Environmental allies picked up some important primary wins last week, plus other news, this week in CIB:

Campaign Watch: Conservationists Win Important Primaries

NCLCV-endorsed candidates won six of their seven primaries last week in key state legislative contests across North Carolina.

Green champion Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) received over two-thirds of the vote in turning back a credible opponent, a former Greensboro city council member. We look for Rep. Harrison to continue leading the way across a broad range of environmental issues from coal ash to clean water. Her colleague on the Senate side of the Guilford County delegation, Sen. Gladys Robinson (D-Guilford), likewise defeated a former local elected official, with almost 60% of the vote in her race.

The environment’s best friend on the GOP side of the aisle, Rep. Chuck McGrady (R-Henderson) can be counted upon to see that protecting public health and conserving our natural resources are at least raised for consideration within the Republican caucus. That’s no small feat in these challenging times. Rep. McGrady prevailed over his primary opponent with over 61% of the vote up in the western mountains.

Down east, Sen. Don Davis (D-Greene) swept his primary contest with over 70% of the vote against two primary challengers. Nearby, Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield (D-Wilson) took more than three-quarters of the vote in handily dispatching her primary challenger. Rep. Farmer-Butterfield is another of the environment’s special champions, having been named Representative of the Year in 2008 and earning a perfect 100% score in 2013. Among our eastern allies, Rep. Michael Wray (D-Northampton) also prevailed over his primary opponent, with 58% of the total vote.

In NCLCV’s only loss of the primary season, we’re sad to see Rep. Annie Mobley (D-Hertford) lose her seat. We hope that her prevailing challenger, Howard Hunter III, will keep the protection of public health and conservation of our natural resources in mind in the House.

Finally, we note that in the N.C. Supreme Court primary contest profiled by CIB last week, incumbent Justice Robin Hudson led the three-candidate field. She will move on to the fall general election, in which she will face the second-place finisher, trial court Judge Eric Levinson. We assume that the same special interest groups which poured money into this judicial primary will be back in the fall with more cash, likely spread across more contests as well.

One last note for the week in campaign watch: Don’t forget that U.S. Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) will address NCLCV’s Green Tie Awards Dinner on Tuesday, May 27, in Raleigh. For full details (including ticket information), see here.

Climate Change Update: National Climate Assessment Shows Changes Underway

The most comprehensive climate assessment ever produced by the U.S. government was released last week. The National Climate Assessment was produced by 300 scientists, overseen by a 60-member expert panel, working in cooperation with 13 government agencies and the National Academy of Sciences. It details how global climate change is already impacting every region of the United States. More here.

In addition to detailing the reality and impacts of climate change to date and those projected in the current-trends future, the report discusses options for mitigating change and for adapting to the changes which are already inevitable. As grave as the effects of global warming will be, it is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Limiting the causes of warming now can still reduce the damage to future generations. No rational public policy can fail to make the attempt to do so.

For policy-makers, denying the reality of global climate change has become delusional. Understanding that reality and attempting to hide it is profoundly immoral. Seeing it and refusing to address it is contemptibly irresponsible.

Staff at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) have highlighted and summarized some of the findings of the report as they relate to the southeastern region. See their comments here.

Legislative Watch: Fracking Rules Sent to the Fast Track Again

The General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy voted last week to send draft legislation on fracking rules to the full legislature for consideration during the “short session” beginning this week.

The draft bill, titled “Energy Modernization Act”, is a combination of provisions nodding to environmental concerns and others giving boosters of fracking the freer hand that they want. Provisions deal with key topics such as industry disclosure of the chemicals injected underground during the fracking process, the required monitoring zone around fracking operations, and liability for environmental damages caused by fracking.

Environmentalists are flatly unhappy with the bill’s inclusion of “forced pooling” (which provides drillers with a process for forcing landowners to sell the rights to drill under their land), and the pre-emption of local ordinances limiting or barring fracking within local jurisdictions.

On other points, the analysis is more nuanced. “The draft bill has its positive points, including its recognition that the public’s environmental regulatory agency must have access to so-called ‘trade secrets’ which could put our water supplies at risk. However, the legislation badly needs to be strengthened in other regards, including water testing for pollution and adequate bonding security for drillers,” commented NCLCV Governmental Affairs Director Dan Crawford.

A good news summary of the legislation by WRAL’s Laura Leslie can be found here.

Education & Resources: EPA’s EnviroAtlas

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week released a new online tool that provides consolidated access to hundreds of “data layers” with information relevant to environmental decisions at 
the state and community level.

According to EPA’s news release, it’s intended “to allow users to visualize and analyze how decisions impact ecosystems” and to be useful to “people from all levels of government, professionals, researchers, educators, non-governmental organizations, and anyone interested in considering the benefits or impacts of a decision, such as siting a new road or city park.”

We guess that includes us. So check it out here.

That’s our report for this week.