The House votes on fracking, plus environmental news from other venues, this week in CIB:
- Legislative Watch: House Gets Into the Frack Act
- Campaign Watch: Judges Hear Redistricting Case
- Washington Watch: EPA Taking Comments on Cleaner Fuel Rule
- Around the State: Clear-cutting for Billboards
Legislative Watch: House Gets Into the Frack Act
The good news on the House version of SB 76, the so-called “Domestic Energy Jobs Act”, is that it isn’t as bad as the original Senate version. On the other hand, this could still be a matter of “damnation by faint praise”.
The revised version of SB 76 which moved through the House last week stripped several of the bad provisions contained in the original. In particular, it takes out the authorization for underground injection of wastewater from fracking. It also removes the prohibition against local governments’ taxing any aspect of oil or gas extraction; leaves the state geologist and Environmental Management Commission and Commission for Public Health representatives on the Mining and Energy Commission; and retains the Energy Policy Council in its current form.
Conservationists appreciate these moves by the House. Even so, it’s hard to work up enthusiasm for the end result. The bill continues its basic wrong-direction approach of promoting offshore drilling and pushing even faster for the permitting of fracking before final regulations are weighed and finalized. North Carolina would benefit far more, in jobs and environment, by joining other states that are pushing full-speed-ahead in the promotion of clean, renewable energy resources like solar and wind energy.
The revised House version of SB 76 is on the Senate calendar for a vote on concurrence in the House amendments tonight (Monday, June 10). If the Senate rejects the modifications, the competing versions will go to a House-Senate conference committee for an attempt at further compromise between bad and worse.
Campaign Watch: Judges Hear Redistricting Case
A special three-judge panel last week heard testimony and arguments in the case challenging North Carolina’s Congressional and state legislative redistricting plans. This ongoing case represents the key remaining opportunity to force redrawing the district maps in a way that would make more of the districts competitive in general elections.
The week’s hearings focused on the argument that the 2011 state legislative session created district maps that unconstitutionally pack racial minority voters in as few districts as possible. Several African-American office-holders testified that the argument relied upon by the legislative majority–that it was just increasing opportunity for minorities to be elected–makes no sense, as minorities were already winning in less racially monolithic districts. Instead, they argue, the map was drawn to maximize partisan advantage via the approach of reducing the number of districts in which minority voters can have an impact.
More details are available here.
Washington Watch: EPA Taking Comments on Cleaner Fuel Rule
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed new fuel content standards designed to result in cleaner air by reducing the sulfur content in gasoline. EPA calculates that reduced pollution from the cleaner fuel will prevent up to 2,400 premature deaths and 22,000 asthma attacks each year by 2030.
Unfortunately but not surprisingly, oil companies are fighting the new standards, claiming excessive costs. To keep the cleaner fuel standards moving forward, national environmental groups are calling for the submission to EPA of comments in support of the proposed new standard.
EPA is accepting public comments on the new standard until July 1, 2013. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) is offering this easy to use route to submit a supportive comment here.
Around the State: Clear-cutting for Billboards
One of the anti-environmental laws passed by the 2011 session of the N.C. General Assembly authorized billboard companies to greatly increase their clearing of trees and vegetation on public road rights-of-way near their signs. Photographic evidence is beginning to pop up of the negative impacts on that change on our roadsides and neighborhoods.
Scenic America has recently posted photos showing the dramatic adverse effect of the new law on the Wesley Heights neighborhood in Charlotte along I-77. Last month, a billboard company stripped away most of the canopy of greenery that had long formed a buffer between the neighborhood and the noise and sight of the freeway.
N.C.’s Department of Transportation estimates that the new law will result in an 80% increase in clear-cutting along our state’s interstates and other major roadways.
Bad laws have real impacts. Fighting back effectively in the legislature–and in elections for legislators–is more important than ever.
That’s our report for this week.
