Governor-Elect Cooper begins his transition, while Trump’s first key picks in Washington include bad news for the environment. This week in CIB:

Campaign Watch: Victorious Cooper Begins Transition

Roy Cooper was certified last week as the official winner of the North Carolina governor’s contest, after all vote counts confirmed his win and defeated incumbent Pat McCrory conceded the race, four weeks after the election. The final margin was narrow but clear at slightly over 10,000 votes, the cut-off point for an automatic right by the trailing candidate to be entitled to a full recount.

The Cooper transition process, already underway, swung into full gear as his transition team members continued to vet candidates for key state positions from cabinet secretary posts on down. Among the posts of particular interest to conservationists will be the Secretary of Environmental Quality, which has been occupied under McCrory by two individuals regarded as reluctant to aggressively enforce pollution controls, and seen as excessively deferential to the wishes of utility giant Duke Energy.

The Secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources is also of strong interest to conservation advocates, as that department now includes the state parks system, the Natural Heritage Program, and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Other spots of interest include state boards such as the Environmental Management Commission, Coastal Resources Commission, and Board of Transportation. The Cooper transition team has set up a website for the formal acceptance of applications, www.coopertransition.org.

State inauguration day ceremonies are January 7, but the new Governor-Elect has indicated he will take the oath of office to legally begin his term on the earliest day the state’s constitution allows, January 1.

Washington Watch: Trump Picks Anti-Environment EPA Head

Donald Trump has fulfilled the worst expectations of environmental advocates by appointing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt shares and encourages denial of the scientifically well-established connection between global climate change and human activity, and has been a leader in the relentless round of assaults on EPA efforts to protect clean air, water, and human health under the Obama Administration. Pruitt has consistently fought against strong regulation of the fossil fuel industry, which has rewarded him with extensive campaign contributions.

“Time and again, [Scott Pruitt] has fought to pad the profits of Big Polluters at the expense of public health. He’s sued the EPA over commonsense safeguards like the Clean Water Rule and Clean Power Plan and sent letters to federal officials that were written almost entirely by the oil and gas industry,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski. “It’s often said that personnel is policy, and President-elect Trump’s decision to nominate someone who has spent his career catering to Big Polluters speaks volumes. The League of Conservation Voters strongly opposes this nomination and urges senators to vote against Scott Pruitt’s confirmation.”

Administrative Watch: Seeking a Solar Eclipse

The NC Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Energy Policy Council acted at its final meeting under DEQ Secretary Donald van der Vaart to recommend consideration of policies to cut back renewable energy development in North Carolina. The Council voted to send to the General Assembly a recommendation partly written by Duke Energy, that state energy policy be “broadly” re-evaluated, especially concerning solar energy.

A set of recommendations before the Council when it took its vote included reconsideration of state property tax breaks for solar energy systems and other key policies to promote clean energy development, as well as further study of a proposed state permitting process for new solar energy farm facilities. However, the final language of the Council’s resolution was still to be written, and the degree to which it would specifically include the language of the more detailed recommendations was unclear.

The array of anti-solar proposals laid out in front of the Council has received a hard, repeated push by outgoing DEQ Secretary van der Vaart over the past year. It is unclear whether the Council’s proposal would be ready to go to the General Assembly for the special session which starts tomorrow or whether it would wait for the full new legislative session next year.

Legislative Watch: Tense Special Session Starts Tuesday

Tensions are high surrounding the special legislative session set to begin tomorrow (Tuesday, December 13), due to broad concern that the legislature will go beyond matters of hurricane and wildfires relief to far more controversial proposals. The possibility of a partisan move to add two new seats to the NC Supreme Court is the foremost case in point.

As previously explained in CIB, the sole seat on the NC Supreme Court up for a vote last month changed hands from a Republican incumbent Associate Justice to his Democratic challenger. This flipped the Court’s majority from a 4-3 Republican majority to a 4-3 Democratic majority. Persistent rumors since election day say that the Republican-controlled state legislature may use a little-known state constitutional provision to add two more seats to the NC Supreme Court. Outgoing Republican Governor Pat McCrory could then appoint new Associate Justices to those seats, who would serve until the next general election in 2018.

Such a “court-packing” scheme could affect how the Court ruled on important policy matters such as contested legislative and Congressional redistricting plans, interpretation of state environmental laws, and enforcement of pollution control permits. Critics of the idea include environmental advocates such as the Southern Environmental Law Center’s North Carolina Director, Derb Carter: “Our state judicial system and highest court should not be manipulated for partisan advantage. The legislature should respect the will of the voters who have duly elected and constituted a Supreme Court that has served the state well.”

Expanding the court as a blatantly partisan move has drawn bipartisan opposition. Opponents include a review committee set up by incumbent Republican Chief Justice Mark Martin, the Public Trust and Confidence Committee of the N.C. Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice.

Statewide elected members of the NC Council of State, including Republican Commissioner of Labor Cherie Berry and Democratic Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, called on Gov. McCrory to limit the purpose of the special legislative session to hurricane and wildfires relief.

Despite these bipartisan expressions of concern, McCrory elected to call the special session using broad language, which allows legislators to take up any measures they choose. As a result, we go into tomorrow’s special legislative session with at least one major political drama yet to go in this tumultuous Campaign 2016.

That’s our report for this week.