The House’s “no” vote sent the Senate’s terrible budget to conference committee, and the Governor signed major anti-environmental legislation into law, plus more news, this week in CIB.

Legislative Watch: House Rejects Senate Budget and Negotiations Begin

The state House last week unanimously rejected the NC Senate’s extreme version of the state budget for the coming year, sending the many and wide differences between the respective chambers’ budgets to what looks like a prolonged negotiation process.

As we recounted in last week’s CIB, the Senate’s budget slices and dices state pollution control and natural resource agencies. It eliminates some (e.g., Sedimentation Control Commission), cuts back others (e.g., leaking underground storage tank cleanups), and spins off some (including State Parks) to other agencies which lack an environmental protection mission. It’s chock full of anti-environmental items, including other “special provisions” with no logical need to be rolled into an omnibus budget bill.

Conservationists certainly welcome the initial House rejection of the Senate budget, but we cannot relax. Continued hard work by our representatives in Raleigh, backed by active citizens around the state, will be needed to head off the worst threats to our clean air, water, and land. In the face of the sheer noise level created by so many important budgetary items in dispute, it will be critical to hold up the anti-environmental actions concealed in the budget to focused public attention and rejection.

Executive Watch: Governor Signs SEPA-Gutting Bill

Governor Pat McCrory last week gave final approval – his signature – to HB 795 called “SEPA Reform.” This is the controversial legislation creating such major loopholes for state-supported projects to escape review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) that it effectively guts the law.

Under SEPA as modified by HB 795, most state-supported projects can dodge comprehensive state environmental impact study altogether. They will only require SEPA review if they involve “land-disturbing activity of greater than10 acres [of state land] that results in substantial, permanent changes in the natural cover or topography of those lands” or spending more than $10 million in state funding. (The “state” funding counted excludes funding from municipalities, counties, regional or special-purpose government agencies, or in-kind contributions.) That knocks most potential projects out of coverage by SEPA.

For those interested in reading the final bill or seeing how their own representatives voted on final passage of HB 795, that information is available through the state legislative website here.

Climate Change Update: The Costs of Inaction

Opponents of action to address the climate change crisis often fall back on the argument that we can’t afford to act. In fact, however, evidence continues to grow that we cannot afford not to act.

Most recently, a major new scientifically peer-reviewed report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lays out the benefits – both in lives saved and in (not so) cold cash – of effective action to limit global warming. Among the findings are that we can avoid as much as $110 billion in lost labor hours and 57,000 deaths annually from extreme heat and poor air quality by the year 2100, if we control climate change. The report is titled “Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action.”

Other annual savings would include tens of billions of dollars in avoided flooding and other damages to local governments, $11 billion annually in avoided crop damage for farmers, and tens of millions of acres of forest preserved from wildfires. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said, “The results are startling and very clear.” The report shows that “global action on climate change will save lives.”

Environomics: More Business Leaders Urge Maintaining Renewable Energy Incentives

More major companies in North Carolina are speaking up in support of keeping our state moving forward in renewable energy development. Four new voices have submitted a letter to state legislators urging them to maintain the law increasing the percentage of electricity that must be generated from clean, renewable resources. (That’s the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard – REPS.)

The four new corporate signatories are Greensboro-based Fortune 500 clothing manufacturer VF Corp.; Mars Inc. (with a Henderson manufacturing facility); New Belgium Brewing (the national craft brewer building a new brewery near Asheville); and Seventh Generation (a green cleaning products company with major offices in Raleigh). The companies’ letter states: “The 2007 REPS law has given companies like ours the business case to build and operate in North Carolina – as it provided us the certainty and predictability we need for our business. Freezing or modifying the REPS will stifle the growth of North Carolina’s clean energy sector and be a step in the wrong direction.”

Education & Resources: What’s Warming the World?

Hint: It ain’t sunspots, volcanoes, or little green men from outer space.

When they run out of the gall to make bare-faced claims that the global climate isn’t changing, the more sophisticated climate-deniers often roll out one or another alternative explanation for what’s causing the world to heat up. Solar activity or volcanoes are among the favorite causes for what they claim are natural cycles, not to be worried about.

The evidence just doesn’t back those theories. Data-based modeling examining this question has been produced by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The culprit creating today’s climate change is clearly greenhouse gas emissions. See the graphic results, shared by Bloomberg Business, here.

Conservationists: Denny Shaffer

State and national environmental leader Denny Shaffer of Fayetteville passed away last week. Shaffer was an eastern North Carolina leader in natural resource conservation who had served on the Fayetteville City Council and as the national president of the Sierra Club, among other roles. Representatives Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland) and Chuck McGrady (R-Henderson) spoke on the NC House floor in honor of Shaffer’s contributions to our state as a supporter of both environmental quality and civil rights.

Among other battles, Shaffer was instrumental in helping to block a proposed radioactive waste incinerator proposed at one time for a low-income rural area in neighboring Bladen County. This 1980s political battle was an early success for the environmental justice movement in North Carolina.

Long-time NCLCV leader John Runkle said, “Denny always said that being a businessman and a conservationist were all part of the same thing – a healthy economy depends on a healthy environment.”

That’s our report for this week.