North Carolina

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SEE NC 3 12 24 ELECTION

SEE NORTH CARO NC 2 POPE

3rd koch bro: funded by North Carolina businessman and Republican mega-donor Art Pope,

9/18 corp run state ref, king canute sea level rise w/ hurr florence (but as mckib says, all connected eg gerrymandering

many tags

cf EJ

with fla and __ outlawed (talking about) AGW,

offshore oil 11.15

918 capt

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1898 wilmington coup

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-coup-2649033376/

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NC GOP ~ NEW GERRY MAP 5 27 26

DO NOT WANT DUMMYMANDER B/C ALREADY GERRY? AA SEN? BOOST BIDEN?

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In the 2024 election, many North Carolina voters were willing to split their ticket.

President-elect Donald Trump carried the state, but Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein defeated far-right GOP gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson and will be sworn in as governor in 2025.

North Carolina, a swing state, will have two Democratic governors in a row. But outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper and other North Carolina Democrats are slamming Republicans in the state legislature for making a "power grab" via Senate Bill 382 — which limits Stein's powers as governor in a variety of ways.

READ MORE:[Mehdi Hasan rips Nikki Haley over Biden jab: 'You hated Trump'

For one thing, SB 382 prevents Gov.-elect Stein from appointing members of the North Carolina Board of Elections and moves that power to GOP Auditor-elect Dave Boliek.

Cooper, during a Tuesday, December 3 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," slammed the bill as an egregious "power grab." And Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern has been equally critical of North Carolina Republicans and SB 382.

In a scathing post on X, formerly Twitter, Stern wrote, "This is a hugely corrupt power grab by the North Carolina General Assembly's Republican supermajority, seizing authority from the governor and the courts to prevent any meaningful check on legislative abuses. Authoritarian stuff. A really dark day for democracy in N.C."

SB 382 also prevents Rachel Hunt, North Carolina's lieutenant governor-elect, from chairing committees on energy issues.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082019/clean-energy-plan-north-carolina-governor-cooper-climate-change-hurricanes-duke-gop

What a difference three years can make in the politics of climate change in North Carolina, a state that not long ago took a sharp lurch to the right.

After replacing a Republican who questioned whether climate change was caused by human activities, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has testified before Congress on North Carolina's sizable climate challenges and unveiled a draft clean energy plan designed to put the state on a path toward eliminating carbon emissions from the power sector by mid-century.

His effort to grapple with global warming faces the cold reality of needing support in North Carolina's Republican legislature, however. It's a significant challenge that has clean-energy advocates and state officials looking for work-arounds and short-term wins. This week, for example, state regulators put pressure on North Carolina's largest utility to weigh the governor's greenhouse gas reduction goals in its future energy plans.

The GOP won control of both chambers of the legislature in 2010, and Republican lawmakers in the state "have not shown any propensity to do anything on climate change,"said Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters.

While small gains could be possible now, he said, what would be needed to achieve major clean energy policy amounts to changing who is in power in the North Carolina General Assembly.

State officials tried to lay the groundwork for bipartisan support by working with business interests, including Duke Energy, as they developed the plan, released in draft form this month by the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Duke, the biggest utility in the state, applauded Cooper for his leadership, but declined to comment beyond a brief statement that touted its own clean-energy progress. The utility, which enjoys considerable influence in state government, operates more than 35 solar power facilities in North Carolina and says it has invested more than $1 billion in renewable energy in the state this decade.

Cooper's plan goes further than that, however, calling for transforming the electrical grid to save energy and make it more resilient; reducing the energy burdens of low-income residents; and cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 60 to 70 below 2005 levels by 2030 while working toward zero emissions by 2050, among other steps.

Despite the hurdles it faces, the 137-page clean-energy plan marks progress in a region of the country that in past decades was more likely to be associated with burning coal but is increasingly welcoming renewable energy.

"The plan has all the elements it should have in it," said John Wilson, deputy director of regulatory policy for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which tracks and advocates clean energy policies in North Carolina and four other southern states. "It lays out the steps the state could take to move toward decarbonization, and who needs to take them and what needs to be done.

"It will be a formidable challenge to implement the plan, but this was the leadership that was needed."

Even if the legislature balks, there are still several elements in the draft plan that could be carried out by state agencies and utility regulators on their own.

