The first proposed McCrory Budget is a disappointment to conservationists. This week in CIB:
- Executive Watch: McCrory Budget Boots Conservation
- Legislative Watch: Stripping the Cities
- Around the States: Wind Is Rising
- Education & Resources: NASA Sums It Up
Executive Watch: McCrory Budget Boots Conservation
Governor Pat McCrory last week released his first formal proposed budget for North Carolina state government, and environmental conservation and natural resources programs did not fare well.
As reported with dismay by legislative environmental champion Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), the McCrory budget contains the following bad news for conservation programs:
- Funding for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF), which had an authorized funding level of $100 million annually at its peak, was set at $6.75 million (in non-recurring funding) for 2013-2014 and zeroed out thereafter. This funding has been used for key water quality functions such as land acquisition near important drinking water sources as well as local water and sewer upgrades.
- Funding streams for the Natural Heritage Trust Fund (NHTF) and the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund (PRTF) have been redirected to the general fund and their budgets have been reduced significantly. (The governor’s budget proposes a 57% cut to the NHTF and a 44% cut to the PRTF. Plus, the elimination of their dedicated funding streams is a major blow to the reliability of future funding, which then becomes completely at the mercy of annual legislative budget politics.) This funding is critical for the improvements to and expansions of our parks, natural heritage areas, and wildlife areas.
- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) faces a number of cuts in staffing positions and programs, on top of the 40% cut in the department’s budget since 2009.
- The Governor’s budget proposes to end funding for the Land Loss Prevention Program, which includes assistance to African-American farmers, who have historically faced discrimination, in staying on family farms. (Rep. Harrison has been a special champion for this program.)
NCLCV’s Director of Governmental Affairs Dan Crawford reacted with measured caution to the McCrory Budget, correctly noting that it was just an early step in an ultimately legislative process: “As the budget process moves forward, I hope there will be an opportunity to provide more funding in a recurring way to [the CWMTF] that makes wise investments to ensure clean water for our state.”
Legislative Watch: Stripping the Cities
Parks and conservation advocates in Raleigh have watched in astonishment over the past week as the exercise of raw political power has overcome any sense of fair play, reliability of state contracts, or respect for public process. So what if the State of North Carolina, through its elected Governor and Council of State, already leased the Dorothea Dix property to the City of Raleigh for use as a public park in a binding, finalized lease?
Under the N.C. state constitution, in formal legal terms, local governments are nothing more than “creatures of the state”. The state legislature (General Assembly) creates them, can abolish them (collectively or individually), and can tell them what to do with impunity. Since the General Assembly therefore legally controls both ends of the Dix transaction (state and local government), the legislature’s lawyers now tell them that yes, they can simply pass a new law voiding the old lease and dictating new terms.
And so the Senate Appropriations Committee last week declared it would do. SB 334, “Dorothea Dix Lease”, principal sponsors Senators Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell), Louis Pate (R-Wayne), and Tommy Tucker (R-Union), was approved in committee. SB 334 would simply seize the land back from Raleigh using eminent domain, and re-write the terms under which some of the land could be re-leased to the city. (Wait…doesn’t the current legislative majority disapprove of the abuse of eminent domain? Well, perhaps only when it’s someone else doing the abusing.)
The City of Raleigh and supporters of Dix Park reacted with outrage, but thus far they have been reduced to mere spectators at a hijacking in progress.
The Dix Park matter is merely one of the most plainly natural resource-relevant examples of the current General Assembly’s headlong rush to sweep aside any and all local decisions with which the majority now in power have disagreed over the past few years. No local decision or resource, no matter how well-established, appears safe.
Legislation to strip the Charlotte airport away from the City of Charlotte and give it to a newly created regional airport authority is advancing, and legislation to strip Asheville’s municipal water system away from the City of Asheville and give it to a newly created regional water authority is expected. Statewide, HB 150, “Zoning/Design & Aesthetic Controls”, which would add new limits to cities’ ability to require new development to be compatible with existing neighborhoods to which it gets added, has been approved by the House and sent to the Senate. All this has been added to the previous session’s truncation of municipal authority to manage the impacts of adjacent new development and growth through annexation.
It is clear that the new regime in North Carolina state government is hammering an emphasis on rolling back regulation of development and environmental impacts. Seeing that cities in our state continue in many cases to be governed by voting majorities that believe in good planning for development and conservation of natural resources, the state legislative majority is simply stripping away cities’ authority and resources for implementing those policies.
Two interesting columns on this topic appeared in last week’s Independent Weekly: General Assembly wresting authorityand Legislature is all powerful.
Around the States: Wind Is Rising
Maryland last week became the latest state to commit to development of its offshore wind resources. Its state legislature adopted the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013, which includes a requirement to energy suppliers to buy offshore renewable energy credits, as well as a new $10 million development fund to aid small and minority-owned businesses prepare to take part in the offshore wind industry’s supply chain. Maryland electric utilities could get up to 2.5 percent of their power from offshore wind energy as early as 2017. Cheers for Maryland–and regrets that the North Carolina legislature is in contrast considering a retreat from the renewable energy promotion steps our state has already taken. For more information, see here.
Education & Resources: NASA Sums It Up
The reality of global climate change is usefully summed up here in social-media friendly fashion from a source that even many conservatives find credible, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As NASA points out, nine of the ten warmest years on global record (dating back to 1880) have come in the last decade. Show this to your still-skeptical friends. (Hello? Global warming is not a myth of the Socialist Agenda. So say the Rocket Scientists.)
And here’s their photo/summary for Facebook posting.
That’s our report for this week.
