Who’s leading the dance on legislation to strip experienced members off a list of state environmental and other public protection boards? It’s hard for the public to tell when the moves are rushed through without public notice. This week in CIB:

• Legislative Watch: Dancing in the Dark
• Washington Watch: Hagan Disappoints on Keystone; Sequester Impacts

Legislative Watch: Dancing in the Dark

Ensuring that neither the public nor many legislators would have an advance opportunity to review its terms, the N.C. House rushed through a revamped version of SB 10, the commission-stripping bill, late last week.

In a week of high drama and low comedy, a Senate sponsor of the bill stormed out of the House Commerce and Jobs Development Committee and slammed the meeting room door when it made changes of which he didn’t approve. The next day, the House Rules committee made further changes to the bill, and then sent the amended bill to House floor vote with minimal notice the same day.

Critics of the legislation conceded that the changes made by the House to the Senate bill reduce somewhat its adverse effects on the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) and Environmental Management Commission (EMC), arguably the two most powerful state environmental protection boards. However, it’s a matter of degree: The changes make a horrific bill into a bad one. It will be back up on the House floor this (Monday) evening for its presumably final House vote before being returned to the Senate.

NCLCV Director of Governmental Affairs Dan Crawford points out that many of our “serious concerns” about the bill remain: “Mandating that [regulated power] industry experts sit on the Utilities Commission is short-sighted. Rep. Starnes [Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, House Majority Leader] stated it best in the committee when he said the Utilities Commission serves to protect the public interest.”

Speaking of the amended bill on the House floor, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-Wake) said it wasn’t reform, but was “handing government over to special interests.”  Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) in her weekly emailed report called it “another regressive step” to “roll back protections designed to protect the public health, welfare, and natural environment of NC.” Rep. Harrison noted during debate that of the 160 commission seats eliminated by the bill, 97 are on boards that deal with environmental oversight.

The positive changes to this bad bill which were approved by the House included leaving some of the current members of the CRC on for an extra year, and retaining those seat posts (including the two seats for fisheries experience). It also retains the conflict of interest prevention language for some EMC members. For a detailed review of the changes made by the House committees, see a summary posted on the N.C. Coastal Federation website here.

Earlier in the week, a new concern about the bill’s potential impacts was pointed out in the Charlotte Observer: The removal of the language preventing financial conflicts of interest by EMC members could delay approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the Charlotte region’s improved ozone air quality status. As noted by local air quality officials in Charlotte, if the EPA postpones action on “attainment” status in order to consider the impacts of new state legislation on the EMC, another hot summer with bad air days could throw the region back into “nonattainment” status. It’s unclear whether the revised House language on this point would suffice to address potential EPA concerns. For further discussion of this point, see more information here.

As CIB pointed out in our February editions, the changes which SB 10 would make to the EMC could put state authority over water and air pollution control programs delegated by the federal government in similar jeopardy for the same broad reason. When a state knowingly puts those on industry payrolls in charge of regulating the businesses that pay them, how can anyone have confidence that protecting the public’s health and resources will come first?

And in another update, fast-track fracking legislation, SB 76, the so-called “Domestic Energy Jobs Act”, received full Senate approval last week on a final vote of 38-10 and was sent on to the House.

Washington Watch: Hagan Disappoints on Keystone; Sequester Impacts

Hagan Disappoints on Keystone: We’re disappointed to learn that U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) has signed on to a letter urging new Secretary of State John Kerry to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport oil generated from tar sands deposits in Alberta, Canada, across the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. A broad coalition of national and international conservation organizations is pressing the Obama Administration to deny permits for this pipeline, on the ground that exploiting the tar sands deposits for oil production will contribute to the acceleration of global climate change. There are also severe potential adverse impacts to waters and northern forest habitats in Canada. While this is not a new position for Hagan, it is disappointing that she continues to lend her name and influence to the wrong side of this debate.

Sequester Impacts: In the national frenzy of political finger-pointing and hand-wringing by pundits of every stripe, it’s easy to overlook the real-world impacts of the “sequester”–broad federal budget cuts taking effect now due to Congress’ inability to agree on legislation to stop them. In the area of environment and natural resources programs, the cuts now beginning to take effect include these: more than $100 million in cuts to the EPA’s clean air programs; $293 million in cuts to EPA grants to states and tribes, including the clean water and drinking water revolving loan funds; $156 million in capital investment grants for public transit projects; and the closure of128 of 561 national wildlife refuges and discontinuation of visitor services at all 561. The list of impacts is long. The Obama Administration estimates that North Carolina alone will lose $3.6 million in environmental protection funding grants and $1.3 million in fish and wildlife protection funding grants.

That’s our report for this week.