Legislative assaults on our state’s clean environment continue. This week in CIB.

Legislative Watch: Legislators Find New Ways to Threaten Environment

The big news last week in the General Assembly’s continuing assault on clean air and water was the final House passage of HB 760, the omnibus regulation “reform” bill containing multiple anti-environmental actions. The vote on third and final reading in the House was 77-32, and the bill now moves on to consideration in the Senate.

Among the bill’s worst provisions were these:

• It slashes the ability of state and local agencies to require riparian buffers as part of water quality protection strategies.
• It truncates the ability of local governments to require stormwater management efforts by development beyond the mandatory federal minimums, which among other harmful effects guts local efforts to manage the volume of excess stormwater runoff.
• It allows inactive hog farms to re-open without updating their pollution controls.
• It guts the state Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS), which has been a principal catalyst for the state’s recent solar energy boom.

Multiple amendments were offered on the House floor to remove or repair some of the problems, but most were rejected and none did all that was needed. Regarding the anti-REPS provision, Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) said, “Repealing state renewable energy standards around the country has been a priority of the Koch Brothers/ALEC alliance. They were successful in freezing Ohio’s REPS last year and the state has witnessed a dramatic decline in renewable energy jobs and investments. North Carolina has more than 25,000 clean energy jobs and billions of dollars of investments, often in our poorest counties, largely as a result of our REPS. We are number 2 in the US in solar. That will surely change if this provision is not fixed in the Senate or vetoed by the Governor.”

Limits on space (in terms of what most readers will be willing to plow through) bar us from attempting to list the names of every legislator on each important vote. However, here’s how you can identify how your legislator voted. First, if you don’t already know the name of your individual House representative, go here.

Then, to find out how your representative voted on final passage of HB 760, click here.

After the session is over (and before next year’s elections), NCLCV will prepare our Legislative Scorecard, laying out key votes such as HB 760 and its most critical amendments, and specifying who voted how on each one.

Unfortunately, HB 760’s set of assaults on clean air and water wasn’t even the only anti-environmental move still progressing in this legislature last week. Another important bill intended to stabilize transportation funding, HB 927, “Reestablish NC as the ‘Good Roads’ State”, contains provisions cutting funding for clean air programs in the process. It would eliminate the support which now goes from fuel taxes to state and county clean air programs, as part of shifting more funds to paving more roads.

Isn’t that great – more air pollution from vehicles and less money to deal with the problem? Can’t this General Assembly address any issue without attacking environmental protection as part of the deal?

At least HB 927 is still being considered in the Transportation Committee in the House. We encourage House members to prove us too cynical: Drop the provisions defunding clean air programs before you advance this bill.

Judicial Watch: Another Fracking Challenge

One court challenge to the fracking regulations approved late last year by the state’s Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) was already in court, awaiting rulings on pre-trial motions. Last week, a second lawsuit was filed.

The second suit was filed on behalf of two local government officials in counties potentially affected by fracking, an individual resident of a third, and the citizen group Clean Water for NC. It alleges that MEC’s rule overriding local ordinances which block or regulate fracking is contrary to the state constitution. Of course, that rule was mandated by the state legislature’s laws empowering the MEC, but the suit provides an opportunity to test both the rule and underlying statute in court.

An article in last week’s Independent Weekly discusses the suit and its context in more detail.

Coast Watch: South Carolina Locals Oppose Offshore Drilling

It isn’t just NORTH Carolinians who are coming out in strong opposition to their governor’s foolish cheerleading for offshore drilling. A growing number of local governments in South Carolina are speaking out on the subject as well, led by coastal communities whose economies depend on a clean shoreline and the tourism industry it supports.

Charleston County and South Carolina’s capital city of Columbia weighed in last week.

Previously, the City of Charleston, Beaufort (SC), James Island, Hilton Head Island, Folly Beach, Edisto Beach, Port Royal, and other communities have adopted resolutions opposing offshore drilling.

Among the more politically conservative northern SC coastal communities around the Myrtle Beach area, opposition to offshore drilling is growing, and the issue of formal opposition has become a hot debate.

NCLCV’s sister organization south of the border, the Conservation Voters of South Carolina (CVSC), is also actively involved in opposing offshore drilling.

Education & Resources: What Is SEPA Anyway?

Last week, environmental activists and some news editorialists were abuzz over the N.C. House’s approval of legislation which opponents say would gut the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).

It’s easy for advocates who spend every working day down in the weeds of environmental policy debates to forget that we have a large body of potential allies who don’t. Even most of us who have been in the trenches for a long time don’t track everything and can often use a refresher on why something that was hot news in the 70s still has significance. As in, what does SEPA really do now and why does it still matter anyway?

Fear not: NC Health News has a short, readable, neutral primer on that very question, just one click away.

Legislative Watch: 2015 NCLCV Green Tie Award Winners Announced

Last week, NCLCV announced the 2015 winners of its Green Tie Awards for pro-conservation leaders in the NC General Assembly. This year’s awards recognize the leadership of two State Senators and three State Representatives.

The 2015 Green Tie Award winners are:

• Representative of the Year: Joe Sam Queen
• 2015 Rising Stars (recognizing new voices at the General Assembly who make the environment a cause they champion): Senators Jeff Jackson and Terry Van Duyn; Representatives Graig Meyer and Robert Reives II

The 2015 Green Tie Awards reception will be held Wednesday, May 27, in Raleigh. For full details (including tickets and sponsorship information), click here.

That’s our report for this week.