There were signs this week that the North Carolina Utilities Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities, may be listening to the governor.

Duke has had its own long-term plan before the commission for months and has emphasized how it would boost battery storage for solar power. But critics say Duke intends to rely too much on natural gas, another fossil fuel. The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association says Duke's plan would barely expand clean energy beyond what was already mandated by the legislature.

The commission on Tuesday approved Duke's power plan, but it declined to rubber stamp it. Instead, it directed the company to more closely examine whether it could accelerate the closure of several remaining North Carolina coal plants and how it could help meet the governor's goals for greenhouse gas reductions in the state.

A Duke spokeswoman said the company was pleased with the commission approval and would provide the additional analysis "as we continue this transition to even cleaner sources of energy."

Back-to-Back Hurricanes and Extreme Weather

When Cooper testified before a congressional committee in February, he talked about the back-to-back Hurricanes Matthew and Florence that hit the state in 2016 and 2018, and how North Carolina residents were still struggling to recover when the remnants of Hurricane Michael came through just weeks after Florence.

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Mark Meadows and the gerrymandered district: How Republicans ‘cracked’ the liberal city of Asheville**— and elected a right-wing buffoon

Republicans "cracked" the liberal city of Asheville into two safe…

In a major victory for voting rights, a federal court has once again struck down North Carolina’s gerrymandered congressional district voting map, saying it was unfairly drawn to help Republican candidates. In 2016, Republicans won 77 percent of the state’s House districts despite receiving just 53 percent of the statewide vote. A redrawn map could put more seats into play for Democrats in November, but the case may first go back to the Supreme Court.

rev barber moral mondays EJ hurrican flo

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Work Restarts as Opponents Decry 'Rushed Decisions'

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruled Monday that work could resume on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which opponents call "unnecessary and a boondoggle," the Charlotte Business Journal reported.

Work on the controversial pipeline halted last month after a federal appeals court vacated two permits required for the project to complete its 600 mile route from West Virginia, through Virginia, to North Carolina. ew

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N carolina

pig, 1.x million dead chickens, coal ash

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socialize cost, pvtize profit

https://www.alternet.org/hurricane-florences-surge-expected-hit-homes-already-cost-government-millions

Though the flooding from Hurricane Florence is predicted to be unprecedented, residents of the coastal North Carolina towns threatened by the storm surge know what it’s like to take on water. Some homes in these areas have been repeatedly flooded — and repeatedly bailed out by federal flood insurance.

ProPublica examined storm surge predictions by the National Hurricane Center, layering a map of areas expected to be affected by Florence over a map of the most flood-prone properties tracked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides most of the flood insurance for U.S. homeowners.

Critics have long argued that the program subsidizes risky development, but efforts at reform inevitably stall because raising premiums would make flood insurance unaffordable for lower-income residents. The insurance is required for federally backed mortgages of homes in flood-prone areas. The program is more than $20 billion in debt.

Looking at some of the towns, it’s easy to see why.

High-risk areas include communities along the Pamlico River and North Topsail Beach, which is on a barrier island near Wilmington. Homes there have gotten multiple flood payouts from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program going back as far as 1978. One property in North Topsail Beach has received nine separate payments, totaling $77,000, though the building is worth just $37,125. Another in nearby Topsail Beach has received 10 payments worth $467,000. That building is worth $300,000.

FEMA places buildings like these — including 1,132 across North Carolina — on a special list called “severe repetitive loss” structures because they’ve been flooded and rebuilt again and again with FEMA flood insurance. Properties that qualify for the list have made at least four claims of more than $5,000 each since 1978, or two claims with a combined value that’s worth more than the building itself. There are more than 35,000 such properties nationwide.

Collectively, the buildings in North Carolina are worth at least $280 million, and they’ve received $164 million in payments, according to FEMA data provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. The list undoubtedly will grow after Hurricane Florence, placing additional strain on a debt-ridden program that experts say is in desperate need of reform.

The areas facing the worst impact from Hurricane Florence are among the most vulnerable in the country when it comes to sea-level rise; parts of North Topsail Beach, for instance, are eroding at 5 feet per year. And a team of scientists concluded on Wednesday that climate change had supercharged the storm — increasing its projected rainfall by roughly 50 percent and its size by 50 miles.

Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said these homes are “perfect examples of what we’ll see as sea levels continue to rise.”

