I’ve been watching and listening to legislators and activists talk about the proposal to mine uranium in Virginia. I’ve consulted lawmakers on options. I’ve listened and watched and read as they sponsor a trip to France to visit a closed plant (and most of the ones who went aren’t voting to overturn the mining ban in a zillion years – great expenditure, guys!)
And I’m supremely confident that the ban on mining uranium is staying in place.
I don’t think it’s any anti-nuclear stances or anti-uranium thoughts that drive this debate. I don’t think it’s macro energy policy. The Virginia Uranium movement focuses on all the benefits this could have nationally and the benefits it could have economically in southside.
But how does it benefit a legislator’s district? What does Chesapeake have to gain? Why would Virginia Beach want this? Why would Norfolk support it? Pick any district in Hampton Roads. How would lifting the ban directly benefit these localities or districts?
It’ll make some people millionaires. It may even create jobs 200 miles away. It may help the national energy movement and might even wind up being safely done.
But the basic political equation that is not remotely balanced is that Hampton Roads could carry an inordinately high amount of the risk while receiving an inordinately low amount of the benefit.
Whacko liberals try to make that case for EVERY energy production proposal, but they’re usually wrong, and the fact that their mantra might coincidentally luck into being right this time is no great accomplishment. Drilling for oil and natural gas is routinely done safely. Wind energy development as well. Mining for uranium isn’t something that’s on most people’s list of urgent needs.
And if the lobbyists favoring this want to swerve support of elected officials, they better come up with a menu more appetizing than jobs for other regions, money for other people and all the risk for us.
