DUKE 2
4/16 see main
corp bad actor polluter tax dodge subsidies nuke
see knew denier city lawsuit
north carolina
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BROWN U 23 PP
Furthermore, since 2019, Environmental Progress
has accepted $125,000 from the Rodel Charitable
Foundation which is committed to the
“advancement of nuclear energy because our
current technologies (particularly wind, solar and
hydro power) will not produce enough energy
supply to significantly reduce the use of fossil fuel
sources.”83 84
Michael Shellenberger, the founding president of
Environmental Progress, has ties to the Nuclear
Energy Institute, which includes utilities and fossil
fuel-affiliated companies such as Dominion Energy
:{:{and Duke Energy.85 86}:
Shellenberger is also on the}:
advisory board of Alliance for Responsible
Citizenship, which has stated, “Nuclear +
petrochemicals...will keep us going” and includes
prolific climate obstructionist Bjørn Lomborg and
Republican presidential candidate Vivek
Ramaswamy on its board.87
:===
an 12 24
Mayor Barbara Foushee and city council members from the town of 21,000 located immediately west of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina’s flagship campus pointed fingers at Duke Energy for knowing about the dangers associated with climate change but failing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
This marks the first lawsuit of its kind, in which a town is seeking action against a utility company in this manner, Foushee said. It was filed in Orange County Superior Court in Hillsborough. The state of Vermont passed law earlier this year that requires fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change.
“We’re bringing this lawsuit because taking care of our town, each other, and our climate is at the center of everything we do here in Carrboro,” Foushee said. “The climate crisis is causing tremendous harm to our community’s health and well-being.”
The suit seeks “compensation for the damages (both past and future) that it is incurring as a direct and proximate result of Duke’s campaign of deception and resulting exacerbation of the climate crisis” — damages that the suit estimates will total in the millions of dollars.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Duke Energy said, “We are in the process of reviewing the complaint. Duke Energy is committed to its customers and communities and will continue working with policymakers and regulators to deliver reliable and increasingly clean energy while keeping rates as low as possible.”
Suppressing a long-known truth
Top executives at Duke Energy have known about the risks of fossil fuels for more than 50 years, according to the lawsuit. But that didn’t stop the company from a “widespread campaign” to misinform the public about its effects on the environment, the complaint argues.
An example of this deception occurred when one of Duke’s predecessor entities, Cinergy, released an annual report in 2004 claiming there was “an unresolved but robust debate on the ‘science’ of global warming.” The lawsuit points out how “science” is placed in quotation marks even though Cinergy and Duke were aware of the causes and consequences of climate change.
The lawsuit points out that “North Carolina has just suffered its hottest year on record, and temperatures for the region may increase as much as 6°-10°F by the end of the century.”
Climate change, it states, has also contributed to extreme weather events, like Hurricane Helene, which wreaked catastrophic damage across communities in western North Carolina earlier this year.
“For far too long, corporations like Duke Energy have prioritized their executives’ personal fortunes at the expense of our communities, our planet and our collective well-being,” Mayor Pro Tem Danny Nowell said.
Based in Charlotte, Duke Energy provides electricity to more than eight million customers in six states and natural gas to around two million customers in five states. With a near-monopoly in North Carolina, the company is one of the country’s largest operators of coal and natural gas power plants.
The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst ranked Duke Energy as the nation’s third-biggest emitter of gases responsible for climate change on the Greenhouse 100 Polluters Index.
Taxpayers aren’t funding the lawsuit, Foushee said. A nonprofit organization is covering the legal fees.
Council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell said Carrboro has made efforts to mitigate climate change since the 1970s, aiming to protect the area’s natural surroundings and ecosystems.
The actions of Duke Energy, however, have set that process backwards.
“We’ve been working hard and in earnest to protect our climate, and the giant utility has been deceiving us,” she said. “Duke Energy’s deceptive public information campaign has been working against us, erasing the progress we’ve urgently been striving to make to address climate change.”
