The NC General Assembly has adjourned for the summer, but left an environmental mess on its way out the door. That news, plus more positive items from other fronts, this week in CIB:
Legislative Watch: Coal Ash Cleanup Cancelled; Budget Riders Rip Environment
The good news is that they’ve gone home for the summer—we hope for the year. The bad news is the mess they left on coal ash (again!) and other issues, including the budget.
Let’s start with coal ash. In another late-session ‘gut-and-stuff’, the NC Senate took the already weak HB 630, titled “Drinking Water Protection/Coal Ash Cleanup Act”, and replaced its provisions with new contents that would neither clean up coal ash nor protect drinking water.
The new bill swiftly passed both chambers—despite outspoken opposition from environmentally concerned legislators—and was sent to the governor as the General Assembly’s latest gift to power giant Duke Energy. The bill eliminates the Coal Ash Management Commission (which, while flawed, served as some check on the anti-environmental leanings of the McCrory environmental department leadership). It gives Duke over two years to begin providing safe drinking water to residents whose wells have been contaminated by coal ash pollution. Worst of all, it lets Duke off the hook altogether for cleanup of a full half of its coal ash pits, which can be “capped in place” and left to leach pollution into ground and surface waters indefinitely.
NCLCV Director of Governmental Affairs Dan Crawford said, “The anti-clean water NC Senate has brokered yet another sweetheart deal for Duke Energy. Right now, there are families in North Carolina who can’t drink their own well water because of coal ash pollution. When we say these politicians put polluters over people, this coal ash bill is exactly what we’re talking about.”
He could also have been talking about the NC Senate’s propensity for attaching special anti-environmental riders as special provisions in the budget—without proper review and debate by substantive area committees or the public. They did it again this session, and some of those anti-environmental riders made it into the final budget version passed by both chambers and sent to the governor last week.
We’ll take a closer look at the entire budget over the next week, as well as other late-passing rules “reform” provisions that hit environmental protection. For now, we’ll mention one of the riders that stands out as a special problem: rule changes delaying and weakening pollution cleanup in the Falls of the Neuse and Jordan reservoirs. This provision represents the “compromise” version which came out of the House/Senate budget conference committee’s negotiation over the Senate’s sweeping assault against key clean water standards from the mountains to the coast. While we appreciate the efforts of House negotiators to apparently keep parts of that assault out of the final budget bill, the provisions which remain still create new problems. Among other effects, they cancel the cleanup plans adopted for those two key water supply reservoirs and require another start-over. They also interfere with local governments’ ability to implement stormwater management protections that they are required to provide under the federal Clean Water Act. These items may easily result in yet another federal court smackdown of the scofflaw legislators of North Carolina.
Campaign Watch: A New Wind; NC in Play
A New Wind: Renewable energy advocates have seen with alarm the increasingly aggressive efforts by some state legislators to protect their patrons in the fossil fuel industry by creating additional barriers to the development of new wind energy projects. That makes especially timely the recent formation of a new player in the political energy debates. American Wind Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, launched last week with its announcement of plans to spend money in Congressional and state legislative races to “inform and educate the public on the many benefits that wind energy brings to our nation and communities across America.” The new organization is bipartisan with connections to major actors in the wind power development industry.
NC in Play: Signs are strengthening that North Carolina is regarded as very much “in play” in the presidential, gubernatorial, and US Senate races this fall. Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton will visit the state for a major campaign event tomorrow (July 5) for the second time in three weeks. The event, to be held in the Charlotte Convention Center, features the first 2016 joint campaign appearance by Clinton and President Barack Obama. That major campaign rollout had been previously scheduled to take place in Wisconsin, but was delayed after the mass shooting in Orlando last month. By the time the campaign was ready to reschedule, national polls had shifted in Clinton’s direction, and North Carolina had emerged as arguably the closest presidential swing state. The decision to re-locate such a politically significant event here reflects an apparent decision by the Democratic ticket to take the offense in stretching the political map not only in the presidential campaign, but in the contest for control of the Senate as well. Both Democratic Senate nominee Deborah Ross and gubernatorial nominee Roy Cooper are expected to be present for the event as well. This anticipated joint appearance marks a dramatic change from many recent past campaigns in North Carolina, when major state office Democratic nominees made themselves scarce around the visits by their party’s presidential candidates.
Environmental issues have become a major point of contrast between Clinton and Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. As noted in a Washington Post article on the North American leadership summit last week, “Democrat Hillary Clinton has said if she’s elected president she will work to ensure that half of the nation’s electric power will come from clean energy sources by 2030. GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has emphasized the need to continue extracting fossil fuels, including coal, to power the nation’s electrical grid and has questioned much of the Obama administration’s effort to forge international climate agreements.”
Climate Change Update: North American Leaders Commit to Clean Energy
At the North American Leaders Summit last week, the presidents of the United States and Mexico and the prime minister of Canada announced agreements on steps to fight climate change, including the goal of producing 50 per cent of the continent’s energy from clean sources by 2025.
Measures specifically cited in the leaders’ joint statement included expanding renewable energy generation in the power grid, adding to cross-border transmission lines to share renewables-produced electricity, expanding clean vehicle fleets and other efficiency investments, and extending tax credits for clean energy production and investment.
The joint statement reads in part, “The Paris Agreement was a turning point for our planet, representing unprecedented accord on the urgent need to take action to combat climate change through innovation and deployment of low-carbon solutions. North America has the capacity, resources and the moral imperative to show strong leadership building on the Paris Agreement and promoting its early entry into force. We recognize that our highly integrated economies and energy systems afford a tremendous opportunity to harness growth in our continuing transition to a clean energy economy. Our actions to align climate and energy policies will protect human health and help level the playing field for our businesses, households, and workers. In recognition of our close ties and shared vision, we commit today to an ambitious and enduring North American Climate, Clean Energy, and Environment Partnership that sets us firmly on the path to a more sustainable future.”
Around the World: Ozone Hole Shrinking
Shall we conclude this week with a piece of good news? Yes, let’s.
Atmospheric scientists report that the Antarctic ozone hole has finally started to “heal.” That’s the conclusion of a new paper summarizing and explaining measurements and research published in the journal Science.
This appears to confirm that a global treaty fix first adopted in 1987 (the Montreal Protocol) is producing the effect intended. First, the growth of the problem slowed, then stopped, and finally now it seems to be shrinking (as a long-term average).
The problem at issue here was the loss of upper-atmosphere ozone, a phenomenon associated with the proliferation of certain human-made chemicals in the atmosphere. That drop in upper ozone is especially noticeable near the earth’s poles during certain seasons, especially the Antarctic. Unlike ground-level ozone, the same stuff in the upper atmosphere is a critical screen for ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This problem was widely identified by scientists in the early 1980s, its sources diagnosed, and a global fix of phasing out problem chemicals adopted. The fact that the solution is shown to be working should be greatly encouraging to citizens worried about the prospects for addressing other global environmental problems.
We can only wish our leaders were as decisive about the even more complex and larger problem of climate change. It should be remembered, however, that some at the time criticized that the Montreal Protocol didn’t go far or fast enough. Solutions to complex problems don’t usually have to be perfect to be worth trying. Sometimes the key to progress is to get a deal done now and keep working.
That’s our report for this week.
