The environment got one big legislative win last week, but other urgent threats are on the immediate horizon. That plus other news, this week in CIB.
Legislative Watch: Close Vote Retains Key Clean Energy Program; Bill Gutting State Environmental Policy Act Up for Vote Tonight
There’s been big good news, and there are serious impending threats, from the NC House this week.
Close Vote Retains Key Clean Energy Program: On a razor’s edge vote, the House Public Utilities Committee voted down the latest bill proposing to end the state’s policy requiring regulated electric utilities to obtain a percentage of their power from renewable energy sources like solar (the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, REPS). HB 681, the mis-named “Ratepayer Protection Act”, failed on a 16-14 vote by committee members.
REPS has proven to be a critical catalyst for North Carolina’s booming solar energy industry, which has also brought down sharply the cost of solar-produced electricity. Contrary to the extreme anti-regulatory crowd’s claims, there is no indication that electric rates are being driven up by renewable energy investments – unlike the soaring costs of big centralized coal and nuclear plants, which are driving rates up.
These 16 House members of the Public Utilities Committee who voted ‘no’ on the REPS repeal by HB 681 deserve thanks: Kelly Alexander (D-Mecklenburg), John Bradford (R-Mecklenburg), Carla Cunningham (D-Mecklenburg), Nelson Dollar (R-Wake), Beverly Earle (D-Mecklenburg), Duane Hall (D-Wake), Ed Hanes (D-Forsyth), Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Kelly Hastings (R-Cleveland), Ralph Johnson (D-Guilford), Paul Leubke (D-Durham), Chris Malone (R-Wake), Graig Meyer (D-Orange), Rodney Moore (D-Mecklenburg), Sam Watford (R-Davidson), and Michael Wray (D-Halifax). (The four Republicans deserve special credit for bucking the dictate from anti-regulation idealogues and instead casting an evidence-based, pro-business, pro-jobs vote.)
Committee members voting against renewable energy and the jobs it is creating, by supporting HB 681, were the following: John Bell (R-Wayne), Dan Bishop (R-Mecklenburg), Hugh Blackwell (R-Burke), Brian Brown (R-Pitt), Dana Bumgardner (R-Gaston), Rick Catlin (R-New Hanover), Jeff Collins (R-Nash), Debra Conrad (R-Forsyth), Jeffrey Elmore (R-Wilkes), Mike Hager (R-Rutherford), Susan Martin (R-Wilson), Chris Millis (R-Pender), Dennis Riddell (R-Alamance), and Harry Warren (R-Rowan).
Bill Gutting State Environmental Policy (SEPA) Act Up for Vote Tonight: The full House is scheduled to vote tonight (Monday, April 27) on HB 795, “State Environmental Policy Act Reform.” Like so many “regulatory reform” proposals recently, this one wouldn’t ‘reform’ SEPA – it would gut that law, which currently determines which state-supported projects must go through environmental impact analyses before proceeding. The bill would severely limit the number of projects which would be required to go through that analysis. Regular recipients of CIB will have gotten an action alert this morning urging contacts to your state House member in opposition to HB 795. If you haven’t yet followed up on that alert, you can connect with relevant information and that action opportunity here.
Administrative Watch: State Tests Find Toxic Pollution in Drinking Wells
State water test results released last week show that 87 private wells near eight Duke Energy power plants showed toxic contamination above state groundwater safety standards. The tests showed excessive levels of heavy metals of types found in coal ash.
Multiple news outlets have reported these results, which came to general public light after private homeowners with drinking water wells tested by the state, including residents near the Buck plant outside Salisbury, began receiving notices that they should not drink or cook with water from their wells. The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has since acknowledged that private wells have been tested and failed to meet state groundwater standards near Duke’s Allen, Asheville, Belews Creek, Buck, Cliffside, Marshall, Roxboro and Sutton units.
According to the Associated Press, Duke spokesperson Erin Culbert said that the metals found in the water tests near the company’s coal ash dumps could have been already naturally present in the groundwater. She said, “Based on the state’s test results we’ve reviewed thus far, we have no indication that Duke Energy plant operations have influenced neighbors’ well water.” (Associated Press, 4/21/15.)
CIB suggests that if you believe that, we will be pleased to offer you a fine deal on submerged lots in the surf zone off the Nags Head beaches.
Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) senior attorney John Suttles says to the contrary, “These test results confirm what we’ve been saying all along in court. Duke’s coal ash pits are leaking toxic pollutants into groundwater. According to its own self-reporting, Duke Energy dumps huge amounts of vanadium into its leaking coal ash pits. Vanadium is highly mobile in groundwater so it’s not a surprise that it’s showing up in groundwater and nearby drinking water wells. Despite all of this, DENR has suggested that it could be naturally occurring.”
Judicial Watch: Redistricting Case Headed Back to State Review
Last week, the US Supreme Court sent North Carolina’s most recent redistricting plan back to the state courts for further review. Why should environmental advocates care? Let’s take a closer look.
Most citizens would agree that competitive election districts are a good thing for democracy. When candidates for legislative offices have to compete for votes in an election pool that includes all citizens, there’s a far greater chance that majority public views will end up with the strongest voice in the legislature. There’s also a greater chance that any given legislator will have to care – or at least act like s/he cares – what his or her constituents are saying about issues that come before the legislature for a vote.
This applies to all policy issues generally. It applies particularly to environmental policies – clean air and water, public health, and natural resources. That’s because the great majority of voters care about those things, but they only rarely represent the “hot buttons” which tend to dominate most campaigns. To impact many elections, the fairly small percentage of the electorate who take the time and effort to study the details of environmental issues, and vote on a truly well-informed policy basis, needs competitive districts in which the outcomes are reasonably close. Further, we need to have most legislators during the legislative sessions considering how their actions will sit with the overall citizenry (and not just with a small party primary electorate, which tends to be skewed off toward one side of the public opinion section).
That’s why, even setting partisan attitudes aside, it’s important to protecting our environment that most general election campaigns be competitive. Unfortunately, North Carolina (like many other states) has moved to the other extreme. Only a relative handful of legislative districts today are considered competitive in the general election contests. Most contests are decided within the party primaries, in which most of the public does not vote. In that regard, North Carolina’s districts for General Assembly (state legislature) and Congress are among the least competitive in the nation. They have been carefully and scientifically designed with that end in mind.
Therefore, the US Supreme Court decision last week sending North Carolina’s district maps back to the state level for further court review was very important good news for our environment. Our state Supreme Court was charged with reconsidering the way the maps were drawn, in light of the US. Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal Voting Rights Act requirements. The state court must consider whether the actual effect of the standards used protects minority voting influence, not just some pure numerical formula setting the overall number of majority-minority districts.
As a practical matter, we don’t yet know whether the NC Supreme Court will rule any differently on further review. However, NCLCV and a wide range of other groups across the political spectrum have joined together to say that it should. Good democratic government generally – and a clean environment in particular – will be the winners if the General Assembly is required to go back to the drawing board with producing more competitive legislative districts in mind.
One reasonably easy to follow explanation of the legal issues involved in this case can be found here.
That’s our report for this week.