Echoing findings of a recent nonprofit’s exposé
The allegations in the lawsuit about the knowledge that Duke and its predecessors possessed decades ago and then subsequently suppressed, echo findings detailed in a lengthy report prepared by Sue Sturgis, Research and Communications Manager for the nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute entitled “Duke Energy Knew: Documenting the Utility’s Early Knowledge and Ongoing Deception About Climate Change.”
According to the report, which was released in November, warnings about greenhouse-gas-induced climate change from Duke’s corporate predecessors date as far back as 1968 and were regularly touted in the 1970’s as justification for efforts to expand nuclear power.
Later on, Sturgis wrote — particularly in the 1980’s and 90’s as nuclear power fell from favor — warnings about CO2 emission and climate change became muted or disappeared.
In an interview with NC Newsline for an upcoming edition of the radio show/podcast, News & Views, Sturgis described the sequence events:
“And then, when the consensus around the science really came together in the late 1980’s we saw both the Duke utilities and also the industry associations that they were involved in pivot at that point, in order to protect their business model. They realized that if they were saying that…the climate problem was going to cause difficulties for their business model…they moved away from that message. Rather than change their business model, they said, ‘well, maybe we’re not so certain about the science, after all.” And so that’s really when we saw them selling the denial.”
Click here to explore Sturgis’ report. Read the Carrboro lawsuit below:
NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on Facebook and X.
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12 22 kpfa
17 (so gop) states pass laws to prot dark $
nc policy
four out of five Americans, across the political spectrum, consistently support transparency when it comes to contributions to organizations that spend money on campaigns. Unfortunately, a growing number of states, now including North Carolina, are advancing so-called “donor privacy” bills to block public access to information about who is spending big money to secretly influence our vote and our government.
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Senate Bill 636, is one such bill that is on track to pass the state Senate this week. What’s more, the mandate in this bill to conceal donor information applies not just to 501(c)(3) charitable, religious, and education organizations, but also to 501(c)(4) organizations that regularly engage in substantial partisan campaign activity, 501(c)(5) labor organizations and 501(c)(6) organizations like chambers of commerce.
Basically, if someone wants to spend big in North Carolina elections, all they will need to do under this legislation is to find some nonprofit groups through which they can route the money and they can be certain that the public won’t be able to trace the cash back to them. The effect will be to render limits on campaign contributions even more meaningless than they already are.
Sadly, all these new so-called donor privacy bills work toward the same general goal: preventing the public identification of big donors to nonprofit organizations. These bills strike at the heart of the “important government interests” that the U.S. Supreme Court identified in the seminal 1976 case,Buckley v. Valeo,in which the justices found that disclosure informs voters about the sources of political spending and helps to guard against corruption.
And it’s no surprise that these “donor privacy” bills are straight out of the ALEC playbook. The organization even has a “toolkit” for it.
Under current North Carolina law, so-called IE-only (independent expenditure) PACs are subject to disclosure, and so are the groups that donate to IE-only PACs. But in dark money shell games, that only accounts for the first two entities that are spending in North Carolina elections. If the money trail goes back further, through three or four nonprofits, the state Board of Elections and the public likely won’t be able to investigate those transactions. Current campaign finance statutes don’t require such nonprofits that are a few steps removed to disclose their donors, and if the SBOE wants to investigate, the nonprofits will be able to point to the provisions that would become law in SB 636 to say that they are not even allowed to disclose those transactions.
These shell games already exist of course, but SB 636 puts up another new wall, saying that the public can’t get access to this information if the money trail goes through more than just one or two nonprofits. The proposal would make it easy for wealthy special interests to route their money through a few groups just to avoid transparency and accountability.
During the 2020 election cycle, North Carolina voters were inundated with ads that distorted the facts. For example, in state Senate District 31, the innocuously named Citizens for a Better NC Senate sent mailers that lied about candidate Terri LeGrand’s policy views. Reporters traced the ultimate funding source for the mailers back to a Virginia nonprofit that was funded, in part, by donations from other nonprofits.
The beneficiary of those false ads was state Sen. Joyce Krawiec, who is now through her sponsorship of SB 636, helping to lead the charge to allow fat-cat donors to hide their political contributions by funneling them through nonprofit groups.
