Dollars and nonsense at the General Assembly; plus, your right to vote is under fire. This week in CIB.
Legislative Watch: Dollars and Nonsense
Last week at the General Assembly, House leaders rolled out their version of a budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. There is some modest good news in the House proposal as compared to the status quo or the Governor’s proposed budget.
In particular, the House would commit another $12.5 million to the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund in the first year, with $1.5 million recurring in subsequent years. It also adds another $10 million (non-recurring) to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. The House budget also does not shuffle state parks off to the Department of Cultural Resources, unlike the Governor’s proposal.
However, under the House budget proposal, the already-understaffed Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) shrinks by about another 60 authorized positions. These spots are technically already vacant. That’s less than reassuring, however, when we consider how much emphasis the current DENR administration has put on a so-called “customer friendly” soft pedal approach to enforcement. The top brass has shown little interest in making use of its potential clean environment enforcement muscle, so it’s no surprise that staff posts which might have provided some have been allowed to atrophy.
Meanwhile on another key legislative front, one of the most well-heeled anti-environmental advocacy groups, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has rolled out its latest dollars-and-nonsense attack on clean energy. AFP, which not coincidentally receives much funding from oil industry and other dirty energy sources, loves to attack clean, renewable energy development with factually questionable claims. In its latest assault on clean energy, AFP has launched a grab bag of dubious allegations attacking North Carolina’s imperiled Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS).
(For those who came in late, REPS requires electric utilities operating in North Carolina – especially Duke Energy – to produce or purchase a modest minimum percentage of its electricity from renewable sources like solar. REPS shares responsibility with the renewable energy development tax credits for the enormous boom in solar energy generation and related jobs in NC over the past eight years. Unfortunately, the House’s latest regulatory ‘reform’ bill, HB 760, was amended on the House floor to include anti-REPS changes. HB 760 passed the House and is now pending in the state Senate).
In working to gin up support for gutting REPS, AFP is flinging muddy claims about cost. First, the group points to rising electricity costs for customers of Duke Energy. That’s certainly true enough – but then they pull the switch of falsely blaming those increases on the very modest costs of incentivizing renewable energy production. In fact, Duke customers in NC pay about 50 cents/month for renewables – and about $20/month for fuel for the big centralized power plants. Moreover, instead of raising the net costs of electricity to customers, REPS is saving them money, and those savings from REPS are climbing over time.
AFP goes on to raise the specter of job losses. In fact, not only does renewable energy generation create jobs, it creates more than fossil fuels. In addition, unlike coal, solar jobs are also created here at home in NC.
Renewable energy is already saving money for electric customers and creating jobs for our state. It will continue to do more of both, so long as the paid fossil fuel cheerleaders like AFP don’t persuade our legislators to gut the very tools that are producing an affordable green energy revolution in our state.
Listen for the propaganda being spread by AFP and its sponsors, and then don’t stay silent. Push back with the facts.
Campaign Watch: Support the Right to Vote
The NC State Board of Elections is holding nine public hearings across the state over the coming month, taking public comment on draft rules applying the new voter photo ID requirements.
Why is this an environmental issue? NCLCV likes to point out two fundamental truths about environmental protection:
- Who we elect to public office determines the direction of environmental laws, programs, and resources.
- Voting is how we choose our legislators and other public officials.
With that in mind, we understand that attacks on the public’s right to vote are attacks on our ability to change environmental policy for the better, or even to protect gains previously made. And since the 2010 election cycle in North Carolina, the right to vote in our state has been under attack. The attacks produced a package of legislative changes designed to make voting more difficult for many citizens, including cutbacks in early voting periods, and elimination of options like same-day registration/voting and out-of-precinct voting.
The capstone of this effort to make voting more difficult is the notorious voter photo identification requirement, scheduled to take effect in 2016. This new requirement passed despite the absence of evidence in NC of in-person voting fraud (the only kind which photo IDs would affect). Instead, the evidence is clear that hundreds of thousands of qualified NC voters lack photo IDs that would meet the law’s new tests. The new law puts their ability to vote at risk.
Now, the NC State Board of Elections is undertaking the difficult task of shaping rules to implement the new law’s photo ID requirements. Voting rights advocates have analyzed the draft rules, and found both positive points and danger spots. Plus, they warn that groups who want to make it even harder to vote will be pitching for changes to make the rules worse. Citizen groups seeking to protect the right to vote for all citizens are promoting turnout and informed comment at the public hearings.
The citizen advocacy group Democracy NC lays out its analysis and suggested comment points on the proposed new rules here.
Details on the dates, times, and places of the public hearings are available.
NCLCV encourages our supporters and volunteers to help protect the right to vote – and to influence environmental policy for the better through the electoral process – by getting involved in this effort.
Judicial Watch: Duke Cops a Plea
Duke Energy last week formally pleaded guilty to nine counts of criminal misdemeanor negligence responsible for the massive 2014 Dan River coal ash spill, as well as leaks and other problems associated with coal ash storage at four other plants. A U.S. District Court Judge accepted the plea deal agreed to by Duke and federal prosecutors, under which Duke will pay $102 million in combined fines and damage restitution. Duke will also be subject to five years of “supervised organizational probation.”
The $102 million includes $68 million in outright fines, as well as a $24 million payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (for improving river systems in NC and Virginia), and $10 million to purchase wetlands to offset environmental harm from coal ash pollution. Despite the image which comes quickly to mind of the CEO and Board Chair of Duke in ankle bracelets, we expect that “supervised organizational probation” refers more to oversight of corporate progress in monitoring, cleaning up, and preventing further leaks and spills. The deal also includes more employee training on environmentally safer handling of coal ash, and on how to report observed environmental hazards.
More details of the deal and its background, including links to the legal documents themselves, can be found through this link.
Education & Resources: Green Tie Awards; Buffer Threats Explained
Green Tie Awards: Don’t forget that NCLCV’s Green Tie event is coming up later this month, on May 27, in Raleigh. This year’s featured speaker is NC Attorney General Roy Cooper. Honorees include Representative of the Year Joe Sam Queen, and “Rising Stars” Senators Jeff Jackson and Terry Van Duyn and Representatives Graig Meyer and Robert Reives II. Tickets and sponsorships for the Green Tie Awards Reception can be purchased here.
Buffer Threats Explained: Finally this week, we visit another technical issue in the current environmental policy debates in Raleigh. Exactly what do the threats to stream and river buffers contained in the pending legislation HB 760 mean to the environment? In this article, former state environmental official Amy Adams explains.
That’s our report for this week.
