So it appears lawmakers have reached an agreement on a $77 billion budget after tenacious negotiations.

However, what the budget contains is not as important to many Virginians as what it does not — a transportation funding plan to replace the fledgling one passed last year. It seems legislators will need to return to Richmond for a special session to craft a compromise.

But will legislators have any more luck than they did in the previous battle to reach compromise last year? Will they be able to avoid the 246-day, taxpayer-funded over time of 2006?

The Washington Post has a good story about how difficult finding a solution might be in the current political environment. The outlook isn’t good. With gubernatorial and delegate elections next year, candidates may be looking out more for their political future than Virginians stuck in traffic.

by Robert Powell
The most dramatic moment at Sunday’s Richmond premiere of “John Adams” occurred before the TV mini-series was screened.

An organist was warming up the crowd in the 80-year-old Byrd Theatre when suddenly the music stopped and the lights went out. A theater manager announced that the Byrd had suffered a power outage and appealed for calm. Suddenly, a figure waving a flashlight bounded onto the darkened stage. It was Tom Hanks, the Oscar-winning actor and executive producer of “John Adams.”

“Virginia has survived for 300 years,” he said, holding the flashlight aloft like a candle. “You can survive a few moments of a power outage.  Remain not just calm but convivial.”

The audience whooped and cheered (although a few politely noted that Virginia is actually 400 years old). The outage was brief, and the show went on. But many in the crowd, which included members of the movie’s cast and crew, may have seen a metaphor in the lights going out on a Virginia movie premiere.

A new war between the states is brewing, and this time the objectives are film productions like “John Adams.” The seven-part HBO mini-series is based on David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of the Massachusetts patriot who became the nation’s second president. Most of the filming took place in Virginia, generating $80 million in economic activity.

Virginia got the film by offering Hanks and his fellow producers $1.25 million in incentives. The Massachusetts legislature was so angry about losing the project that it enacted the most generous incentives for film productions in the country. As a result, Virginia native Richard Kelly is filming much of his movie, “The Box,” in Boston, although the story is set in Virginia. The Daily Press in Newport News dubbed the Virginia’s reversal of fortune “the Revenge of John Adams.”

In fact, members of Virginia’s film industry have worried for years about the increasing competitiveness of state incentive programs. Efforts to boost Virginia’s incentives have gotten tepid support from the General Assembly. This year, two bills proposed tax credits equaling 15 percent of the money film makers spend in Virginia. Both were set aside.

One piece of legislation affecting the film industry did survive. That bill extends until 2019 a break on state sales taxes for filmmakers buying goods in the state.

Rita McClenny, the head of Virginia’s film office, says the state is currently in the hunt for eight movies. How many will it get without incentives? “None of them,” she says.

Investors are getting vocal about greenhouse gas emissions. And they’re not afraid to flex their financial muscle. The New York City Pension Fund, which manages more than $115 billion in assets, was among a group of some of the nation’s largest public pension funds that filed 54 shareholder resolutions on global warming against U. S. companies during the 2008 proxy season. 

Many of the investors are part of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance of 60 institutional investors with assets of more than $5 trillion. 

The New York fund filed a resolution with Virginia-based Massey Energy and Consol Energy of Pittsburgh. It seeks a report by Sept. 1 on how the companies are responding to regulatory and public pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Investors want all companies to understand the business impacts of climate change and plan for it accordingly,” said Mindy S. Lubber. She’s president of Ceres, the Boston-based coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public-interest organizations that directs INCR.

Ceres claims the resolutions are getting results.  Investor groups withdrew 14 of the 54 resolutions after companies, including Richmond-based Dominion Resources, agreed to disclose information. Jim Norvelle, a Dominion spokesman, says the company has been posting information about emissions on its Web site for years. It also is drafting a report for release later this year that expands upon the impact of its strategy on carbon emissions.

In Virginia, Dominion Virginia Power is trying to win approval for a proposed $1.6 billion, 585-megawatt, coal-fired power plant in Wise County. Students and youth from Mountain Justice Spring Break plan to oppose the plant today during a march in Abingdon.  Questions about its “clean” technology remain, even though Dominion has managed to settle some differences raised by key players.

The plan still needs approval from the State Corporation Commission.  To learn more about where Virginia stands as a green state, be sure to check out our April issue, which is green-themed throughout.  What’s becoming clear is that people are starting to feel mother love about Mother Earth.

With last year’s transportation package in shambles, the question now is who will take on the political consequences of raising taxes for transportation projects.

Last year’s compromise relied heavily on taking the political pressure of raising taxes from state legislators. The Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia transportation authorities allowed the state’s most traffic-congested areas to raise regional taxes for regional projects. 

The authorities created an ideal scenario for state legislators and local officials — increase revenue for local projects without voting for tax increases. Only problem? Not constitutional, according to the Virginia Supreme Court.

One proposal circulating is to allow local governments themselves to raise the taxes in these congested regions. Local officials say it’s unfair to make them do the state’s job.

Another proposal is an increase in the gasoline tax — a move shunned by anti-tax Republicans.

Then again, in this economy, passing any tax or fee increase is going to be tough.

While lawmakers figure out a (hopefully constitutional) plan, Virginians will be urgently waiting for a solution — most likely while they’re stuck in traffic.

Another industry has been burned by dipping into the subprime well. 

Sprint Nextel reported a $29.4 billion fourth-quarter loss last week, or $10.36 a share, a huge drop from the $261 million (9 cents a share) it reported for the fourth quarter in 2006. Much of the loss — $29.7 billion — was attributed to a one-time write down related to Sprint’s merger with Nextel Communications in 2005, an incompatible marriage that has caused huge customer defections.

The company projects a loss of about 1.2 million customers this quarter, about the same number it lost during 2007. CEO Daniel R. Hesse told the Washington Post that some of its customers quit the wireless carrier because they can’t afford to pay their bills.

Sprint changed its credit requirements last summer to draw customers with poor or little credit histories. Consequently, Hesse told the Post, the company picked up a lot of subprime customers and took a bigger hit in this area than other wireless carriers. 

With the mortgage industry still reeling from losses incurred by subprime loans, why would any company court these customers?  Apparently, to gain new subscribers.  Sprint ended 2007 with 53.8 million customers, 700,000 more than it reported in 2006. 

No one in the industry envies Hesse. He took over in December and has doled out strong medicine in a bid to improve the company’s fortunes, eliminating 4,000 jobs, dismissing three senior executives and moving the corporate headquarters from Reston to Overland, Kan. In addition, Sprint has suspended the payment of dividends.  But taking on subprime customers?  Seems like a strange way to “sprint ahead.”