A few big-name examples of 501(c)(4) groups on the GOP side that have abused these loopholes would be the NRA, Club for Growth, and Heritage Action, the 501(c)(4) sister group to the Heritage Foundation. Democratic-leaning groups, like the 1630 Fund and Future Forward, may have less name recognition, but they have also engaged in similar tactics. Even small groups with one or a few wealthy funders can take advantage of the loophole, routing their money through a series of shell LLCs and 501(c)(4) groups before it gets to the Super PACs, at which point it’s impossible to determine where the money ultimately came from.
Donor privacy laws codify these practices and prevent the public from ever finding out who is funding our elections.
The bottom line: We all pay a price when political contributions influence our government. With the Greg Lindberg scandal, the now-imprisoned insurance company executive was trying to buy favorable treatment from regulators, putting North Carolina consumers at risk. When Duke Energy lobbies officials whose campaigns it helped fund to avoid paying its fair share of environmental cleanups, we all pay the price with higher utility bills.
We can all agree that the current political system isn’t working as well as it should for regular North Carolinians and their families. And now with Senate Bill 636, state legislators are threatening to make things even worse, by making it nearly impossible for voters to learn the identities of the big-money donors trying to influence our elections.
Rather than carving our legal protections for nonprofits’ political spending, state lawmakers should require real transparency regarding the sources of big money in our elections to create more government accountability, less influence for wealthy special interests, and less political corruption.
Melissa Price Kromm is the executive director of N.C. Voters for Clean Elections.
CORP ROLE
12 22 kpfa
17 (so gop) states pass laws to prot dark $
eg 1
in a state with a reputation for political scandal, Florida’s 2020 elections saw a particularly brazen scheme to swing three state Senate races.A “dark money” group sent out mailers promoting the campaigns of three “sham” candidates—in one case, diverting enough votes to a candidate with the**same last name**as former Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez to defeat him. Rodríguez lost by just 32 votes, and Democratic candidates in the other two districts were defeated as well.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that the group behind the misleading mailers, which has renamed itself as Grow United, received a $1.15 million donation from an organization closely tied to the business trade association Associated Industries of Florida. A Dec. 2 Sentinel investigation detailed the group’s consultants’ close coordination withelectric monopoly Florida Power & Light, as well as the power utility’s ties to state Republican leaders, who control the chamber and can block bills like one that would empower solar electricity generators.
Florida organizations supporting Democrats also donated $700,000 to Grow United to obscure the funding source behind expenses like election mailers,a revelation that led to the resignation of a senior House adviser.
Last month, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs launched an investigation into one of Grow United’s donors. The “sham” candidate in Rodriguez’s race pled guilty last August and is cooperating in testimony against the consultant who allegedly put him up to it, former Republican state Sen. Frank Artiles. Artiles has pled not guilty in the case.
With dark money rampant in the state, especially in state Democratic primaries, a Florida Republican is seeking to make it a crime for public officials to request or release information about the sources of money behind election spending by groups that are not required to reveal their donors.
In January, Republican Florida Rep. Toby Overdorf introduced the Personal Information Protection Act (H.B. 1547), which would prohibit public agencies from requesting that any individual, corporation, or other entity release personal information besides what is already required by campaign finance and other laws, or when they have a lawful warrant to seek the information. The bill would also prohibit agencies from publishing such information they may have in their possession. Florida Senator Joe Gruters introduced a similar bill in the Senate (S.B. 1848) that would do the same thing, but only for personal information of donors and other individuals affiliated with 501(c)(3) organizations, though its sponsor says he’s willing to broaden it to cover other types of groups. Each bill would allow for the right of civil action and violators could face possible prison time of up to 90 days.
The House version would prevent campaign finance regulators from trying to force non-disclosing organizations like (c)(4) nonprofits to reveal their donors when they spend money to influence elections in the state.
The new Florida bill is modeled after a policy propagated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit that brings together corporate lobbyists with conservative lawmakers to advance legislation that favors business interests. Rep. Overdorf is one of about 31 Florida elected officials listed as ALEC members as of April 2021, according to a state public records request from the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Gruters is the chair of the Florida Republican Party, re-elected to that position last month, and is a close ally of former President Trump, having co-chaired his 2016 state campaign.
