A notoriously pro-polluter state official decided to vacation instead of coming to work during public hearings on a new state carbon plan, and has lost his right to vote on the plan as a result.
NC Utilities Commission Public Hearings
The NC Utilities Commission (NCUC) this month held two weeks of public hearings on Duke Energy’s Carbon Plan, which deals with critical matters including Duke’s projections of anticipated electric utility customer demand and its plans for meeting that demand. Options including renewable sources (wind, solar, battery storage), fossil fuels (coal, gas) and nuclear are matters of fierce debate among Duke and the intervening parties to the case.
Four of the five commission members conducted the hearings and sat through days of testimony and other evidence. The fifth—Donald van der Vaart—was on vacation instead, and missed all the hearings.
Van der Vaart was appointed to the NCUC by Republican State Treasurer Brad Briner after the Republican-controlled General Assembly reduced the size of the NCUC and took away the Governor’s powers to appoint most of its members. Commission members earn an annual salary of about $153,000.
Coalition Pushback Blocks van der Vaart’s Participation
NCUC rules allow one of its members who has missed hearings to participate in the decision-making only if none of the parties to the hearing object. When NCUC Chair William Brawley raised the question of van der Vaart’s participation, multiple parties to the case (representing business, consumer, and clean energy interests) immediately objected.
Parties to the case include the Carolina Clean Energy Business Association, Corporate Energy Buyers Association, NC Sustainable Energy Association, Environmental Defense Fund, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Vote Solar, and Sierra Club.
As a result of the objections, van der Vaart has been removed from considering the case.
Donald van der Vaart’s History of Pro-Pollution
As a member of the commission, van der Vaart has repeatedly voted against solar facilities and argued for extending the life of Duke’s coal plants.
Will Scott of the Environmental Defense Fund praised the decision to prevent van der Vaart’s voting on Duke’s resource and carbon plan as sustaining the NCUC’s reputation for professionalism. “It’s a win for the state’s ratepayers who depend on the Utilities Commission to be a watchdog at a time when Duke Energy is proposing massive capital investments.”
Long-time environmental antagonist Donald van der Vaart is a former head of North Carolina’s environmental quality department under then-Governor Pat McCrory who gained notoriety for his efforts to weaken air and water quality rules. A search of NCLCV’s news coverage of van der Vaart’s pro-polluter record returns an eyebrow-raising number of articles.
When van der Vaart was nominated last year for his current post as a member of the NCUC, NCLCV Director of Governmental Relations Dan Crawford compared putting the climate-change denier on that commission to “letting an arsonist guard the fire station.”