North Carolina has a rocky history of confronting sea-level rise. In 2012, after scientific advisers for the state predicted up to 39 inches of rising sea levels over the next century, state legislators passed a law saying North Carolina would only base policies on studies that exclusively used historical data, effectively outlawing climate science. The current governor has backtracked, and North Carolina has joined a multistate effort to tackle climate change.

Moore said the government should fund more property buyouts to permanently remove homes from risky areas. Nationwide, a majority of the homes on the list belong to low-income and middle-class residents, he said, and since buyouts often take years to process, most homeowners can’t afford to wait and are forced to use insurance claims to rebuild in the same place.

The slow-moving hurricane will linger over the Carolinas through the weekend.

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Potential Insurance Bill From Hurricane Florence Could Take Toll on Wallets Far From North Carolina’s Coast

by Abrahm Lustgarten and Talia Buford

Insurance companies retreated from some communities amid stronger storms, leaving a “last-resort” plan to fill the growing gap.

also coal ash

Will Hurricane Florence Flood North Carolina Factory Farms and Manure Pits?

When Hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina in 2016, it flooded more than 140 feces-strewn industrial-scale swine and poultry barns, more than a dozen open pits brimming with liquid hog waste and thousands of acres of manure-saturated fields. As Hurricane Florence—far bigger than Matthew—bears down on the state, Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Waterkeeper Alliance are prepared to again assess the impact on North Carolina's concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-florence-climate-denial-2604542741.html

no many lnx

Climate-Denying Law Could Make Hurricane Florence More Dangerous

A 2012 law could make North Carolina more vulnerable to hurricanes like Florence, which is expected to approach the state later Thursday, CBS reported.

The law banned policy makers from using up-to-date climate science to plan for sea level rise, which is expected to make flooding from storms like Florence worse.

"Currently the unspoken plan is to wait until the situation is catastrophic and then respond. We must begin the retreat now," retired Duke University coastal geologist Orrin H. Pilkey wrote in a recent op-ed for Raleigh's News & Observer.

The law came as a response to a 2010 Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) report that predicted sea levels on the Carolina coast would rise 39 inches by 2100, putting 2,000 square miles of property at risk, The Charlotte Observer explained.

Real estate interests and some politicians worried the report could chill coastal development and increase insurance, so thestate legislature passed a law banning agencies from making sea level rise policies until 2016.

"By putting our heads in the sand, literally, for four years, we are not helping property owners. We are hurting them because we are not giving them information they may need to protect their property," Democratic Representative Deborah Ross said in 2012, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The bill, which became law when Democratic Governor Bev Perdue neither signed nor vetoed it, instructed the CRC to write a new sea-level-rise report that restricted its scope to the next 30 years, took into account scientific studies refuting sea level rise and assessed the economic cost of limiting coastal development.

It was sponsored by Republican Representative Pat McElraft, a former real-estate agent whose top contributors included the North Carolina Association of Realtors and the North Carolina Home Builders Association.

"You can believe whatever you want about global warming, but when you go to make planning policies here for our residents and protecting their property values and insurance rates ... it's a very serious thing to us on the coast," McElraft said in 2012, according to The Charlotte Observer.

However, others warned that the bill itself would be a "very serious thing" for coastal dwellers.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation warned at the time that the bill undermined years of work by emergency agencies "to help prepare the state for hurricanes," according to CBS.

This week, the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that the increased average sea level along the Carolina coast could make the storm surge from Hurricane Florence more dangerous.

Since the bill was passed, studies have continued to show that the Carolina coast is already being impacted by sea level rise.

One, published in August, found that five Southeast states including North Carolina had already lost $7.4 billion in home values to sea level rise.

High tides are already causing flooding on non-windy days on streets like Front Street in Beaufort, Bay Street in Morehead City and Memorial Street in Nags Head, Pilkey wrote in his op-ed.

He advised that, going forward, the state increase setback lines to limit coastal development, raise the height of buildings, move back threatened buildings, prohibit rebuilding of storm-destroyed buildings and initiate a planned retreat from the rising water line.

