NC Central Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club

Dear Friends,

This was a truly exciting week at the NC General Assembly; House Bill 298, the bill that would have repealed North Carolina’s renewable energy portfolio standards (REPS) was defeated in the sponsor’s own committee and a conference report on Senate Bill 10, the bill that would have fired environmental commission members and replaced them with new appointees, was tossed out by the House.

The inside story on H 298:

House Majority Whip, Rep. Hager (R – Burke, Rutherford), sponsored H 298 and brought it before the House Public Utilities Committee (which he chairs) on Wednesday afternoon, seemingly confident that the bill would be approved. H 298 previously passed in the House Commerce and Job Development Subcommittee on Energy and Emerging Markets by one vote. This time the bill was voted down by a bipartisan vote of 18-13 with 6 Republicans, including 3 members in powerful positions of leadership in the House, joining all Democrats in voting “no”. Pressure on legislators by the clean energy industry with a focus on jobs, letters to the editor and constituents’ calls to representatives all helped solidify opposition against this bill. The solar industry especially received lots of good press along with coverage on this bill, thereby educating legislators and the public about the North Carolina solar success story.

How you can take action:

Please contact your House representative to thank them for supporting clean energy jobs in North Carolina if they voted “no” on H 298.

In another bit of good news, yesterday the House failed to concur with the Senate on Senate Bill 10, the bill which would have fired most current members of state boards and commissions.  It appears that bill is dead for this session, though we are on the watch for sections to be added to other bills. It is especially good news that S 10 did not move forward yesterday because buried in it was a provision, never introduced in either house, which would have effectively acted as a gag order on state agencies with respect to acting (or even planning for adaptation) on climate change.

But don’t relax just yet,  because a massively bad water bill is moving. Holy Frankenstein!

Senate Bill 612, an omnibus water bill with many bad parts (sewn together like a Frankenstein monster) was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee this week. Called the “Regulatory Reform Act of 2013”, S 612 is sponsored by SenatorsBrown (R- Jones, Onslow),Jackson(R- Duplin, Johnston, Sampson) andBrock(R- Davie, Iredell, Rowan). The bill would do the following:

·         prohibit local environmental rules more stringent than state or federal;

·         require repeal or revision of all existing environmental rules more stringent than federal rules;

·         effectively exempt private property in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico River Basins from riparian buffer rules;

·         may allow power plants to contaminate groundwater beneath surface drinking water supplies;

·         allow on-site disposal of power plant debris with minimal pollution-prevention techniques; and

·         direct the state to petition the Army Corps of Engineers to allow wetland mitigation outside the watershed where development will occur.

We are still working to understand all the intricacies of S 612 as it quickly moves through the Senate. At this time the bill is not assigned to any additional committees (such as the Senate Environment Committee) so it will presumably next go to the Senate floor to be voted on, then the House. Stay tuned next week for updates on how you can help.

Have an excellent weekend,

Cassie Gavin, Director of Government Relations

Sierra Club – NC Chapter

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