The Governor’s Rural Jobs Council issued its interim report earlier this month. You can be forgiven for not hearing much about it as, aside from the date, the report’s recommendations are quite similar to those made by other committees studying the same issue. But there is one glaring omission in this particular report: nowhere in its 35 pages is the phrase “uranium mining” mentioned.
That’s a rather staggering oversight, considering the amount of press and legislative wrangling there has been over the proposed uranium mine at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County. Proponents of the mine say it will create just over 1,000 jobs — half of them in rural Southside Virginia — and over $100 million of economic activity each year in the region as well.
One might think that a project with such enormous potential would merit at least a passing mention in a report devoted to rural employment.
Instead, we are treated to a laundry list of recommendations that, to one degree or another, all call for greater state and local government intervention as the best way to spur a rural economic renaissance.
Copious amounts of money have flowed into Southside and Southwestern Virginia through any number of administrations, programs, task forces and commissions. One of the most abundantly funded efforts – the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, an outgrowth of the legal settlement between states and tobacco companies – has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into projects in the two regions. But as a 2011 report from JLARC noted, “…there was no way to measure outcomes for 89 percent of 1,368 project grants” the commission had made since 2000.
The Commission was also rocked by scandal, as a former director looted it of $4 million.
Southside Virginia, in particular, doesn’t need any more government handouts, plans and encouragement. It certainly doesn’t need another commission stuffed to the brim with cash waiting to be either frittered away or looted. What it needs is for government to get out of the way and allow Coles Hill to go forward.
After it became clear the General Assembly would do nothing to lift the state’s mining moratorium, Senator John Watkins urged Gov. McDonnell to take charge. The Governor was non-committal, saying that he would listen to all sides before he would make any sort of decision on the matter. At session’s end, he was focused entirely on getting his transportation bill approved and would allow nothing else to divert his attention.
The Governor got his transportation bill. Now, he should follow Senator Watkins’ advice and take up the task of establishing a regulatory framework for uranium mining in Virginia. It will bring to Southside the jobs both he and his Rural Jobs Council say they want, generate the economic activity the region sorely needs, and do so entirely through private means.
Seize the moment, Governor.
* This article first appeared in Dead Reckoning, Bearing Drift’s twice-weekly newsletter. For just pennies per week, you, too, can have Dead Reckoning delivered straight to your email inbox. To subscribe, click here.
