By Bill Sizemore
The Virginian-Pilot
February 8, 2012
A Hampton Roads lawmaker was the leading recipient of gifts and free trips from private interests last year among the 140 members of the Virginia General Assembly.
Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, received gifts and trips valued at $15,775 - almost as much as his $17,640 annual salary as a delegate.
But if his biggest benefactor was trying to win his favor, Cosgrove said Monday, it didn't work.
The bulk of the largesse directed at Cosgrove was the $12,449 spent by Virginia Uranium, the company lobbying to establish a uranium mine in Pittsylvania County. The company sent Cosgrove and several other lawmakers to visit a mine site in France.
The purpose of the trip, Cosgrove said, was to reassure the Virginia legislators that uranium could be mined safely with no chance of contaminating Lake Gaston, a major source of Hampton Roads' drinking water that lies downstream from the proposed mine site.
But the trip convinced him of the exact opposite, Cosgrove said.
"They never showed us beyond any doubt that there couldn't be some catastrophic effect on our drinking water," he said. "I came back thinking that uranium mining is probably not in the best interest of Hampton Roads."
Altogether, Virginia Uranium showered $120,000 on Virginia lawmakers last year, nearly half the $245,000 total value of the gifts that lawmakers received, according to a compilation of legislators' financial disclosure statements by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit tracker of money in politics.
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/02/lawmaker-trip-france-dissuaded-him-uranium-mining
The Virginian-Pilot
February 8, 2012
A Hampton Roads lawmaker was the leading recipient of gifts and free trips from private interests last year among the 140 members of the Virginia General Assembly.
Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, received gifts and trips valued at $15,775 - almost as much as his $17,640 annual salary as a delegate.
But if his biggest benefactor was trying to win his favor, Cosgrove said Monday, it didn't work.
The bulk of the largesse directed at Cosgrove was the $12,449 spent by Virginia Uranium, the company lobbying to establish a uranium mine in Pittsylvania County. The company sent Cosgrove and several other lawmakers to visit a mine site in France.
The purpose of the trip, Cosgrove said, was to reassure the Virginia legislators that uranium could be mined safely with no chance of contaminating Lake Gaston, a major source of Hampton Roads' drinking water that lies downstream from the proposed mine site.
But the trip convinced him of the exact opposite, Cosgrove said.
"They never showed us beyond any doubt that there couldn't be some catastrophic effect on our drinking water," he said. "I came back thinking that uranium mining is probably not in the best interest of Hampton Roads."
Altogether, Virginia Uranium showered $120,000 on Virginia lawmakers last year, nearly half the $245,000 total value of the gifts that lawmakers received, according to a compilation of legislators' financial disclosure statements by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit tracker of money in politics.
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/02/lawmaker-trip-france-dissuaded-him-uranium-mining
