New legislation would compound last year’s mistakes on fracking, plus more news, this week in CIB:

• Legislative Watch: Expanding Energy Errors
• Washington Watch: Obama Tells Congress–You Act or I Will
• Are You Listening Department: The Jury Is In
• Education & Resources: Cool Steps

Legislative Watch: Expanding Energy Errors

New state legislation was introduced last week which would further accelerate the problems started in 2012 on fracking regulation, and hasten the dangerous rush to drill for gas and oil off the North Carolina coast. The legislation, SB 76, the so-called “Domestic Energy Jobs Act”, sped its way through the Senate Finance Committee and was kicked over to the Senate Commerce Committee.

Among SB 76’s lowlights are these:

• It removes the requirement that the General Assembly review and approve the fracking regulations now under development after they are finalized by the Mining and Energy Commission (MEC). (The promise that the General Assembly would be responsible for ultimate review and approval of those rules, before they went into effect, was a major political selling point of the fracking bill approved over the governor’s veto just last year. Instead, under SB 76 permits for fracking would be issued beginning 3/1/15, with no further legislative action required.)
• The MEC would be reduced from 15 to 13 members, including kicking off the State Geologist, Ken Taylor, who has persisted in raising politically uncomfortable questions during the ongoing rulemaking. It would also drop the requirement that the Environmental Management Commission member sitting on the MEC be knowledgeable in water and air resource management, or that the Commission for Public Health member be knowledgeable on the principles of waste management. These moves would continue the irresponsible trend toward shutting out dissenting viewpoints and dismissing the value of scientific expertise.
• Local governments would be prohibited from taxing any aspect of oil or gas extraction.
• Governor McCrory would be authorized to negotiate with South Carolina and Virginia a tri-state deal to press the federal government to open the Middle Atlantic east coast to oil and gas drilling.

In summary, SB 76 speeds up the rush to frack before adequate regulations have been prepared or safeguards are in place, supports putting our fragile coastal resources at jeopardy, and blocks local governments from raising funds from the obvious sources to deal with the local problems sure to come.

Meanwhile, the state commissions experience-stripping bill, SB 10, has been working its way through the House. A slightly modified version received House approval last week, and will return to the Senate for a vote either to approve the changes or to send the differing versions to a Senate-House conference committee.

And finally, legislation which would initiate wholesale automatic repeal of environmental and health rules began its public airing in the House Regulatory Reform Committee. That bill, HB 74, “Periodic Review and Expiration of Rules”, is the companion bill to SB 32 (same title), which we strongly panned in our 2/4/13 edition of CIB.

Washington Watch: Obama Tells Congress–You Act or I Will

Following up on his emphatic call for climate change action in his second inaugural address, President Obama last week used his 2013 State of the Union Address to deliver an ultimatum to Congress on the matter: You act, or I will.

In the speech itself, Obama once again called on Congress to enact legislation to cut carbon pollution and increase clean energy production. He then went further to say, “But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take now and in the future to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

In a “blueprint” sheet of proposals released by the White House following the address, there are three items clearly related to this promise:

• The cabinet call for executive action recommendations, as noted above.
• A specific call to double renewable energy generation (again) by 2020. (Obama cites elsewhere that energy production from wind and solar in the United States was already doubled during his first term.)
• A related but separate goal to double reductions in energy use through energy efficiency measures by 2030, including an “Energy Efficiency Race to the Top” incentives program for states to implement policies that increase energy efficiency and reduce waste.

See more here.

Are You Listening Department: The Jury Is In

Observers report that Federal Rail Administrator Joseph Szabo specifically cited “the challenge of climate change” last week at an event in Durham marking the groundbreaking for a project which will improve track and crossings safety. Szabo’s remarks at the federally-assisted project launch came while he was standing next to North Carolina’s new Secretary of Transportation, Tony Tata. Hopefully, Secretary Tata will pass along the news to his cabinet colleague, Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources John Skvarla, that the jury has reported back in to find that climate change is real. Thus far, DENR Secretary Skvarla is one of those who continues to assert that ‘the jury is still out’ on human-induced climate change.

For more details on the Hobson Road Project in Durham, see here.

(Thanks to Chapel Hill City Council Member Ed Harrison for this tip.)

Education & Resources: Cool Steps

Here’s a simple idea worth pursuing. How much could we save in climate-changing energy expenditures simply by changing over to lighter-colored roofs and pavements?

Proponents of the concept point out that these steps are practical now and relatively non-controversial. They could both reduce the direct cooling energy expended for buildings, and theoretically reflect away enough additional direct solar energy from urban areas to reduce the “heat island” effect. (The “heat island” effect results in part from substitution of dark pavement for green vegetative cover, causing warmer temperatures in city centers than in the surrounding countryside.) A research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories is currently trying to quantify how much positive impact these measures could produce, as well as develop “next generation” building materials that would reflect more light.

For more interesting details, see here.

That’s our report for this week.