"The time has come for action on our shoreline," Pilkey wrote. "There is no question that the climate will change drastically. It already has. And with that changing climate will come big changes at the shoreline. We used to believe that we could hold the shoreline in place but clearly that is an economic and engineering impossibility."

happer tweet agw "cult"

FWS Proposal 'Dooms' Wild Population of Endangered Red Wolves

In April, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released a report saying that theonly remaining wild population of red wolves, in eastern North Carolina, could go extinct within eight years. On Wednesday, the FWS published a proposal that seems likely to speed that process along.

The proposal would limit protected territory to public lands and remove restrictions on killing or harming wolves on private lands.

"We're very disappointed in this plan," Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Ramona McGee told The Washington Post. "It's a plan that effectively dooms the red wolf in the wild. It's not enough to sustain a population, and if they wander off that [refuge] they can be shot and killed the moment they cross that boundary."

The FWS estimates there are approximately 35 red wolves left in the wild, a dozen of which live in the public lands that would be their only protected habitat under the new proposal: the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and the Dare County Bombing Range.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/us/north-carolina-gerrymander.html

A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday, condemning it as unconstitutional because Republicans had drawn the map seeking a political advantage. The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because of a partisan gerrymander, and it instantly endangered Republican seats in the coming elections.

Judge James A. Wynn Jr., in a biting 191-page opinion, said that Republicans in North Carolina’s Legislature had been “motivated by invidious partisan intent” as they carried out their obligation in 2016 to divide the state into 13 congressional districts, 10 of which are held by Republicans. The result, Judge Wynn wrote, violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

The ruling and its chief demand — that the Republican-dominated Legislature create a new landscape of congressional districts by Jan. 24 — infused new turmoil into the political chaos that has in recent years enveloped North Carolina. President Trump carried North Carolina in 2016, but the state elected a Democrat as its governor on the same day and in 2008 supported President Barack Obama.

The unusually blunt decision by the panel could lend momentum to two other challenges on gerrymandering that are already before the Supreme Court — and that the North Carolina case could join if Republicans make good on their vow to appeal Tuesday’s ruling.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

Justices Reject 2 Gerrymandered North Carolina Districts, Citing Racial Bias MAY 22, 2017

Pennsylvania Lawsuit Says House Redistricting Is Partisan Gerrymander JUNE 15, 2017

In October, the court heard an appeal of another three-judge panel’s ruling that Republicans had unconstitutionally gerrymandered Wisconsin’s State Assembly in an attempt to relegate Democrats to a permanent minority. In the second case, the justices will hear arguments by Maryland Republicans that the Democratic-controlled Legislature redrew House districts to flip a Republican-held seat to Democratic control.

The Supreme Court has struggled without success for decades to develop a legal standard for determining when a partisan gerrymander crosses constitutional lines. The court once came close to ruling that such cases were political matters beyond its jurisdiction. But the rise of extreme partisan gerrymanders in the last decade, powered by a growing ideological divide and powerful map-drawing software, has brought the question back to the justices with new urgency. A Supreme Court ruling outlawing at least some such gerrymanders could reshape the political landscape.

Fights over voting rights and election procedures have often taken center stage in Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital, and Tuesday’s ruling noted that “partisan advantage” had been a criterion lawmakers used when mulling how to map the state.

Republican officials in the General Assembly said Tuesday evening that they intended to appeal the ruling, which many elected officials and political strategists were still scrambling to digest. Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, criticized Judge Wynn and accused him of “waging a personal, partisan war on North Carolina Republicans.”

In a separate post on Twitter, Mr. Woodhouse argued that Judge Wynn had concluded that North Carolina’s Republicans “should not be allowed to draw election districts under any circumstances under any set of rules,” an effort he called “a hostile takeover” of the General Assembly and legislatures nationwide. Republicans could ask the Supreme Court to stay the decision and allow the disputed map to be used this year.

But critics of the congressional map welcomed a decision that was notable for its tartness and urgency.

“Clearly, the courts have realized that they do need to step in and police extreme partisan gerrymanders, and the court recognized that North Carolina’s gerrymander was one of the most extreme in history,” said Ruth Greenwood, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center and a lawyer representing some of the map’s challengers.

The chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Wayne Goodwin, said the decision was “a major victory for North Carolina and people across the state whose voices were silenced by Republicans’ unconstitutional attempts to rig the system to their partisan advantage.”

