Greetings,

House Bill 765 began quite modestly, passing the House as a three-quarter-page statement addressing vehicle and load specifications for the transportation of gravel. Its most glamorous provision: requiring the use of a tarpaulin (one of those words that is much cooler in its full form like facsimile or memorandum).

The Senate’s Proposed Committee Substitute adds 50-odd-pages of baggage, morphing the bill into the omnibus “Regulatory Reform Act of 2015.”

Essentially a potpourri of provisions, the Senate peppered it with a number of destructive environmental reforms. Some of the changes included eliminating non-EPA required air quality monitors, allowing for environmental self-audits with legal immunity, broadly expanding coastal wastewater management to allow for further degradation, and many more.

DENR spoke out in a letter to Senators describing why it cannot support this far-reaching, destructive bill. In a late afternoon meeting Wednesday, Senators made changes to attempt addressing these reasons and eventually DENR offered its support of the bill. H765 reached preliminary approval in the Senate with a vote of 30-14, mostly along party lines. The bill is slated for discussion and final vote today at 11am. For more information, here’s an article highlighting some “improvements.” Still, as written, this bill undermines critical environmental protections for our state’s air, water, and land.

Stay tuned next week for more information about the outcome and its implications.

Thanks for reading,

Peter Magner, Stanback Intern
NC League of Conservation Voters

The HotList is a weekly email the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV) sends out during session where we talk about relevant legislation and share information on key environmental issues as they come before the General Assembly. While primarily intended for elected representatives, the HotList is also made public to any and all who are concerned about the environment.