Good news on strengthened offshore drilling bans left out the southeast. This week in CIB:

Coast Watch: Southeast Left Out of Permanent Drilling Bans

In an important but incomplete victory for the environment last week, President Obama sought to “permanently” ban offshore drilling in large areas of the U.S. Arctic and Atlantic outer continental shelf. However, his designations stopped at Virginia, leaving the Carolinas and further south unprotected by the new orders.

The presidential order uses a provision of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act which allows the president to withdraw designated areas from oil and gas leasing. There is no opposing provision in the legislation authorizing the revocation of such a withdrawal. Environmental groups (including NCLCV) have been campaigning for the president to use this authority to “permanently” ban drilling in these areas. It seems certain that incoming President-elect Trump will seek to revoke the new protections, and that his efforts will be met with federal lawsuits by environmental advocates to uphold them.

Reacting to the presidential order, national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) president Gene Karpinski praised the decision, calling it “an incredible holiday gift to all who want to protect the fragile and iconic Arctic Ocean ecosystem and fight climate change.”

However, NCLCV and other southeastern coastal conservation advocates also expressed disappointment that our states’ coasts will remain outside the added legal protection of these designations. NCLCV executive director Carrie Clark said, “After careful consideration and review of the White House announcement, we must express our disappointment with President Obama and the Department of the Interior as our North Carolina coast was not included in federal protections from offshore oil and gas drilling.”

“North Carolina proved that banning offshore drilling was a salient issue for our citizens. The two public hearings held in our state during the initial 5-year plan review boasted record turnout for any Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hearing, turning out more than 600 attendees in Wilmington and over 1,000 in the Outer Banks. Over 90% of North Carolina’s coastal municipalities passed formal resolutions opposing offshore drilling and seismic blasting. Dozens of business leaders, elected officials, and community voices traveled to Washington D.C. multiple times to meet with federal staff to emphasize how critical protecting North Carolina’s coast from drilling is for our environment, economy, and quality of life. And, more than 5,000 of our members took at least one action to request President Obama do all in his powers to restrict offshore drilling from taking place in the Mid-Atlantic.”

“While we applaud President Obama’s extended protections to our northern neighbors and to regions in the Arctic, we will continue to press for permanent safeguards to keep dangerous offshore extraction from being a part of North Carolina’s coastal landscape.”

North Carolina’s coast does retain the more limited protection afforded by the Interior Department’s five-year plan adopted earlier this year. In that plan, there is no provision for offshore oil and gas leasing off North Carolina or other southeastern Atlantic coasts.

Executive Watch: McCrory Signs Legislative Power Grab

During his single term as governor, the only thing on which Pat McCrory has been willing to fight the legislature has been to protect the governor’s executive appointment powers. It’s now clear that this willingness to fight applied only to his personal prerogatives, and not to the principle of separation of powers. McCrory ultimately proved quite willing to throw his successor as governor under the legislative power bus.

After hesitating for three days, McCrory last Monday meekly signed HB 17.

That’s the bill passed by the fourth special session of the 2016 General Assembly to take power over the state school system and other key agencies away from the governor’s office, give the State Senate veto power over the governor’s Cabinet Secretary appointments, and slash by more than two-thirds (from 1,500 to 425) the number of agency staff policy positions whose selection is controlled by the governor.

Of greatest significance to environmental policy, the offices impacted include the Governor’s choices to head the departments of Environmental Quality, Natural and Cultural Resources, and Transportation. Given the deeply anti-environment track record of the current NC Senate leadership, we anticipate seeing the Senate’s confirmation process used to challenge and attack Governor-elect Cooper’s more environmentally-friendly choices. Conservationists should prepare for a set of hard and critical legislative fights ahead in early 2017.

We also anticipate that this legislation will be challenged in court by the incoming Cooper Administration.

Judicial Watch: High Court Protects Water System

The City of Asheville will retain control over its municipal water supply, under a ruling handed down last week by the NC Supreme Court. The 5-2 ruling capped a three-year struggle between the city and the NC legislature over control of Asheville’s drinking water supply and treatment and distribution system.

The Court’s legal reasoning holds important implications for local governments’ health and environmental resources and programs around the state. At issue was the constitutionality of a 2013 state act stripping the City of Asheville’s ownership and control of its public water supply system (which had been built and paid for by the citizens of Asheville). The legislative act transferred the system to a newly created regional water authority. The action would have taken away the city’s ability to protect its water and decide whether and where to extend the system’s supply service outside the city. (That is a key tool in a city’s ability to manage the impacts of growth and discourage urban sprawl.)

Under the ruling, the Court decided that a legislative action written in such a way as to affect just one location constituted a “local act” under the NC state constitution. Our state constitution bars legislative “local acts” (as opposed to statewide legislation) from dealing with health and sanitation matters. (In that area, the legislature is supposed to either act on a statewide basis, or leave the decisions to local governments, not to selectively impose legislative orders on a case-by-case basis.) Therefore, the Court ruled, the legislature’s 2013 action taking away Asheville’s water system was unconstitutional and was struck down.

Education & Resources Environmental Legislative Issues Toolkit

The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL) has provided an online resource of information resource toolkits on 18 environmental issues, including topics like climate adaptation, fracking, solid waste, and public lands. The materials are accessible to the general public without charge.

The NCEL is a national non-profit resource agency run by environment-friendly state legislators and allies. Its national board of directors includes N.C. House Representatives Pricey Harrison and Chuck McGrady.