The judges issued their decision fewer than 24 hours before the General Assembly was to convene in Raleigh for a special session. The ruling unmistakably placed lawmakers on the clock, giving them two weeks to present a “remedial plan” and declaring that the court would institute its own map if it finds the new district lines unsatisfactory.

“Politically, this gives hope to Democrats,” said J. Michael Bitzer, a professor of political science at Catawba College, which is near Charlotte. “I can imagine the Republicans being furious, but they have to see political reality, and it’s not just in the next two weeks: It’s come November.”

Professor Bitzer, though, cautioned that the ultimate political fallout would not become clearer until the courts settled what could be a cascade of appeals and injunctions.

The ruling left little doubt about how the judges assessed the Legislature’s most recent map. Judge Wynn, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and was a member of a special panel considering the congressional map, said that “a wealth of evidence proves the General Assembly’s intent to ‘subordinate’ the interests of non-Republican voters and ‘entrench’ Republican domination of the state’s congressional delegation.”

Most federal lawsuits are first heard by a district court, and later — if needed — by an appeals court and the Supreme Court. But under federal law, constitutional challenges to the apportionment of House districts or statewide legislative bodies are automatically heard by three-judge panels, and appeals are taken directly to the Supreme Court.

In addition to Judge Wynn, an appointee of Mr. Obama’s, Senior Judge W. Earl Britt of the Federal District Court in Raleigh joined the opinion. Judge Britt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

Judge William L. Osteen Jr., who was appointed by President George W. Bush and sits on the federal bench in Greensboro, said he agreed that the existing map violated the 14th Amendment, but he disputed other parts of Judge Wynn’s opinion, including the decision to appoint an independent expert to begin preparing an alternative map.

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North Carolina Trustees Would “Defend” Free Speech by Attacking It

Hank Reichman / December 12, 2017

BY HANK REICHMAN

This summer the North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act, passed earlier in the year by the state legislature, went into effect. Directly inspired by a proposal by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, the legislation’s premise is that free speech is under attack on American campuses. Among other provisions, the law mandates strict disciplinary measures against individuals accused of violating the free speech rights of others, says that universities ought to be neutral on public issues, and calls on public universities to issue annual reports on campus free speech.

On Friday, December 15, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina system will vote on the policy to implement the law across the 17 campuses of the UNC system. It would make dissent unsafe, will chill healthy academic debate, and creates a preference for some forms of speech over others. As Michael Behrent, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and Vice President of the North Carolina state conference of the AAUP, reported on this blog in November, the policy would create new restrictions not found in the law itself,notably by inventing such terms as “acceptable forms of dissent.” William P. Marshall, William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law, called the proposed policy “overbroad and will work to chill constitutionally protected speech.”

The policy prohibits expression that “substantially interferes with the protected free speech rights of others,” a provision so broadly defined it could potentially be used to discipline any student who disagrees vocally with a speaker, anywhere on campus. As Behrent reported,

“Taken literally,” Professor Marshall explained, “this policy means that a student could be sanctioned for protesting (or maybe even just vehemently disagreeing) with an unscheduled speaker (which presumably could mean anybody including a fellow student) almost anywhere on campus—given that the word ‘speaker’ is not defined and most areas of college campuses are nonpublic fora. This means students could be disciplined if they attempted to shout down a speaker outside their dorm room or eating hall.”

Professor Marshall added that the “policy and statute are unclear as to what it means to interfere with the rights of others to “listen to expressive activity.’ Is speaking too loudly near an unscheduled speaker sanctionable? Is trying to talk over the speech of another person a possible subject of discipline? The policy discusses actual physical obstruction with access or egress to the location where the speaker is speaking but the language of both the policy and the statute reach far more than physical obstruction.” For these reasons, Professor Marshall fears the policy may be “inconsistent” with the First Amendment. “As the policy purports to recognize,” he says, “the first amendment protects both speech and counter speech. The approach taken by both the policy and the statute, however, creates a preference for only one type of speech that is inconsistent with first amendment principles and treads far too broadly into core first amendment expression.”

By focusing on disruption of speakers the policy demonstrates a marked preference for speech over counter-speech, in violation of the First Amendment. In a piece published today on NC Policy Watch, Behrendt and Jay Smith, Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill, note:

“All speech is free, but some speech is more free than others.” This seems to be the motto of the current members of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors and their General Assembly backers. Like the dictatorial pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm—who declared “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”—the Board is putting a noble veneer on self-serving and disingenuous arguments. . . .