In recent years, such bills criminalizing the disclosure of politically-active nonprofits’ donors have spread to a number of states, passing into law in 2021 in Arkansas, Iowa, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
“These types of bills are unnecessary—there are already constitutional protections for donors that would actually face threats, harassment, or reprisal from public identification—and their only true achievement may be to simply impede transparency for politically active nonprofits and make dark money darker,” said Aaron McKean, legal counsel for state and local reform at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which works to increase transparency in democracy.
“Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to influence their vote and rig the political system in their favor,” said McKean. “Florida’s legislators should be focused on ensuring voters know the true sources of money used to influence elections.”
A poll commissioned by the Campaign Legal Center previously found strong bipartisan support for “publicly disclosing contributions to organizations involved in elections” so that wealthy special interests cannot operate with impunity and politicians can be held accountable.
florida has led the nation in public corruption convictions for much of the past couple decades. From 1976 to 2018, Florida was among the top 10 states in federal corruption convictions per 10,000 residents, according to a report from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
A longtime state ethics watchdog tells Sludge that the practice of routing funds through dark money groups will proliferate in the state until the Legislature has the political will to stop it.
“I don’t think there will be any reduction in dark money in elections, it’s just going to increase,” said Ben Wilcox, research director of the nonprofit Integrity Florida. “The campaign finance system in Florida is so dysfunctional, it makes this sort of activity so easy to do, and easy to hide the source of campaign donations. There are all sorts of loopholes.”
With the end of Florida’s legislative session coming next month and the bills not gathering co-sponsors, Wilcox thinks that the state’s investigation into the Grow United case has likely chilled their support this year. But Wilcox tells Sludge, “The fact that they filed the bills this year, to further protect the sources of dark money, it tells you whether or not the bills pass this year, they probably will come next year. The powers that be are intent on keeping dark money dark.”
Wilcox also pointed to a loophole in state campaign finance law that allows unlimited donations to state political committees controlled by politicians. “It’s a form of legal corruption,” he said.
“When you look at Florida Power & Light, they give the maximum to various candidates, and then all the big money goes into the political committees, donations of $100,000 and more.” State campaign finance records show that in recent years, the committee Friends of Ron DeSantis has received donations of over $10 million total from Citadel hedge fund manager and GOP megadonor Ken Griffin, $850,000 from investment company Spring Bay Capital, $200,000 from Kane Financial Services, and nearly $125,000 from the Florida Home Builders Association, among many others.
Last May, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law S.B. 1890, a bill sponsored by Republican State Sen. Ray Rodrigues, that would have set a $3,000 cap on contributions to political committees supporting or opposing constitutional amendments until the measure obtains enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Florida lawmakers left untouched the ability for donors to make unlimited donations to candidates’ political committees. The law was blocked in federal court on July 1, the day it was slated to take effect, and in August Florida’s Attorney General did not appeal, leaving the injunction in place.
The Tampa Bay Times reported last month that lobbyist Jorge Chamizo provided the bill language to staff of Senate sponsor Gruters, working on behalf of two groups: People United for Privacy and Opportunity Solutions Project.According to CMD, which tracks dark money groups, People United for Privacy was formed by the State Policy Network, an umbrella organization of right-wing causes. Opportunity Solutions Project is the advocacy arm of the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, a State Policy Network member.
This year, Jorge Chamizo is registered to lobby for a long list of business clients, including Associated Industries of Florida and Duke Energy, which was an ALEC member as recently as 2020. Other clients of Chamizo this year include Peoples Gas System, Tampa Electric Company, health insurer Anthem, health care provider Centene, and Uber.
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:{:{BY: DAN GEARINO}:
The agreement between Duke Energy and Sunrun may allow other states to resolve the debate after years of conflict. :{Read More:(style="color:#a52a2a;"):}:}:
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fac so 919
Duke Energy's new climate plan has a fracked gas problem
The North Carolina-based company recently released an updated climate plan promising "net-zero" carbon emissions by 2050. But Duke is clinging to coal decades longer than climate advocates say it should while pressing ahead with polluting fracked gas projects that could soon be economically unfeasible.
