Legislative Watch: Bad Bills Drop in Early
As expected, legislators in Raleigh last week began introducing retrograde proposals recommended by their Environmental Review Commission in April, including restricting public health warnings on contaminated drinking water.
SB779/HB1005, “Issuance of Advisories/Drinking Water Standards”, (better known as the “Contamination Cover-Up” Bill) would restrict state and local health and environmental agencies on when they could notify residents that there were unsafe concentrations of toxics or other contaminants in their drinking water. To qualify for a warning notice, the contaminant would have to already have a specific federal or state drinking water standard apply, and have been measured in that water in excess of the standard.
This restriction would have prohibited the warnings sent out to the users of wells near Duke Energy coal ash pits whose water contains elevated levels of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium. Those warning notices went out from the NC environmental and public health departments last year, only to be revoked at the push from political-level appointees. The problem is that there is no existing specific standard for hexavalent chromium, the known carcinogen, only for total chromium, of which the other is only a fraction.
Scientists within the state departments concluded that the risk levels from long-term consumption of the well water were high enough to call for do-not-drink advisories, and subsequently sent them out. After an internal fight within the agencies, the scientists were overruled, and things-are-just-fine letters were sent out, confusing and angering the at-risk well users. The resulting predictable controversy is continuing to embarrass state political higher-ups, and they seem determined to see that it doesn’t happen again, public health concerns notwithstanding.
Environmental and public health advocates are resisting. Shouldn’t the health of our at-risk citizens be the priority in these cases, not bureaucratic blinders and CYA politics? We think so.
Campaign Watch: Voters are Worried about Climate Change
Two national polls taken in March reflect a growing concern among voters of all partisan persuasions about the potential impacts of climate change. There’s still a gap between groups, however, when it comes to voters’ willingness to change their votes based on that worry.
The polls found that concern among voters about the issue is significantly rising among Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike. The percentage of voters who told a Gallup poll that they worry about global warming either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” went up from 2015 to 2016 by 9% among both Republicans (31% to 40%) and independents (55% to 64%), and by 6% among Democrats (78% to 84%).
Wider differences continue to exist in terms of whether that concern will translate into the voting booth. Among voters responding to a poll by the climate issues centers of two major universities, Democrats are strongly more likely to back a candidate who supports taking action on climate: 65% say they’d be more likely to vote for such a candidate, and only 4% say they’d be less likely.
Among independents, the bias for action is still there, but much weaker: 33% are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports taking action on climate, and 18% less likely. Among Republicans, the net impact is even weaker, and is actually flipped in the wrong direction: only 21% are more likely to vote for a candidate committed to climate action, and 27% are less likely.
Analysts say that this gap reflects the degree to which attitudes toward climate change have become tied up with partisan identity politics. In the short run, this clearly raises the environmental stakes of this fall’s elections.
In the longer run, it also raises a key communications issue for environmental advocates. How do we restore the prospects for bipartisan cooperation on this critical issue? We can’t afford to see the forward progress on controlling climate change stutter and start on the two-year election cycle. Changing that pattern becomes part of our challenge.
Environomics: Energy Storage May Be the Next Boom; Duke Raises Its Bets on Renewables
Two Business Journal articles over the past two weeks underscore the potential for growth in our state’s gains from clean energy and energy efficiency.
Energy Storage May Be the Next Boom: First, we note that the next breaking boom in energy progress in our state may come from the direction of storage. That would form part of the answer to the naysayers against large but inconstant power sources like solar and wind: more efficient and cost-effective industrial-scale battery storage. As an added boon, jobs would come along as well—an additional 17,000 jobs in the state by 2030, according to a report released April 18 by the American Jobs Project. That’s a prospect to get charged up about.
Duke Raises Its Bets on Renewables: Next, a new report by Duke Energy on its own progress in developing renewable energy sources says it is raising its internal target for 2020. Duke now plans to own or purchase at least 8 gigawatts of mostly solar and wind power capacity by that date, a 33% increase on its previous target. We think that when the major power companies themselves are saying they can do more, even the politicians arguing that we should expect less ought to take notice.
Education & Resources: Why Voting Rights Matter to the Environment
NCLCV is continuing our work with other citizen groups to make the case that voting rights matter to protecting human health and a clean environment. After all, if who we elect matters, then clearly so does the right of all citizens to readily participate in the election process. Among other connections, pollution problems are far more likely to hit hardest in lower-income households and communities. Those are the same folks who are disproportionately impacted by laws that make it harder for those without a driver’s license to vote, or who have a harder time getting to the polls on election day and are therefore more impacted by cutbacks in early voting.
NCLCV will participate in a program and panel discussion in Greensboro on May 10 on “Why Democracy Matters” on matters like environmental protection and economic opportunity. See here for details on time and place.
That’s our report for this week.