The Board . . . sees higher education as a hostile power. . . . But even as they champion freedom and diversity of opinion, they subscribe to the troubling notion that every social institution must be ideologically balanced. The idea of critical inquiry has undoubtedly attracted liberals to the academic profession. But academe is not the only institution with pronounced political sympathies. The military, for instance, overwhelmingly votes Republican. Should liberals insist on ideological balance among those to whom we entrust our protection? Yet this is precisely what the Board wants for UNC.

The great irony is that the very people who want to make universities “diverse” also embrace the conservative belief that the state always stumbles when it tells society what to do. The Board and the legislature are, in this respect, socialists—precisely in the sense that the Right uses the term. In attempting to inject the “correct” balance of opinion into university life, they are engaging in the kind of social engineering conservatives have always denounced. Reagan famously said that “government is the problem.” On the issue of campus free speech, the Board believes that government is the solution. When it comes to expressing your beliefs, the Board knows what’s best for you.

The North Carolina AAUP is collecting signatures from UNC faculty members and friends on an online petition urging the Board of Governors to reject the proposed policy. It may be accessed here.

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https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/08/north-carolina-first-enact-controversial-model-bill-sanctioning-campus-protesters

Kurtz had high hopes for North Carolina, and it didn't let him down.

A conservative commentator and senior fellow at the faith-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, Kurtz co-authored sample legislation for the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based libertarian think tank, to limit protests on college campuses. He was responding to so-called "shout-downs" where protesters have forced controversial speakers visiting colleges to leave the stage (as in the case of "The Bell Curve" author Charles Murray at Middlebury College in Vermont) or prevented their speaking at all (as happened to conservative political provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley).

Writing in the conservative National Review, Kurtz argued that the last few years have seen a rise in incidents involving leftist students emboldened by sympathetic faculty to shut out conservative voices. But some critics say the Goldwater legislation goes beyond limiting student interference, defining punishable protest too broadly to protect student's free speech rights. Others take issue with thebill's expansion of government control over universities, with its provisions requiring them to remain neutral on public controversies and to create a free-speech oversight board.

North Carolinahas not been the site of any high-profile shout-downs, and in fact the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — a libertarian group that supports the Goldwater bill — recently rated it as the best state for free speech on campus. But back in March, its Republican-controlled General Assembly became the nation's first to bring a version of the Goldwater bill to the floor. [relates to horowitz bill how?]

In fact, North Carolina played a special role in the crafting of the proposal. For more than a year before the model bill's release, Kurtz had worked with the office of Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest on campus free speech issues. Kurtz says that Forest's team "provided critical early encouragement and support for the approach that eventuated in the Goldwater proposal."

The version of the "Restore/Preserve Campus Free Speech" bill filed in the N.C. House and Senateon March 29 resembled the Goldwater Institute's model legislation in that it prevented public universities from disinviting controversial speakers and required them to "strive to remain neutral … on the public policy controversies of the day." The bill also called for the creation of a "Committee on Free Expression" to be elected from the majority-Republican UNC Board of Governors to publish an annual report on the state of free speech on UNC campuses.

But it differed from the model in the penalties imposed. Rather than requiring a mandatory one-year suspension or expulsion for students who had twice been found guilty of violations, as Kurtz proposed, the original version of North Carolina's bill charged the state's public universities to develop a range of sanctions that would apply to "protests and demonstrations that infringe upon the rights of others to engage in or listen to expressive activity."

Among those supporting the bill were Jenna Robinson, president of the conservative nonprofit James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and John Hood, chair of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank. Both Raleigh-based groups were founded and are funded by North Carolina businessman and Republican mega-donor Art Pope, whose influence network has long criticized UNC for discouraging conservative viewpoints. One of the bill's primary sponsors, Rep. Jonathan Jordan, served as the Locke Foundation's research director in the late 1990s.

Concerned about the bill's reach, the North Carolina ACLUworked with its sponsors to make sure the final version didn't infringe on anyone's constitutional rights. Amendments were added that scrapped the requirement that universities remain neutral on controversial issues and replaced it with a clause prohibiting them from requiring students or faculty to publicly express a certain political view. And while the bill still requires universities to come up with disciplinary sanctions for those found to have obstructed free speech, it significantly narrowed the definition of which actions are punishable; now, only someone who "disrupts the functioning of the constituent institution or substantially interferes with the protected free expression rights of others" will face disciplinary action. The general counsel for the UNC system told the House Committee on Education that these changes had alleviated UNC's "major concerns" about the legislation.