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Gov. Cooper's appointments herald change for Duke Energy oversight
The nation's largest investor-owned utility was recently named the worst for the environment. But changes recently proposed for the utility regulatory commission by the governor in the company's home state of North Carolina could push Duke in a more environmentally sustainable direction. (5/9/2019)
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https://www.desmogblog.com/steve-milloy
update no lnx vid
Key Deeds
October 22, 2018
Milloy joined forces with Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Fred Palmer to create an activist shareholder group called Burn More Coal, established for the purpose of preventing the closure of coal-fired power plants. BMC’s motto includes the phrase, “Coal is Life.” [73]
The group filed a shareholder proposal with Duke Energy demanding an economic justification for the planned decommissioning of some of Duke's coal plants:
“What will be the actual benefit to anyone or anything of it? Global CO2 emissions are higher now than ever and increasing.” [73]
The move came as Duke plans to retire 14 coal plants by 2020 to comply with federal and state environmental regulations and under pressure from low natural gas prices and increasing demand for renewable energy. [73]
In an interview with The Daily Caller, Palmer said:
“There is a cabal in the utility industry that wants to decarbonize independent of federal policy. It’s as if Al Gore were running the utility industry.” [73]
August 7, 2018
Milloy spoke at the Heartland Institute's “America First Energy Conference” (AFEC 2018) in New Orleans, Louisiana. [70]
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- Duke Energy to Contest North Carolina Coal Ash Excavation Order - Associated Press
sue s facing so
https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/03/institute-index-south-pays-dearly-nuclear-industrys-failed-renaissance
In the decade after the meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which took place 40 years ago this week, number of nuclear plant orders that U.S. utilities canceled nationwide amid skyrocketing costs: about 100
In today's dollars, estimated amount those abandoned plants cost taxpayers and ratepayers: over $40 billion
Amount ratepayers shouldered in cost overruns alone for the approximately 100 nuclear power plants built around that time: over $200 billion
Year in which Forbes magazine called the U.S. nuclear power program "the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale": 1985
Year in which the nuclear power industry began using the term "nuclear renaissance" to hype a hoped-for revival of reactor construction: 2001
Between 2007 and 2009, number of applications for new reactor construction projects submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by utility companies: 18
Of those proposed projects, number that were in the South, where electricity markets are dominated by the monopoly utility model with guaranteed profits, and where some states allow utilities to force customers to pay in advance for construction projects: 13
Of the 18 proposed reactor projects, number that are still proceeding today, with others canceled amid skyrocketing costs driven in part by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan: 1
Amount Duke Energy wants to charge its South Carolina customers for a decade of planning for two reactors that were never built at its Lee plant in Cherokee County: $240 million
Amount Florida Power & Light has already charged Florida ratepayers for two new proposed reactors at its Turkey Point plant in Miami-Dade County, construction of which is on hold and may never resume: over $300 million
Amount South Carolina ratepayers must pay for SCE&G's and Santee Cooper's now-canceled project involving construction of two new reactors at the Summer plant in Fairfield County: $2.3 billion
Number of powerful 5 kilowatt home solar electric systems that could be installed with $2.3 billion: more than 65,000
Initial cost estimate for the one commercial nuclear project that's still proceeding, Georgia Power's construction of two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Burke County: $14 billion
Current cost estimate for the Vogtle project, now set to finish in 2022: over $27 billion
Because of Georgia's nuclear prepayment law, approximate amount the Vogtle project has already added to the average annual Georgia Power electricity bill: $120
Year in which Democrats angered by the prepayment scheme's economic injustice and Republicans upset over its violation of free-market principles united in Georgia's legislature to quash similar deals for any other commercial reactors built in the state: 2018
Amount in additional taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees that were announced for the Vogtle project last week amid a visit to the plant by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who called it "the real new green deal": up to $3.7 billion
Total amount in federal loan guarantees the Vogtle project has received to date: $12 billion
(Click on figure to go to source.)
