The past week has seen major developments on climate change, clean energy, the coastal environment, voting rights, and the state budget. We try to keep you updated this week in CIB.
Legislative Watch: Bad Budget Blues
The good news is that the Senate’s version of a budget for the State of North Carolina, passed last week, is not the final word. The House is certain not to concur, and to send the debate to conference between the chambers over a very wide range of issues. The bad news is that the Senate’s version is very bad for the environment in a variety of ways. We’ll hit some of the low points here as an indicator of where changes are most badly needed.
Among the worst:
- The Senate budget, through a “special provision”, eliminates the Sedimentation Control Commission and transfers its duties to the Environmental Management Commission. At the same time, it cuts back on the civil penalty authority for fining violators of the sedimentation pollution control rules, and adds more hoops that already-overburdened regulatory staff must jump through in order to deliver notices of violation.
- The Senate budget orders the diversion of millions from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund for those Keystone Kops of the environment: the “Solar Bees” that are supposed to reduce algae blooms in polluted lakes by churning the water. It extends this wasteful strategy from Jordan Lake to others in the state. It also postpones implementation of the more serious Jordan pollution control plan by yet another two years.
- The budget swiftly phases out the cleanup program for non-commercial leaking underground storage tanks, leaving landowners with no state help in addressing the pollution from large numbers of these leftover groundwater contamination time bombs.
- It further weakens the protection of coastal barrier island shorelines by directing the Coastal Resources Commission to allow sandbagging on any beachfront property whose neighbor has sandbags – thus fulfilling the prediction of proliferating sandbag seawalls along once-protected shores.
- It weakens the conservation role of the State Parks system by transferring it from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to the Department of Cultural Resources.
- It delays and undercuts the ability of Wake County to move forward with participation in a Triangle-wide passenger rail system by blocking it from voting on the sales tax increment for transit during the same election as a vote on the sales tax increment for education. (“Huh?”, you may ask. Sorry, we can’t provide any particularly reasonable basis for this change, which looks like yet another way to mess with Wake and attack public transit.)
Former DENR Assistant Secretary Robin Smith, widely respected expert in North Carolina environmental laws and programs, discusses many of these and other Senate budget provisions affecting the environment.
Campaign Watch: Surprise Break for Voting Rights
We didn’t see this one coming – and neither did many legislators who are supposed to be kept informed of what they’re being asked to vote on – but it was still welcomed news, so far as it goes.
State legislators last week approved a limited but significant exception to the photo-identification requirement due to be implemented in 2016. Using what is called a “reasonable impediment declaration”, voters who sign an affidavit that getting a qualifying photo ID was a hardship could present some forms of alternative identification and vote.
The change leaves many assertions of discrimination and voter suppression unresolved and does not stop the upcoming trial in federal court on the claims that the new voter law is unconstitutional in many regards. However, it adds an exception to that law’s requirements that some believe is calculated to improve its chances of being upheld in court.
A statement by Democracy North Carolina characterized the latest change as a response to “hundreds of citizen complaints at voter ID hearings across the state [and] years of mounting public and legal pressure.” If that analysis is correct, it validates the message that persistent public involvement can have a valuable positive impact even in this difficult legislative environment.
Around the Globe: Powerful Statement on Climate Change
Statements on climate change don’t come much stronger, either in substance or in influence, than the message delivered last week by Pope Francis, the undisputed leader of one of the world’s largest faith bodies.
Pope Francis’s highly anticipated and dramatic encyclical on the environment was released last week and left no doubt regarding the pontiff’s message to his church and those who lend a thoughtful ear to its teachings: “Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see because they have been lost forever. Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
The encyclical calls for sweeping efforts to confront that challenge, including moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. It confronts questions about supposed conflicts between teachings of faith and ecological science. It calls for action not just by individuals, but by governments as well. It ties environmental concerns together with an imperative to attend to social justice and the needs of the poor.
It’s always good to have allies on such critical environmental questions – and allies don’t come with much more influence than this one.
The NC League of Conservation Voters and NC Interfaith Power & Light announced a public discussion meeting for this afternoon (Monday, June 22, 4 pm) in Greensboro (First Friends Meeting, 2100 W. Friendly Ave.) that they call “Celebrating the Care of our Common Home: A Community Conversation on the Climate Change Encyclical.” Find more information for this event here.
Administrative Watch: Solar Sales Test Case
While arguments continue within the General Assembly over the proper role of government and corporate monopoly powers in the extension of renewable energy, two non-profit citizen groups have set up a test case to help force the issue.
NC WARN has financed and built a rooftop solar electric installation in Greensboro for the Faith Community Church and proposes to sell the resulting power to the church under a long-term agreement for about half the rate that the church now pays for power from its monopoly public utility Duke Energy. The groups have asked the NC Utilities Commission to approve the arrangement.
If they succeed, the case could lead the way for many similar deals to follow from other entities, non-profit and profit alike. The proposal is similar to what would be authorized by statute under proposed legislation now pending in the NC General Assembly. Read more about this project here.
Coast Watch: Bonner Bridge Settlement Reached
The battling parties in federal litigation over the replacement of the Bonner Bridge across Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks last week announced a deal to settle the case. The state of North Carolina and environmental groups have fought on this matter for years.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), representing Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association, said in its news statement that the settlement will “replace the aging Bonner Bridge, deal with the most vulnerable portions of MC 12, and preserve the refuge.” (This refers to the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge at the north end of Hatteras Island.)
Under the announced deal, work is to stop on the replacement bridge until the parties have finalized the details and filed papers dismissing the litigation. Media were told that there is a target construction re-start of next spring.
Conservationists: Rick Glazier, Redux
Errata: CIB last week reported on the pending move by Rep. Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland) from his legislative seat to the spot of executive director of the NC Justice Center, following this year’s legislative session. In our item, we erroneously referred to Rep. Glazier as the House Minority Leader. In fact, Rep. Glazier is the past House Minority Whip. We regret our error.
The House Minority Leader is Rep. Larry Hall (D-Durham). The current House Minority Whip, by the way, is Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange), who caught our mistake. Representatives Hall, Glazier, and Insko are all strong voices for our environment.
(Wonk information point: A legislative “whip” is an important assistant leadership position, so called because one of its traditional chief responsibilities is to round up, or “whip”, the votes of his/her party members on key legislative policy showdowns.)
As we noted last week, the soon to retire Glazier is a seven-term member of the House, with a 94% lifetime positive score on the NCLCV Environmental Scorecard. He was honored as Defender of the Environment at NCLCV’s 2011 Green Tie Awards.
