HotList 05/16/2013

May 16, 2013

Dear Members and Friends,

Today was quiet.. Too quiet… Is it really the last day of Crossover?

Responsibility for the Hotlist has been passed to NCLCV’s summer interns, and although we have met a couple of you, we look forward to meeting more soon. We are Michael Grubert, a first-year Master of Environmental Management student, and Logan Mohs, a first-year law student, both from Duke.

We would like to bring special attention to two bills heard this week, both of which NCLCV opposes, and both of which are extremely likely to show up on the Scorecard this year.

SB515, the Jordan Lake Water Quality Act, passed the Senate after vigorous debate. We found Senator Stein’s comparison of trying to clean up a polluted lake rather than stopping the pollution in the first place with trying to treat someone’s diabetes without telling them they should watch what they eat to be particularly apt, with all due respect to Senator Apodaca, of course. We were pleased to see such vigorous opposition to removing the current rules regarding pollutants in the lake, and urge members of the House to recognize that, even if you believe that the rules need to be modified, they should not be repealed before a study to determine replacements has been conducted.

Another controversial bill that was in the Senate this week was SB151, the Coastal Policy Reform Act of 2013. In short, this bill would reform previous hard work to discourage coastal communities in building terminal groins in North Carolina inlets. Several amendments were proposed to the bill that would have made it slightly better, such as allowing local voters control over whether the structures were built, or to require bonds to cover potential mitigation or restoration if the groin fails, but neither of these were adopted. Although SB151 ended up making it through the Senate, we hope to see strong opposition in the House.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions on these or the bills listed below at michael@nclcv.org andlogan@nclcv.org, or you can continue to harass Dan at dan@nclcv.org if that is more your style.

Best,
Michael and Logan | michael@nclcv.org, logan@nclcv.org