The General Assembly passed a final version of the bill in late June and sent it to Gov. Roy Cooper (D). Calling it "much improved," the ACLU did not ask for a veto. But Cooper did receive a joint veto request from the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Association of University Professors. The groups cited concerns that the Committee on Free Expression, which given the Board of Governors' composition would almost certainly be Republican-dominated, "would inject political considerations into the administration of speech policies and sanctions."

The July 30 signing deadline came and went without word from Cooper's office. The legislation had passed both chambers with a veto-proof majority and would likely have become law no matter Cooper's response. By not taking action by the deadline, he allowed the bill to go into effect without taking a public stance.

Since Kurtz's model bill was first introduced in North Carolina, it's also been taken up by legislatures in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In Tennessee, the legislature passed a proposal nicknamed the "Milo bill" that was inspired by the Goldwater legislation but neither specified disciplinary sanctions nor set up an oversight committee — changes significant enough that Kurtz said the measure was "not primarily Goldwater based."

The Virginia House passed a resolution that was inspired by Kurtz's bill but was significantly altered. For example, the Virginia legislation does not mandate disciplinary sanctions, instead merely asserting that it is "not proper" for public universities to shield students from offensive speech.

In Louisiana, a version of the bill that Kurtz supported passed the state House and Senate with bipartisan support but was vetoed by Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), who said it was a "solution in search of a problem" and "would only frustrate the goals it purports to achieve." While the procedures required for an override make it unlikely, Rep. Lance Harris (R) said he plans to reintroduce the bill in Louisiana's next legislative session.

When the North Carolina bill became law this week, Kurtz celebrated what he called the first enactment of his proposal — and suggested that its departures from the model could be reversed down the road.

"We are at the beginning of a new state-legislative era, and that beginning is auspicious," he wrote. "The North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act accomplishes the lion's share of what the Goldwater model proposed, including important steps forward on discipline for shout-downs. Goldwater-based bills are under consideration in several states, with more likely to follow next year. And any state bill can be strengthened in a second legislative round if universities continue to abuse their powers.

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https://www.ecowatch.com/north-carolina-youth-climate-petition-2509734433.html

North Carolina Youth File Climate Petition to Protect Their Futures

Tuesday, three teenagers filed a climate change petition for rulemaking with the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission. The petition calls on the commission to reduce North Carolina's CO2 emissions to zero by 2050, in accordance with the best available science.

Youth petitioners argue that the commission has statutory, public trust and constitutional obligations to protect North Carolina's essential natural resources, including the atmosphere, for present and future generations. As detailed in the petition, the proposed rule could create jobs, reduce energy costs and avoid billions in climate damages.

With the support of Our Children's Trust, Alliance for Climate Education and represented by Duke's Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, the petitioners are the latest group of young people from across the country to file legal action seeking science-based action by governments to secure a safe climate and healthy future.

"With a family history of lung disease and a love for hiking, I have personally experienced both the negative health impacts of pollution and the steady destruction of our most important natural resources, our national and state parks, due to climate change and higher CO2 emissions," Arya Pontula, 17-year-old petitioner and Alliance for Climate Education fellow from Raleigh, said.

"I hope this petition pushes our state to take concrete steps to reduce CO2 emissions, thus ensuring cleaner air for all generations. The bottom line is that, when it comes to our health, we have no other choice but to set our differences aside and work towards a common goal for cleaner, breathable air and preservation of our natural resources," Pontula added.

"North Carolina's laws declare that the Environmental Management Commission must protect water and air resources for the benefit of all, not shield polluters through delaying tactics," Ryke Longest, Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic director, said. "It is long past time for the commission to act on the best available science and commit to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to zero in time for the climate to stabilize."

The North Carolina petition is one of many related legal actions supported by Our Children's Trust and brought by youth in several states and countries, including Juliana v. United States, seeking science-based action by governments to secure a safe climate and healthy atmosphere for present and future generations.

moral mondays

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/29/woe-unto-those-who-legislate-evil-rev-william-barber-builds-a-moral-movement/

https://www.ecowatch.com/dobbins-heights-north-carolina-2475851589.html

180?!