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tricksy 2 step?
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fac so ss
no link
(ALEC), a controversial and powerful group that brings together state legislators and corporate representatives to promote conservative policies, has been pushing to repeal state renewable energy standards -- and now lawmakers affiliated with the group have filed legislation to do just that in North Carolina.
This week, the Affordable and Reliable Energy Act (H298) was introduced to repeal the state's renewable energy portfolio standard (REPS), which currently requires 3 percent of all electricity sold in the state to come from renewable sources, with that portion rising to 12.5 percent by 2025. North Carolina was the first state in the Southeast to adopt a REPS law, with the General Assembly passing it with broad bipartisan support in 2007.
The move to scrap the REPS comes despite research showing that the law has been responsible for significant job creation in North Carolina, which was recently found to be among the top states for clean-energy project announcements.
The North Carolina REPS repeal bill has four primary sponsors -- and three of the four have known affiliations with ALEC. The primary sponsors, all Republicans, are:
* State Rep. Mike Hager (R-Rutherford, Burke). First elected to the state House in 2010, Hager is an engineer who worked for 17 years for Duke Energy, which under H298 would be allowed to recoup from its customers the costs of contracts it has entered for renewable power. Though Hager says he is now retired from the utility, his economic disclosure form does not report any income from the utility giant. However, it does report that he received $1,000 from ALEC to attend a conference in 2011.
The head of the Public Utilities and Energy Committee, Hager has also been a key leader in the push to allow fracking for natural gas in North Carolina, even attempting to have a key vote taken on the matter when a Democrat momentarily left the floor during debate.
The top industry contributor to Hager's campaign is electric utilities, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' FollowTheMoney.org database. In the most recent election cycle, he received $8,000 from Duke Energy, $5,500 from the N.C. Association of Electric Cooperatives, $4,000 from Progress Energy, and $2,000 from Dominion.
* Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Wake). A chemist who once worked for the North Carolina-based textile giant HanesBrands, Avila was elected to the General Assembly in 2006. Before that, she spent 15 years working as the administrative director and event coordinator with the John Locke Foundation (JLF), a Raleigh think tank that was founded and is funded primarily by leading conservative financier Art Pope, who is now the state budget director.
JLF has been a leading voice of climate science denial in North Carolina, and it has been working to repeal the REPS with representatives of ALEC and the American Tradition Institute, another climate science denial group with fossil-fuel industry connections. Avila is among the North Carolina lawmakers who attended ALEC's 2011 annual meeting.
In the most recent election cycle, energy interests were among her top 10 biggest donors, according to FollowTheMoney.org.
* Rep. George Cleveland (R-Onslow). A former Marine and assistant security officer for the State Department, Cleveland was elected to the state House in 2004. He filed legislation to repeal REPS during the last legislative session, but it didn't go anywhere.
Earlier this year, Cleveland sponsored a talk at the legislature by John Droz, a fellow with the American Tradition Institute, that attacked renewable energy and purported to show that global warming is a scientific hoax. In 2010, Cleveland was among the state lawmakers who signed an ALEC letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid opposing plans to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Electric utilities were fourth among Cleveland's biggest industry contributors in the latest election cycle, according to FollowTheMoney.org.
* Rep. Jeff Collins (R-Nash, Franklin). A financial consultant and the founder of Rocky Mount Bible Church, Collins is the only one of the four primary sponsors of the REPS repeal bill who does not have documented ties to ALEC. He is a member of the Public Utilities and Energy Committee chaired by Hager.
Electric utilities were sixth among Collins' biggest industry contributors in the latest election cycle, according to FollowTheMoney.org.
Of the 21 co-sponsors of the bill, five also have known ties to ALEC: Reps. Hugh Blackwell (R-Burke), Rayne Brown (R-Davidson), Justin Burr (R-Stanly), Sarah Stevens (R-Surry), and Mike Stone (R-Lee). In addition, House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Mecklenburg), who will play a key role in advancing the legislation, recentlyjoined ALEC's board of directors.
