Comment: Great article, please go to web site and read the whole article!
by: Jason Fri Jul 15, 2011 at 15:14:40 PM EDT
I would like to refocus the debate here over Del. David Englin's decision to accept an all-expense-paid trip to France for himself and his spouse courtesy of Virginia Uranium onto the broader question of corporate lobbying and appearances of impropriety.
David Englin is an effective and generally progressive legislator with whom I usually agree (except recently on redistricting). As an advisory board member of the VA League of Conservation Voters (disclaimer: the remarks here are solely my own), I've been pleased to see him receive just accolades for his work on the environment. And it goes without saying that legislators should make every effort to be informed on important issues like the potential impacts of uranium mining on public health and our environment. Allegations of corruption or influence peddling are baseless.
Nonetheless, Del. Englin and the other legislators who accepted this trip from VA Uranium made a mistake. Further, the Englin family's vigorous defense of it is unfortunate and their attacks on activists ("whacktivists"??) who question its propriety are particularly over the top.
I point to the excerpted provisions of Virginia law below and ask simply whether a reasonable person considering the spirit, if not the letter, of these provisions, would have taken this trip.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bi...
Read more:
http://bluevirginia.us/diary/4370/virginia-uranium-and-the-englins
