisions that will negatively impact our conservation efforts on numerous fronts.We were successful in defeating many anti-environmental proposals and shaping others to be less harmful. This could not have been done without the support of you and other supporters throughout Virginia – thank you for your willingness to take action, write letters, send emails and travel to Richmond to met your representatives in person.
As is usually the case, the most controversial issues consumed most of the media airwaves and the General Assembly’s limited deliberation time. This left even less time for other issues to receive thoughtful consideration and frequently produced last minute decisions by a handful of powerful Senators and Delegates. This exclusive deal making afforded with little to no input from other members, citizens or even lobbyists. The smoke may have been banned from the backrooms of the Capitol, but the “no public allowed” deals made there are alive and well in the Commonwealth.
Here is just a brief roundup of some of the issues VALCV worked on during the 2012 session. For a comprehensive look at all the proposals on which VALCV took a position this year, you may visit our 2012 Legislative Chart. Once again, thank you for your assistance during the session and for your continued support of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters.
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URANIUM MINING
COMING TO A VIRGINIA TOWN NEAR YOU?
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element, U on the Periodic Table. It occurs naturally in the ground, but when exposed to air and water, radiation is released into the environment.
Large uranium deposits were discovered in Virginia during the 1970s and in the early 1980s uranium mining leases were executed on 40,000 uranium-rich acres in Southside Virginia and on another 16,000 acres in Fauquier, Madison, Culpeper and Orange Counties.
In 1982 Virginia considered the risks and benefits of opening Virginia up to uranium mining and placed a ban on such activities due to the numerous health and environmental concerns. Now a Canadian company is lobbying for the ban to be lifted and Virginians are mobilizing for a historic fight.
Virtually all uranium mining in the US has occurred in the arid, sparsely populated regions of the West. In these areas and other parts of the world, uranium extraction and processing have caused serious problems, including: 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.
There is no precedent for large-scale mining, milling and transportation of uranium in eastern states such as Virginia, where the population density puts more people at risk and where a much wetter climate dramatically increases the chance of radiation contaminating streams and groundwater.
The first mining site proposed is in the Mill Creek watershed, which drains into Bannister River, and ultimately Albemarle-Pamlico Sound – after passing through Lake Gaston, a drinking water supply for Virginia Beach. As you can see from the map of uranium deposits above, if the ban is lifted, Virginia could see uranium operations throughout most of the Commonwealth.
Virginia has no regulations governing uranium mining and the federal government has virtually no experience regulating the activity in a wet climate. The actual and perceived threats from mining uranium will negatively impact every aspect of Virginia life, from water supplies and agriculture products to tourism and property values.
The most in-depth coverage to date from the Natural Resources News Service
