Senate leaders want to gut more environmental programs, plus election news, this week in CIB:
Legislative Watch: More Rules Deform
The State Senate is expected to vote tonight (Monday, June 13) on legislation which would eliminate North Carolina’s electronics recycling program, and further gut the ability of state environmental boards to protect clean air and water. These damaging provisions are contained in the latest piece of “rules deform”, HB 169, “Regulatory Reduction Act of 2016”. (The bill has a House number because it technically originated there, but its original provisions have been replaced with Senate-written material.)
As the bill is written at this time, its biggest problem provisions are these:
It would end North Carolina’s electronics recycling program, allowing old equipment with dangerous heavy metals to end up back in landfills.
It would block state regulatory boards and agencies, including the Environmental Management Commission (EMC), from enacting rules which would cost more than $100 million over five years. There is no exception for public health protections, environmental emergencies, requirements of federal or state law or courts, or findings of net benefits. It’s an absolute bar which under state fiscal calculation rules is practically assured of clashing with federal clean air and water programs that states like North Carolina have been allowed to manage and enforce.
NCLCV encourages our friends and supporters to contact your State Senator immediately and urge them to vote ‘no’ on HB 169. If you don’t have the name or contact information for your State Senator, you can find it here.
In other legislative developments last week, the State Senate suspended its consideration of overriding Gov. Pat McCrory’s veto of legislation to revive the Coal Ash Management Commission. The future of that debate is uncertain. The House and Senate also appointed conferees to the conference committee to resolve differences between their respective versions of the state budget bill.
Campaign Watch: Clinton, Morgan, Adams Head to the General
Pro-environment candidates fared well at the national and state levels in voting last week.
Hillary Clinton becomes presumptive Democratic nominee: Hillary Clinton became the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee last week, after the voting in the final six states allowed her to lock up a clear majority of all pledged (elected) delegates to the Democratic National Convention in late July. (She has over 2,200 of the 4,050 total available pledged delegates, a lead of 375 over Bernie Sanders.) She also added to her strong majority support among the unpledged ‘superdelegates’ who vote at the convention because of their own elected public or party positions. (By Associated Press count, she has commitments from 581 of the total 715 ‘superdelegate’ votes.) Following her wins in the California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota primaries Tuesday, she also received a cascade of additional endorsements, including President Barack Obama and the national Sierra Club. The national League of Conservation Voters Action Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund had already endorsed Clinton earlier.
Supreme Court primary: In North Carolina, voters statewide last week selected the final two contenders for the one available seat on the N.C. Supreme Court. The two contestants on the November ballot will be incumbent Justice Bob Edmunds and challenger Judge Michael Morgan.
The NC Chapter of the Sierra Club has endorsed Morgan, while the NC Chamber of Commerce spent $450,000 in an “independent expenditure” ad buy on behalf of Edmunds.
Observers of the Court believe that the justice elected this year will be the swing vote on a range of key policy issues which come before the seven-member Court. Those include critical environmental questions, from the interpretation of state statutes to hearing challenged rules and case decisions from the NC Utilities Commission and NC Environmental Management Commission.
Alma Adams wins 12th District nomination: Incumbent U.S. Representative Alma Adams won a hotly contested primary contest for the Democratic nomination in the redrawn 12th Congressional District in North Carolina. The LCV Action Fund endorsed Adams in recognition of her pro-environment leadership and her 97% positive rating on the LCV National Environmental Scorecard. In Congress, Adams has consistently supported clean energy, public health protections, and action to address climate change. She will be strongly favored to win re-election this fall in the heavily Democratic 12th District.
Walser falls short: Meanwhile, unfortunately, LCV Action Fund-endorsed Jason Walser fell short in the Republican primary for the 13th Congressional District. Walser is the former director of the Land Trust for Central North Carolina. Even more unfortunately, the winner in a wild 17-candidate GOP primary was Ted Budd, who was endorsed by the Club for Growth PAC on the basis of his “limited-government” and “pro-growth” policies. The Club for Growth is a heavily funded and aggressively anti-environmental-regulation national group. It is known for its opposition to action to address climate change. Its ‘super PAC’, Club for Growth Action, spent almost $500,000 for ads on behalf of Budd in the primary.
That’s our report for this week.
