Legislative Watch: Killing Light Rail, Ignoring Clean Water
In its take-it-or-leave-it backroom budget bill, the North Carolina General Assembly acted to sabotage light rail and continue playing politics with our drinking water.
Last week, both chambers voted mostly along party lines to approve a $24 billion, 267-page budget bill which most members had seen for fewer than five days. The votes were held under unprecedented procedures which barred consideration of any amendments. The bill now goes to the desk of Governor Cooper, who has until 11:59 p.m. on next Monday the 11th to take action on it. The expectation is he will veto the budget this week.
Environmental advocates have concentrated on two major provisions which do serious environmental damage. First, the bill contains a technical change to state transportation funding rules which is plainly intended to kill all future passenger light rail projects in North Carolina. The change would stop even the Orange-Durham light rail line, forsaking the $88 million already spent on that project. Other projects in Wake, Mecklenburg, and elsewhere would be blocked even when local voters have approved major local funding investments in them.
There’s no good economic or environmental rationale for this; it’s purely a reflection of some legislators’ dogmatic hostility toward public transit. Rail and other transit projects help reduce the auto traffic clogging our highways and pumping harmful emissions into our air and atmosphere. Rail, in particular, also helps shape future development patterns to reduce urban sprawl, saving streams, farmland, and forests.
NCLCV Director of Governmental Relations Dan Crawford points out that there may be a later “technical corrections” bill which could include language repealing this change, if there is sufficient public pressure demanding its removal. Click here to send a message in support of restoring light rail progress in North Carolina.
The other major adverse environmental provision is the funding associated with GenX and other “emerging” toxic water pollutants. The budget bill mostly ignores Gov. Roy Cooper’s requests for more staff and better equipment for the Department of Environmental Quality and other regulatory agencies. Instead, it directs new funding primarily to the dubious “collaboratory” headed by an anti-environmental former advisor to state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger.
Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) senior attorney Mary Maclean Asbill commented, “The specifics of this closed-door budget do not provide relief to the 250,000 people who have been exposed to GenX and similar compounds in their air, groundwater, surface waters, and drinking water for decades. In fact, the budget seems more calculated to shield polluters, instead of protecting the people of North Carolina.”