ALEC claims that renewable energy standards increase energy costs, but research has shown just the opposite: A recent study conducted by RTI International and La Capra Associates for the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association showed that the state's REPS law was not only a key driver of clean energy development and job creation but that the law will also lead to lower electricity rates over time by avoiding the construction of costly new fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. By 2026, the state's clean energy program will have resulted in a total of $173 million in cost savings for electricity customers, the study found.
ALEC's modus operandi has drawn widespread criticism, with the watchdog group Common Cause filing an IRS complaint last year accusing the group of violating its tax-exempt status by lobbying state lawmakers.
Almost 98 percent of ALEC's budget is raised from sources other than legislative dues, including corporations, trade associations, and corporate foundations, according to the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed project. ALEC has also gotten significant funding from foundations controlled by the billionaire brothers behind the Koch Industries oil and chemical conglomerate, who have also been major funders of attacks on climate science and renewable energy.
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Duke Energy is on the record as supporting North Carolina's REPS law, but at the same time it's a paying member of ALEC (despite calls to resign) and helped finance the group's conference held last spring in the company's hometown of Charlotte, N.C. That's where the Electricity Freedom Act -- ALEC's model bill to repeal REPS -- was drafted by the Heartland Institute, a prominent climate science denial group that's received significant funding from fossil fuel interests including the Kochs and Exxon Mobil, another major funder of climate disinformation.
While the language of the North Carolina bill differs from that in the model legislation, the measures would have the same effect of ending renewable energy purchase requirements for the state's investor-owned utilities.
It's uncertain how North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), a longtime Duke Energy employee who holds substantial investments in the company, would respond to the bill should it pass the legislature and end up on his desk. McCrory has been particularly supportive of offshore wind, embracing it as part of his all-of-the-above energy strategy.
The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. reports that McCrory is currently discussing the future of North Carolina's renewable energy program with his advisers and cabinet and said it was important to be clear with investors about the state's long-term plan.
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http://www.ecowatch.com/erin-brockovich-hexavalent-chromium-1975027666.html
As news about North Carolina's governor and his administration downplaying the risks of drinking water contaminatedwith hexavalent chromium unfolds, two leading environmental health advocates are pushing the Obama administration to finally set a nationwide standard for the highly toxic chemical.
Erin Brockovich, a noted environmental health advocate and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop dragging its feet and move quickly to set a tough national standard, known as a Maximum Contaminant Level or MCL, for the ubiquitous carcinogen found in millions of Americans' tap water.
In a joint letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Brockovich and Cook wrote:
We write with deep concern about this continued delay. It is clear that the delay is sowing confusion among state and local regulators, utilities and the public about how much hexavalent chromium is safe in drinking water. This confusion is resulting in many Americans' exposure to unregulated levels of hexavalent chromium that federal, state and independent scientists agree pose health hazards.
The request comes as a top state health official in North Carolina resigned in protest over meddling by Gov. Pat McCrory and his staff. McCrory sought to retract "do-not-drink" warnings directed at some residents whose tap water comes from wells likely tainted by hexavalent chromium from nearby Duke Energy coal-burning facilities.
The situation in North Carolina is, in part, a result of the absence of a stringent nationwide health-protective EPA standard, argued Brockovich and Cook:
States like North Carolina, where industrial byproducts like coal ash increase the risk of hexavalent chromium contamination, need a federal mandate to set strong, health-protective standards for levels of the contaminant in drinking water. Without it, states will continue to use inconsistent and potentially unsafe guidelines and leave citizens confused about whether their drinking water is safe.
A report issued by EWG back in December 2010 found hexavalent chromium in tap water from 31 of 35 American cities.
"It's high time EPA put in place a stringent national standard to protect Americans from drinking water contaminated with hexavalent chromium," Cook said in a separate statement.
"A lack of a federal standard and the ongoing delay in setting one, are confusing utilities, states and citizens about what level of hexavalent chromium in drinking water is safe. Until EPA acts, we will likely continue to see the situation happening in North Carolina unfold in other states."
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trashes solar subsidy
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/news/cut-corporate-welfare-its-time-rein-crony-capitalism
duke and exelon?
http://www.seia.org/policy/finance-tax/1603-treasury-program
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