By Cassie Gavin
Senior Director of Government Relations
The big news this week at the NC General Assembly was that the Senate rolled out and approved its proposed budget (S 105). This is the first legislative step in the budget process, which normally begins much earlier in the year. Next the House will take up the budget bill and will likely propose significant changes. Then the chambers will negotiate the differences and try to pass a budget to send to Governor Cooper for approval. Cooper vetoed the last budget he was sent, in part because it did not include Medicaid expansion. This budget also does not include that change. There are some positive and negative environmental provisions in the budget which we’ll dig into next week. For more info on the budget big picture, check out this article.
House energy bill paused after chilly reception last week
When the draft House energy bill - H 951 “Modernize Energy Generation” - was released last week, expectations were that the bill sponsors would quickly push the bill through committees and to a vote by the House. But after a chilly reception from manufacturers, environmentalists, Democrats and the Governor, that plan was apparently jettisoned.
The political reality is that the majority party can easily pass bills without minority party support but they need at least some minority party members to support a measure to ensure that it could sustain a gubernatorial veto. In general, that means that the majority party needs the Governor’s support, or at least neutrality, to enact a law. As it was clear that this was not the case last week, H 951 was not brought back to a committee this week. But there was lots of media coverage of the proposal because of the significant impacts that H 951 would have on North Carolina’s energy future. Check out a story from WRAL on it here. The bill may pop back up soon with revisions.
Here are of some of the problematic aspects of the measure:
- Undermines the NC Utility Commission’s authority: handcuffs the Commission to approve massive fracked gas infrastructure;
- Fails to meet state climate goals of 70% carbon reduction by 2030;
- Provides subsidies to fracked gas and nuclear at the expense of clean energy;
- Enact multi-year rate planning that may harm ratepayers: creates potential for Duke to significantly overearn; and
- It’s entirely missing protections for low income ratepayers or job transition support for coal communities.
Opportunity for Action
Please ask your state representative to oppose H 951 for failing to meet North Carolina’s climate goals.
House passes Farm Act; next stop Senate
On Wednesday, after hearing from a number of speakers in support of and in opposition to the controversial biogas provision in the Farm Act (S 605), the House Agriculture Committee approved the bill. Then, on Thursday, the full House considered the measure, after a debate on the biogas provision, and passed S 605 with a vote of 74-32. Rep. Raymond Smith (D - Sampson, Wayne) proposed an amendment to delete the biogas provision but it did not get adopted. Rep. Pricey Harrison (D - Guilford) spoke against the biogas provision noting her concern for communities that live near industrial hog operations; other members raised similar concerns. Rep. Jimmy Dixon (R - Duplin, Onslow) championed the bill in the debate as he had in committee. Next, the bill will go back to the Senate for a vote of concurrence since the House deleted a provision this week that would have limited the rights of workers who bring whistleblower cases against employers.
Bill to update health standard for lead sent to Governor
This week, the Senate unanimously passed Rep. Harry Warren’s (R - Rowan) helpful bill, H 272 “Revise Health Standard for Lead,” so the bill is headed to Governor Cooper, who is likely to sign it into law. H 272 will align North Carolina law for when remediation is required to address lead contamination in water with federal law, changing it from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb. This needed update will help protect our drinking water from hazardous lead concentrations.