| Followups
Virginia Business
Novermber 2006
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson
wants to know whether stringent financial controls
of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are
hurting the U.S. market. Paulson announced in September
his support for a group of businessmen and academics,
the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, which
plans to study why U.S. public companies are falling
behind foreign competitors. The committee will issue
its interim report in November. In the July
cover story, Virginia
Business detailed new regulations under the law and how
it affected the role of chief financial officers at public
companies.
The Montgomery County Board of
Supervisors has gone on record opposing a Norfolk
Southern Corp. intermodal freight yard in Elliston, but the
supervisors’ position
may not block the proposal. County Attorney Marty McMahan
says that the Interstate Commerce Commission
Termination Act pre-empts local zoning powers. Plans
for the facility were examined in a Roanoke/New River
Valley regional report in September’s
issue.
In September, a federal judge
granted class-action status to millions of smokers
in a lawsuit against Philip Morris USA and other tobacco
companies. The ruling came in a lawsuit that alleges
that the tobacco companies deceived smokers about health
risks with their introduction of “light” cigarettes.
Philip Morris and the other defendants have appealed
the ruling. A story in the Around the Old Dominion section
of the October issue reported that smoking lawsuits have
been a stumbling block to plans by Altria Group Inc.,
Philip Morris’ parent company, to spin off its
Kraft Foods division.
Turns out that a distance-learning
institution, American Military
University based in
Charles Town, W.Va., also offers degree programs in
homeland security. The regionally and nationally accredited
university began offering online programs (associate,
bachelor, and master degrees) in 2001 and awarded its
first degrees to graduates in 2004. American Military,
with offices in Manassas, is one of the largest providers
of higher education to the armed forces. A September
cover story on the state’s
growing homeland security industry pointed out that Virginia
Commonwealth University is the first major, public research
university to offer an undergraduate degree in homeland
security.
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