Uranium investor has no regrets on Tobacco Commission vote

Comment: The investor comment: "I had a clear conscience", well he still did not tell the papers his comments made about the Va Beach Study or the Danville study. No to uranium mining and milling, don't trust the uranium studies funded by boards with uranium investors and paid for by the local uranium company pushed by the state of Virginia! So every time one of the VA Politians, we need to wait for uranium study, just laugh in their faces, NAS needs to drop this hot potato uranium study!

By John Crane
Published: April 22, 2010

“I was given clearance (by the commission’s attorney), and I had a clear conscience,” Mayhew said during an interview Wednesday. Mayhew declined to reveal how much money he has invested in VUI.

Virginia Uranium Inc. investor Buddy Mayhew says if he had to do it all over again, he would not recuse himself from the Tobacco Commission committee vote to fund a statewide, socioeconomic study on uranium mining and milling.

The Virginia Tobacco Commission’s executive committee — Mayhew is one of its members — voted during an April 15 meeting to recommend the entire Tobacco Commission give up to $200,000 to the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission’s Uranium Mining Subcommittee to pay an entity to perform a socioeconomic study of uranium mining and milling. VUI seeks to mine and mill a 119-million pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill near Chatham. Virginia has had a moratorium on uranium mining since 1982.

Delegate Terry Kilgore, chairman of both the Tobacco Commission and the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, said the Uranium Mining Subcommittee will eventually determine whether the socioeconomic study will be statewide or focus on the Dan River Region.

Virginia Uranium Inc. is paying for a separate, statewide study emphasizing the technical and scientific aspects of mining and milling. The National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council are performing that study, which is expected to be finished in the fall of 2011.

Mayhew said his attorney had told him there would be no conflict of interest since the Tobacco Commission’s money is going to the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission and not to Virginia Uranium Inc.. An attempt to contact the commission’s attorney, Frank Ferguson, was unsuccessful Thursday.

Chairman Kilgore  said he’s not sure whether Mayhew’s vote presented a conflict of interest.

“That’s between him and the attorney,” Kilgore said Thursday.

Regarding whether Mayhew’s vote showed a conflict of interest, Delegate Danny Marshall, R-Danville and a member of the Tobacco Commission’s Executive Committee, said, “It’s not for me to say so.”

“If this turns out to be a big negative for everyone in the area, maybe that’s a reason not to go forward with it,” Mayhew said, adding that he did not expect so much opposition to the Coles Hill project.

Read more:
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/uranium_investor_has_no_regrets_on_tobacco_commission_vote/20374/