The bill to kill North Carolina’s growing renewable energy economy narrowly escaped its first test in a House subcommittee. This week in CIB:

• Legislative Watch: Anti-Clean Energy Bill Narrowly Advances
• Washington Watch: EPA Proposes Cleaner Fuel Rules
• Around the States: Fracking Deal?

Legislative Watch: Anti-Clean Energy Bill Narrowly Advances

The bill to repeal North Carolina’s renewable energy standards (HB 298) cleared the House Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Emerging Markets last week by a single vote, 11-10. It goes now to the full House Commerce Committee, and if successful there to review by three other House committees in succession. Rep. Ruth Samuelson (R-Mecklenburg) led the charge against the bill in subcommittee debate.

HB 298, laughingly mislabeled the “Affordable and Reliable Energy Act”, is the 2013 legislative session’s leading anti-environmental bill. It would end the requirement that electric utilities in North Carolina include any energy efficiency or renewable energy elements in their generation mix, and in so doing cut the legs out from under the fast-growing solar electric industry in our state. In a particularly Orwellian touch, the bill would go so far as to remove “wind” from the state’s definition of renewable energy sources altogether–and allow fossil fuels and nuclear into that definition.

Significantly, most of the business and industry representatives who spoke to the subcommittee last week testified insupport of the current Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS). Those supporters included agribusiness groups as well as renewable energy businesses themselves. Those testifying in favor of repealing REPS were the right-wing think-tankers from “Americans for Prosperity” and Civitas (one of the Art Pope network groups). With their membership divided on the issue, the big mainstream business and industry coalitions have remained on the sidelines. Duke Energy is not lobbying on the bill.

As reported in last week’s CIB, HB 298 is part of a coordinated nationwide attack on renewable energy development, led by the anti-environmental legislative organization ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). ALEC is bankrolled by dirty energy industries like ExxonMobil, the oil-baron Koch Industries, and coal-mining giant Peabody Energy. According to tracking figures from the North Carolina Solar Center, efforts to repeal these clean energy development laws are under way in more than two dozen states this year.

NCLCV has joined in the active campaign by environmental and clean energy groups fighting to stop HB 298 and its Senate companion bill, SB 365.

Washington Watch: EPA Proposes Cleaner Fuel Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week announced its latest update to rules on gasoline content, which would reduce the allowable level of sulfur in gas, thereby helping cars’ catalytic converters capture more pollutants. EPA’s proposed new standard would cut the allowed sulfur content by more than 60% from current levels by 2017, a move which EPA says would increase the cost of gas by less than a penny per gallon but deliver as much as $23 billion in health benefits by 2030.

For you hard-core regulatory wonks out there, these are the “Tier 3 Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards” rules. The details of the proposed rules are discussed here.

CIB thanks The Climate Post for calling this development to our attention.

Around the States: Fracking Deal?

A voluntary regulation deal between some gas exploration companies and some environmental advocates may promote compromise on the development of more environmentally sound approaches to fracking. This policy development grows out of the ongoing debate in mid-western and mid-Atlantic states on the regulation of fracking. The deal announced in late March would rely on reviews by a new entity supported jointly by environmental groups and energy industries, known as the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.

For more details on the story in the press, see here.

Here is the website for the center itself:  www.sustainableshale.org



A major player in this process has been the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Here is EDF’s own blog take on the matter.

This development is bound to be controversial within the broader environmental advocacy community. As the EDF blogger cited above notes, voluntary agreements are not a complete substitute for comprehensive regulation, particularly when the playing field is so broad and the actors so numerous as with fracking. In any event, however, the development of good substantive standards for evaluating the drilling activities involved should prove a useful addition to the regulatory deliberations underway in many forums.