By Cassie Gavin
Senior Director of Government Relations
This was another fairly quiet week at the N.C. General Assembly, coming after last week's break. The House began rolling out its changes to the Senate-proposed state budget and will continue to do so next week.
A Senate committee took up for discussion the House energy bill (H 951) that the N.C. Sierra Club opposes. The same Senate committee plans to hear comments from the public about the proposed measure on Tuesday. A broad coalition including manufacturers, environmental groups and justice groups continues to oppose H 951.
Opportunity for Action
Please use our action alert to contact your senator to ask them to oppose H 951, because we need climate solutions - not mandated fracked gas plants.
Reps. Szoka (R - Cumberland) and Arp (R - Union) presented H 951 to the Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday. They seemed to get a cool reception as senators from both parties raised many concerns ranging from cost to taking away authority from the N.C. Utilities Commission.
Sen. Newton (R - Cabrrus, Union) complained that the bill seemed to be responding to the desires of a few stakeholders rather than setting up a complete state energy policy. Sen. Salvador (D - Mecklenburg) asked why the bill seemed to be missing energy efficiency measures. Sen. Garrett (D - Guilford) raised concerns about costs and asked why the bill doesn’t include a study of regional transmission organizations as some other states are doing. Sen. Woodard (D - Durham, Person) noted that we are at a unique point in history to set energy policy for years to come, and that he’d rather have a good bill than rush ahead.
As a reminder, the N.C. Sierra Club is opposed to the bill because, among many problems, it would lock North Carolina into continued reliance on burning fracked gas instead of transitioning to clean energy. Read more about the bill in N.C. Health News/INDYweek.
More details on H 951:
Coal Retirement & Replacement
- Retires units at five Duke Energy coal plants during the 2020s.
- Replaces majority of retired coal with implicit or explicit gas mandates.
- Extends existing renewable energy competitive procurement program.
- Authorizes up to $500 million for coal retirement “energy transition” bonds.
Multi-Year Ratemaking & Performance Based Ratemaking
- Establishes new system for utilities to lock in rate increases years in advance.
- Authorizes the N.C. Utilities Commission to reward utilities for achieving certain performance metrics. Expressly prohibits such incentives for environmental performance.
Renewables Programs
- Establishes a number of programs to promote customer access to renewables and resolve problems with existing renewables programs.
- Establishes an arbitrary cap on total solar in state.
Nuclear
- Allows Duke to charge ratepayers $50 million to pursue an early site permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a modular nuclear facility.