The state Mining and Energy Commission has adopted rules on fracking. This week in CIB.

Administrative Watch: MEC Adopts Fracking Rules

The NC Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) last week gave its final approval to rules for regulating the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling (“fracking”) for extracting oil and gas.

On two proposals from its hearing officers’ report, intended to strengthen monitoring and enforcement of pollution control rules on fracking, the commission split. It pulled back from asserting authority to issue a stop-work order against fracking operations which an inspection found to be in violation of environmental rules. Commissioners said that the authority to stop work administratively was not clear in state statute, and they instead added a request for that authority to their list of recommendations to next year’s General Assembly session.

In pulling back from simply including the stop-work tool in their own rules, the MEC reversed its tentative agreement to do so at their previous week’s meeting. This is a disappointment to conservationists tracking the rules. Some observers believe that the governor’s lawsuit challenging the Coal Ash Commission’s makeup (see article below) may have affected the MEC’s willingness to take what it considered a legal risk on this point.

However, they retained another important change to their original rules – their hearing officers’ recommendation that state regulators be allowed to make unannounced inspections of drilling sites to determine compliance. This is important:without the prospect of unannounced inspections, the incentive for drillers to maintain ongoing compliance with all environmental requirements is substantially reduced.

In addition, the time allowed for review of permit applications was extended to 180 days. Local governments and the public will have longer notice and opportunity to comment on permit requests.

These changes were among the ones requested by many concerned citizens during the public comment process on the package of proposed fracking rules. Many other commenters simply objected to the entire concept of allowing fracking. Unfortunately, the MEC’s legal authority as delegated by the state legislature did not include the option of stopping the process.

The fracking rules as approved by the MEC now go to the Rules Review Commission and from there to the state legislature for final consideration and potential approval. Conservationists and other members of the concerned public continue to believe that the ongoing rush to fast-track fracking in North Carolina is ill-advised. Even in the face of a hostile political environment on that basic question, however, it is important to note that active public involvement is influencing the safeguards being put in place to address the resulting problems.

Climate Change Update: US, China Agree to Limits

In an important international deal for climate change policy, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week announced agreement on new limits to their nations’ greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama agreed that the US would raise its net emissions reduction target from 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, to 26-28 percent by 2025. China agreed to increase the share of energy it gets from non-fossil fuel resources to 20 percent by 2030 and to cap its overall emissions growth by that year.

Supporters of action to limit global warming generally praised the agreement as an important step, in part because it represents the first time Chinese authorities have agreed to any limits on their emissions. Critics immediately attacked the deal as allegedly inflicting costs on the US while allowing Chinese emissions to continue to grow.

The Center for Climate Strategies “applaud[ed]” the deal as “one big step” toward increasing action by the two largest national emitters of greenhouse gases. Brian Murray of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions said, “Just the fact that they agreed to cap their emissions in the future is a significant development.”

Supportive observers generally noted that further steps will be necessary to adequately control climate change. Needed additional actions would include commitments from other developing economies, as well as further reductions from the more economically developed nations.

For further analysis and links, see here.

Campaign Watch: Voters Fund Parks, Greenways

Voters in municipalities around North Carolina last week gave thumbs up to bonds investing more in parks and greenways. The votes in Hickory, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, and Wake Forest continue a trend of voter approval of investing their money in targeted green infrastructure.

Raleigh voters approved a $92 million bond issue for parks, greenways, and recreation. Winston-Salem voters overwhelmingly approved five bond packages, including $31 million for parks and recreation, and another $15 million for sidewalks, greenways, and other bicycle/pedestrian facilities. Wake Forest voters approved a $25 million package that will primarily pay for greenways, parks, and sidewalks.

In Hickory, voters approved an economic development bonds package which specifically included two pedestrian connectivity projects, a “river walk” along its lakefront and a “city walk” from its downtown to its university campus. There’s an extra message: not only are voters checking “yes” on green spending, more development planners are recognizing the green-dollar value of of green-transportation investments. We like these messages from voters.

Executive Watch: Suing Over a Side Issue

After rubber-stamping Duke Energy’s weak coal ash “cleanup” plans and letting the legislature’s weak bill become law without his signature, Gov. Pat McCrory has found an element of the issue on which he feels strongly enough to fight over: his executive authority.

On the eve of the Coal Ash Commission’s inaugural meeting, McCrory filed his threatened lawsuit challenging the commission’s authorizing legislation as an unconstitutional assumption by the legislature of executive branch authority. Under the legislation (approved by the General Assembly last summer), six members of the Commission are appointed by the legislature and only three by the governor.

The governor’s lawsuit also challenges the makeup of two other recently created commissions slated to start next year dealing with oil and gas and mining issues. The lawsuit is expected to be the first one considered under a new legislatively-approved judicial process for state constitutional issues, in which the case is tried before three Superior Court judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court. Any appeal from their ruling would go straight to the state Supreme Court, bypassing the state Court of Appeals level.

If only the governor felt as strongly about getting all of the coal ash pits in our state actually cleaned up…

Education & Resources: Waterways Restored – and Still Threatened

Environment North Carolina has just released a new report detailing case examples of how the landmark national Clean Water Act has been used to clean up and protect much of our nation’s waters over the 40+ years since it was first enacted in its current form. “Waterways Restored. The Clean Water Act’s Impact on 15 American Rivers, Lakes and Bays” includes North Carolina’s own Broad River among its highlighted stories.

In his blog post, the NC Justice Center’s Rob Schofield calls particular attention to how this report also underscores the continuing legal efforts to undermine the Clean Water Act and the urgent need to restore protections to a broad swath of threatened waters and wetlands.

A future CIB will look at the state of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rulemaking on restoring protections to threatened waters, a fight that is playing out now in North Carolina and across the nation.

That’s our report for this week.