Legislators decided to play April fools at the end of the month for a change this year. This week in CIB.

Legislative Watch: April Fools in the General Assembly

The April 30 “crossover” deadline for non-financial bills to pass one chamber brought out all the legislature’s tomfoolery at its worst last week.

In one of the worst bills of recent years, the House approved HB 795, the so-called “State Environmental Policy Act Reform.” As we have reported previously, this alleged “reform” in fact creates such gaping holes in the fabric of SEPA coverage that the law is effectively gutted by the exceptions.

At present, SEPA is the state-level equivalent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and requires an environmental impact analysis for projects which include state money or state land. Under the version of HB 795 which passed the House last week, SEPA would not apply to projects using less than $10 million of state funds or five acres of state land.

As NC Representative Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) said, SEPA is supposed to “provide transparency and the opportunity for public participation” when public funding or land is used. The various thresholds and exceptions of HB 795 “nearly render the act meaningless.”

Perhaps even more offensive than the gutting of SEPA was the version of HB 760, the so-called “Regulatory Reform Act of 2015”, which passed on a next-to-final House vote last week. As initially approved on the House floor, HB 760 included the several highly negative provisions that would undercut key clean water protections from riparian buffers in a list of ways. More, this already terrible bill was amended on the House floor to include provisions gutting our state’s most important booster of clean energy investment, the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS). That amendment reversed the biggest environmental victory achieved in the legislature this session, the narrow vote two weeks ago in the House Public Utilities Committee to retain REPS.

As we explained last week, 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. If the provisions gutting REPS stay in the amended HB 760 and it wins final passage, North Carolina’s rapid progress in renewable energy development could be slammed to a halt.

Unfortunately, these twin barrels of bad legislative news from last week overshadow the week’s relative bright spot, the final approval of legislation authorizing a one-year extension of North Carolina’s renewable energy tax credit. The approval of SB 372, “Renewable Energy Safe Harbor”, is a positive item, but its light alone can’t penetrate the shadow which would be cast by gutting REPS.

Administrative Watch: Duke Proposes “On-Site” Landfills

Duke Energy announced last week that it will pursue two new “on-site” landfills for coal ash at its closed coal plants near Eden and Wilmington. It said that the new sites would use “industry-proven containment and monitoring technologies.” That language alone is meaningless – after all, “industry-proven” includes the technologies repeatedly proven to fail through groundwater-contaminating leaks and dumping tons of ash sludge into rivers. However, the details of Duke’s proposals which refer to “fully lined” landfills and “dry” storage are among the important criteria sought by environmental advocates.

The suitability of the sites in question is less clear. Will the “on-site” locations in question be sufficiently raised above groundwater and physically distant from vulnerable surface waters? Environmental advocates have not yet had sufficient opportunity to fully analyze and comment on Duke’s proposals. Moreover, there is still no indication whether Duke is also planning solutions to deal with all the existing sites which should be cleaned up or is even committed to doing so on an appropriate timetable.

Duke’s proposal announcement can be read here. The Wilmington Star-News report on the proposed new Sutton site landfill can be found here.

The Greensboro News-Record article on local issues surrounding the Dan River site is linked here.

Education & Resources: The Cash Behind the Press for Offshore Drilling

Environmental journalist Sue Sturgis, a past NCLCV Green Tie Award recipient for her quality reporting, has penned the first article in a three-part series on the drive to drill off the North Carolina coast. The series began running in the online journal Facing South last week.

Part one explores the identity and activities of the deep-pocketed special interests behind this cash crusade to exploit our endangered coast. It follows the trail of dollars from Big Oil through its lobbyists, front groups, and subsidiary politicians to the dangerous cusp we have reached today.

Read it and learn. Just don’t read it right before bedtime if you want to sleep well that night.

Legislative Watch: 2015 NCLCV Green Tie Award Winners Announced

NCLCV announced today 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.