There is still time; let your voice be heard.
Short of votes, the pro-polluter leadership of the General Assembly last week delayed a scheduled vote to override Governor Cooper’s veto of House Bill (HB) 488, the energy inefficient building bill. The vote has been rescheduled for this week, possibly on Wednesday, July 19.
That means that citizen action in defense of saving new homeowners and renters from higher energy bills and unnecessary building hazards is still timely.
Tell your legislators to uphold the Governor’s veto!
Let us give you some background. On July 7, Governor Roy Cooper vetoed HB 488, which could block long-overdue efforts to update North Carolina’s energy efficiency standards in the building code until at least 2026 or beyond.
In his veto message, Cooper said, “This bill stops important work to make home construction safer from disaster and more energy efficient, and ultimately will cost homeowners and renters more money. The bill also imperils North Carolina’s ability to qualify for FEMA funds by freezing residential building code standards. Not only does the bill wipe out years of work to make homes safer and more affordable, it also violates the Constitution by rigging the way rules are made.”
The veto message further clarifies, “By rigging the board to require 9 votes to approve rules and conduct business, the bill violates the Constitution by failing to follow McCrory v. Berger despite giving the Governor 7 appointments to the legislature’s 6. The bill also requires board members to undergo Senate confirmation and takes away the Governor’s ability to remove an appointee. These changes violate the separation of powers clause and further allows the legislature to put its thumb on the scale in these important safety decisions.”
News coverage of the vetoed bill continues to call attention to the financial ties between its main sponsor and the private lobby groups pushing hardest for the legislation.
A trail of emails between principal bill sponsor Rep. Mark Brody and the NC Home Builders Association track Brody’s apparent implementation of specific changes requested by the lobby group. “It really raises the question of, who is Rep. Brody serving here?” said Itai Vardi, a researcher at the Energy and Policy Institute who shared the emails with the Winston-Salem Journal after obtaining them through an open records request. “He is a public servant, democratically elected to at least represent a broader public interest and good. But here, according to these emails, he’s a puppet of the industry, doing its bidding.”
The article by environmental reporter John Deem further recounts the financial support for Brody from the construction industry. “The NCHBA’s direct involvement followed the Raleigh-based trade organization’s more than $8,000 in campaign contributions to Brody, a Republican who represents Union and Anson counties, last year. In all, Brody collected nearly $46,000 in 2022 from more than 40 donors with ties to construction-related companies or industry groups, according to a [Winston-Salem] Journal analysis of N.C. Board of Elections data. Those funds accounted for more than half of his campaign fundraising last year.”
Campaign financial support from the construction industry to legislators is large and widespread. The NC Home Builders Association PAC is one of the largest donors to legislators in the state, directly contributing more than a million dollars to campaigns here since 2017. The two leading recipients of the PAC’s donations during that time have been the top leaders in the House and Senate. Sen. Phil Berger (Senate President Pro Tem) and Rep. Tim Moore (House Speaker) received a combined total of $65,800 from the PAC.
The text of HB 488, “Code Council Reorganization and Various Code Amendments,” can be reviewed here.
