The theme of lawmaking in Raleigh this past week seems to have been “democracy is for chumps.” This week in CIB:

• Legislative Watch: Anti-Environmental Forces Strike Back
• Administrative Watch: MEC Maneuvers
• Education & Resources: Small Nuclear Reactors–Same Problems?

Legislative Watch: Anti-Environmental Forces Strike Back

What do you do when you’re running the show and you don’t have the votes to pass a bad bill you support? If you’re in the Senate Finance Committee last week, you call a vote and then refuse to count the votes.

Legislation gutting North Carolina’s developing renewable energy economy had been slapped down on a close but clear bipartisan vote for clean energy in a key House committee week before last. The voices of business in our state–ones already benefiting from the jobs and growth opportunities of clean energy, and others getting ready to move forward–were key in this victory for common sense.

Ignoring those voices, the Senate Finance Committee last week “passed” SB 365, the Senate analogue to the House bill defeated in committee just the week before. We put “passed” in quotes, since Committee Co-Chairman Bill Rabon (R-Brunswick) declared the measure approved on a voice vote that to many seemed to go the other way, and immediately adjourned the committee while ignoring calls for what would normally be a routine head count of those voting.

This exercise in undemocratic process inspired one participating committee member, Sen. Josh Stein (D-Wake), to issue his widely-quoted protest comment, “North Carolina is not a banana republic!” Hmmm–perhaps that conclusion has become a debatable proposition.

Like its House counterpart, SB 365 would halt and eventually repeal North Carolina’s landmark Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS). REPS requires the state’s electric power utilities to produce a minimum percentage, increasing over time, of their electricity from renewable energy resources. It is credited with the rapid growth of solar electric production in our state, and an accompanying plunge in the costs of that solar electric generation. It is seen as poised to produce not only continuing gains there, but also electric generation from other sources like wind and farming wastes.

It’s ironic that North Carolina legislators are seeking to repeal its successful REPS-inspired renewable energy effort, while other states like Colorado are expanding their own. Colorado’s standard is already more ambitious than ours–its investor-owned utilities are headed for a 30 percent REPS, compared to North Carolina’s existing goal of a modest 12.5 percent.

The victory in the House Public Utilities Committee week before last left anti-environmental groups like Americans for Prosperity furious. The anti-clean energy groups are counting on North Carolina to serve as their first victory in a campaign to repeal clean energy policies in over 20 states around the nation. And at this point it’s clear that if they can get away with it, they won’t let little things like counting the ‘yays and nays’ get in their way.

Meanwhile, another challenger for the title of “worst bill of the year” greased its way through the Senate: SB 612, “Regulatory Reform Act of 2013”, an omnibus of awful provisions designed to strip away decades of environmental progress in North Carolina in one sorry slash. Among its worst provisions:

• Requires the repeal or revision of all existing state environmental rules that are more stringent than federal minimums.
• Reaches even further down in stripping away the workings of democracy, by barring local rules or standards that exceed federal or state minimums, and requiring the elimination of existing such requirements.
• Allows power plants to contaminate groundwater below drinking water supplies.
• Extends the allowed maximum length of air and water permits to 10 years, and cuts in half (to 30 days) the time allowed for affected citizens to appeal the issuance of permits which would injure them or their property.

Opposing lawmakers and analysts across the state point out that this strip-back approach turns the principles of federalism (not to mention common sense) on their head. No longer would state agencies or local governments be able to craft approaches to fit special state-level or local health problems and environmental needs. Instead, public health and our air, water, land, and wildlife would be thrown under the bus of the lowest common denominator thrashed out in the broken legislative hallways of Washington.

The Salisbury Post points out that under this radical dumbing-down of environmental protections, the landmark Clean Smokestacks Act could never have been created. (That’s the law responsible for much of the clean air progress in our state over the past decade.) Its editorial goes on to calmly explain, “Federal regulations — which have faced their own headwinds in an anti-regulatory environment — were never intended to be the only bulwark against environmental degradation. Instead, they set a broad framework — a national baseline — for environmental protection in specific areas such as air, water and wetlands. When the federal Clean Air Act was passed decades ago, it gave state and local agencies a lead role in enforcement because they had the most thorough knowledge of local industries, geography, travel patterns and the like. That’s just as true today.”

Will the short-sighted thinkers driving this train wreck of legislation pay any attention to the voices of reason and moderation? Perhaps their House colleagues will do so, depending upon what they hear from their own constituents. Stay tuned to the upcoming debate in the House.

Administrative Watch: MEC Maneuvers

Over on the executive branch side of state government, public transparency seemed to be the chief loser in last week’s deliberations. The state Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) had been set to vote on Friday on a proposed rule reported out from its Environmental Standards Committee on the standards to be applied to chemicals used in drilling fluids for the fracking process.

Those standards would control what chemicals can be used in the drilling fluids, and when and how they have to be disclosed to public oversight agencies. These questions can be critical because drilling fluids are a chief source for potential severe contamination of groundwater supplies from the fracking process.

Instead of the long-anticipated vote, however, the proposed standards were abruptly pulled from the commission’s calendar, as set by MEC Chair James Womack. Womack’s action came in response to late objections to the disclosure requirements raised by industry giant Halliburton, which manufactures the fracking fluids. Halliburton’s objections were backed up by the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) officials in charge of DENR staff work on fracking regulation.

Several MEC members objected to the move. Raleigh lawyer Charlotte Mitchell said that the Halliburton and DENR staff concerns should have been brought to discussion before the MEC committee while it was deliberating. Not all the members were disturbed, however. MEC commissioner Vik Rao waved off any concerns regarding open process. Rao, a former chief technology officer at Halliburton, is clearly privy to the thinking of his former employer and of the view that the rest of us need not concern ourselves with the matter of process.

We suppose we should just trust Uncle Hal to know and do what’s best for us, right?

Education & Resources: Small Nuclear Reactors–Same Problems?

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) will hold a webinar to explore issues connected with the costs and risks involved with proposed new small modular nuclear reactors. The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, May 30, at noon. For more info and to register, see here.

That’s our report for this week.