As the legislature continues to ponder a host of damaging bills, conservationists look for alliances where we can find them. This week in CIB:

• Legislative Watch: Alliances of Rivals
• Conservationists: Green Tie Honors Outstanding Legislators; NCLCV Installs New Officers
• Washington Watch: Representatives Urge Caution on Offshore Drilling
• Climate Change Update: Hurricane Season
• Education & Resources: Utilities Comments Training

Legislative Watch: Alliances of Rivals

The rush of legislative “crossover” is finished, and the debates over a budget and competing “tax reform” plans are well underway. However, lurking beneath that roiling surface remain a number of damaging legislative proposals specifically on the environment.

In the current single-party control of Raleigh, most of conservationists’ traditional legislative allies have been steamrollered throughout the early part of 2013. As we fight to hold the line against as much anti-environmental damage as possible, the odds of short-term success depend in part on our ability to take advantage of other potential alliances on specific issues.

One such alliance–between long-time clean energy advocates and agribusiness representatives who hope to benefit from turning farm waste into energy–helped to hold off repeal of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS) earlier. Now, other alliances with rivals and non-traditional allies may help limit damage to local parks and barrier island beachfronts.

In the first case, the City of Raleigh was able to strike a deal with the McCrory Administration over the Dix Park lease review. The N.C. House revised SB 334, the Dorothea Dix lease bill, to authorize the city and governor to renegotiate the lease for that parkland. The revised SB 334 now goes back to the Senate, where Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger opposes the compromise and wants the lease deal legally agreed to last year to simply be terminated immediately by condemnation. The final outcome remains in doubt.

Meanwhile, a bill to allow the expanded use of “terminal groins” on the ocean beachfront, which passed the Senate earlier, is being challenged in the House Environment Committee by critics from across the ideological spectrum. SB 151, the so-called “Coastal Policy Reform Act of 2013”, would remove the cap on the number of ‘terminal groins’ which could be approved, and drop requirements designed to ensure that taxpayers in coastal communities have a direct say in whether to pay for those structures.

Coastal conservation advocates have always vigorously opposed these long rock structures which extend outward through the beachfront surf zone as expensive boondoggles which actually accelerate down-current erosion and damage fragile barrier islands. In opposing their expansion today, conservationists are once again joined by the libertarian-leaning John Locke Foundation. The JLF agrees with the government-boondoggle attack, especially when groin supporters want to make it easier to raise taxes to build and maintain these enormously expensive projects without voter approval. The voices of these strange bedfellows are also being joined by former Representative Carolyn Justice, the coastal Republican legislator who helped draft the existing compromise law on groin authorization, which is now under attack by SB 151.

Conservationists will continue to look for more such alliances in fighting back against the wave of anti-environmental proposals which are still alive in Raleigh.

Conservationists: Green Tie Honors Outstanding Legislators; NCLCV Installs New Officers

More than 200 conservationists and legislative allies turned out this year for a successful Green Tie Awards Dinner on May 29 in Raleigh. The keynote speaker was John Campbell of WasteZero, discussing his company’s strategy for reducing solid waste going to landfills.

As always, the evening’s focus was on the legislative leaders being honored for their outstanding contributions to environmental protection in the legislative process. In opening the awards presentations, NCLCV President Nina Szlosberg-Landis called attention to a change in the award recognition standards this year. Unlike in previous years, she noted, awards would not be presented to legislators who were key to a particular victory but who were also supporters of larger anti-environmental trends in legislation.

Szlosberg-Landis called that “a double standard that benefited no one, least of all the environment.” Instead, NCLCV was now seeking to “level the playing field” by recognizing that, “It does not matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat: You can, should, and must care about clean water, clean air, and long-term energy sustainability.”

All of the 2013 legislator award recipients met that new standard of consistent support for public health and environmental quality, with high overall Environmental Scorecard rankings as well as outstanding leadership on particular issue areas. Congratulations go to the green heroes honored this year:

• Defender of the Environment: Rep. Deborah Ross.
• Senator of the Year: Sen. Dan Blue.
• Representative of the Year: Rep. Susan Fisher.
• Catalyst Award: Sue Sturgis, The Institute for Southern Studies.

NCLCV’s annual membership meeting also selected a new slate of officers at the event:

• President: Maria Kingery
• Vice President / Interim Treasurer: Bill Padgett
• Secretary: Chandra Taylor.

Outgoing president Nina Szlosberg-Landis was applauded for her years of service in the top leadership role. Among other achievements, she shepherded the organization through the transition from its previous identity as the Conservation Council of North Carolina to its present form as the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters.

If you were in attendance this year, please help us improve our annual event by completing this very brief survey.

Photos from the event can be seen on the NCLCV Facebook page here.

Washington Watch: Representatives Urge Caution on Offshore Drilling

Six members of Congress from Virginia and the Carolinas have countered their states’ governors’ pleas to fast-track offshore drilling with their own contrary appeal for caution.

Previously, the governors of Virgina, North Carolina, and South Carolina joined in a letter to the U.S. Interior Department in support of opening up more areas off their states’ coasts to drilling for oil and gas. Now, six members of Congress from those states have sent their own letter, which asks instead for an energy policy that supports environmentally-friendly alternative energy development, and urging that U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewel use “extreme caution” in weighing proposals for offshore drilling off the Atlantic coast.

The members of Congress signing this letter are Virginians Gerald Connolly, Jim Moran, and Robert Scott; North Carolinians David Price and Melvin Watt; and South Carolinian James Clyburn. (Associated Press, 5/31/13.)

Climate Change Update: Hurricane Season

One of the projected impacts of global warming is an increase in the intensity and frequency of major storm events. Whether we are already seeing the impacts of climate change in the face of catastrophes such as last fall’s Hurricane Sandy is a popular subject of debate.

The Atlantic ‘hurricane season’ officially began June 1, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last week released its projections for hurricane activity this year. NOAA forecasts an active season with 13 to 20 named storms, seven to 11 of which are likely to develop into hurricanes, with as many as three to six of those with the potential to become Category 3 or higher. (The hurricane intensity scale runs from 1 [lowest] to 5 [highest].) There were 10 named storms during the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season.

NOAA’s 2013 hurricane outlook projections can be read here.

Education & Resources: Utilities Comments Training

A coalition of citizen groups including Democracy NC, NC WARN, and others are sponsoring three training sessions on the Duke Energy rate hike requests and the process for providing public comments in upcoming public hearings before the N.C. Utilities Commission. Background information will include the relevance of the rate hike requests to efforts to transition toward greater use of renewable energy sources.

These training sessions have been announced for June 6 in Winston-Salem, June 10 in Chapel Hill, and June 20 in Durham. (A meeting was held last week in Charlotte.) The scheduled Utilities Commission hearings are June 19 in Winston-Salem, June 26 in Charlotte, and July 2 in Hillsborough.

More details are available here.

That’s our report for this week.