It's too early for fall foliage, but lobster is always in season.

Del. Clarke Hogan, R-Halifax, threw a grand old party at his family's pile in Brunswick, Maine, this past weekend. Guests included a fellow Southsider, Del. Wat Abbitt, I-Appomattox, and Hogan's political sugar daddy, Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford.

All three are big players in a big piece of unfinished business: a state study of a proposed uranium mine in Pittsylvania County.

Perhaps that explains the presence at chez Hogan -- and reported in political circles -- of a top lobbyist for the prospective mine: John-Garrett Kemper.

Hogan, reached on his mobile phone, had little to say about the getaway with his Maine men. He snapped: "Where I go on vacation with my friends is, frankly, none of your business. . . . Write up your conspiracy theories, but don't waste my time."

For Hogan in particular, and House Republicans in general, the mine is a delicate matter.

Bowing to constituent fears that it would transform verdant farmland into a toxic moonscape, Hogan and Abbitt killed the Senate-passed study this year.

But that put the GOP in a weak position on a tough issue: energy.

House Republicans -- in effect, shouting "drill, baby, drill!" -- trash Democrats for opposing oil and gas exploration off the Virginia coast. But how can Republicans depict themselves as advocates of energy independence when -- on uranium, a source of nuclear fuel -- they appear deaf to cries of "dig, baby, dig!"?

Worse, they are surrendering an issue to Democrats.

Gov. Tim Kaine backed the study; so, too, did nearly every member of the Senate's slim Democratic majority.

Hogan and House Republicans need an exit strategy, one that allows them to be perceived as pro-business and pro-environment but protects them ahead of the 2009 election that could return them to the minority.

In other words, a scheme that spares them from even having to vote.

Why not circumvent the House and Senate next year and wire up a study by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission?

Composed of gubernatorial and legislative appointees, the commission -- headed by Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, an emblem of the GOP cash-and-carry approach to business-friendly bills -- apparently can pick topics free of General Assembly dicta.

That doesn't get Hogan off the hook with hometown peeps. Looking for cover -- Hogan might call it community input -- he wants local chambers of commerce to submit questions they want answered before, or if, the state's 26-year ban on uranium mining is lifted.

Enter, too, additional lobbying firepower.

Large-caliber Republicans Frank Atkinson and Mike Thomas recently signed with the firm that wants to extract that giant uranium deposit and is looking for a new P.R. shop to dig it out of a landslide of doubting press.

Want Bill Howell on your side? See Atkinson. He personally enlisted the speaker in the crackdown on payday lenders.

Thomas is a grass-roots guy. His job is to stroke the Halifax-Pittsylvania crowd. For Thomas, that's easier done than said. A native of Brunswick County, in Southside, Thomas speaks the language.

Perhaps he'll also be Hogan's translator.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 6496814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com. Watch his video column Thursdays on inRich.com. Listen to his analysis Fridays at 8:33 a.m. on WCVE radio (88.9 FM).