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https://www.ecowatch.com/north-carolina-energy-bill-2435815592.html

Red States Lead on Renewables

A sweeping bipartisan bill to reform energy policies and encourage the growth of renewable energy was introduced by conservative lawmakers in the North Carolina legislature this week. The consensus bill, the result of months of negotiations, would grant utilities' request to reform various renewable energy laws, but includes incentives for the solar industry, including solar rebates and third-party leasing.

The bill will go to a full vote in the House this week, where it could face blowback from climate change skeptics despite its significant Republican support. North Carolina isn't the only red state pushing the envelope on renewable energy: as a new piece in the New York Times points out, "some of the fastest progress on clean energy is occurring in states led by Republican governors and legislators, and states carried by Donald J. Trump in the presidential election."

The measure passed House Finance Tuesday, shortly before Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statement supporting it:

"This legislation will help North Carolina stay ahead with lower cost renewable energy that protects our environment and grows our economy. I urge the Legislature to pass it and I commend everyone who worked so hard to get this agreement," Cooper wrote.

Over the last four years, North Carolina has become the nation's second largest solar market, with California first.

As reported by WRAL:

"Among other things, the measure would lift the state's ban on third-party leasing, allowing customers to rent the equipment for rooftop and community solar arrays, substantially reducing the upfront cost. It would also promote net metering, which gives the owner of a residential or commercial property with solar panels a bill credit for the retail cost of energy he or she puts back onto the grid, and it would include a solar rebate program for residential customers. And it would mandate a study on energy storage technology for intermittent sources like solar and wind."

For a deeper dive:

NC bill: AP, WRAL, News & Observer, Charlotte Business Journal, North State Journal. Red states & renewables: New York Times

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~ RPS

5/17

'Put Up or Shut Up': North Carolina Meteorologist Calls Out Climate Deniers

Frustrated by non-experts taking to the internet to dispute the science behind human-made climate change, North Carolina meteorologist Greg Fishel issued a challenge to climate deniers, urging them to "put up or shut up" and "submit your work the way real scientists do, and see where it takes you."

The News & Observer highlighted Fishel's challenge, which he posted on Facebook, in a May 22 article, reporting that Fishel "went off on people who question the science behind climate change."

The article noted that for most of his career, Fishel, who is the chief meteorologist for NBC affiliate WRAL in Raleigh, did not believe that humans contributed significantly to global warming. "But several years ago, he says he decided he wasn't being open-minded about the issue and began to study what climate scientists were saying about it. He now approaches the issue on the air and on social media with the zeal of a convert."

Indeed, Fishel is among a growing number of meteorologists who acknowledge that human-caused climate change is real. Some of those meteorologists are urging their colleagues to discuss climate change on the air...

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.

burr justin alec POW

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/North_Carolina_ALEC_Politicians

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-04-28/north-carolina-house-votes-to-protect-drivers-who-hit-protesters

also traffic cam 500$ fine

The North Carolina House of Representatives approved legislation in a lopsided 67-48 vote Thursday that would shield drivers from civil liability if they collide with protesters.

Opponents say the legislation is unnecessary and may give drivers the false impression they can maliciously run over activists. One Democrat warned it would make the state the butt of jokes about being full of “dumb rednecks.”

But Republican proponents, who sent the measure to the state Senate by a veto-proof margin, say recent encounters between activists and drivers makes the reform both sensible and necessary.

Last year, people protesting the fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by a Charlotte police officer blocked roadways during at-times chaotic protest-related activities.

“These people are nuts to run in front of cars like they do … and say, ‘Me and my buddy here are going to stop this two-and-a-half-ton vehicle,’” GOP state Rep. Michael Speciale said in support of the bill, The News & Observer reports. “If somebody does bump somebody, why should they be held liable?”

Democratic state Rep. Henry Michaux, however, points out North Carolina is one of just four states with a pure contributory negligence rule, which means it's already impossible to collect a payout if the injured party is even 1 percent at fault for an accident.

---

Michaux, an African-American attorney, tells U.S. News the bill therefore would not give drivers additional protection from liability. Instead, he sees it as an unconstitutional invitation to mow down protesters or weave through parades, and he feels the motivation behind the bill may be racial.

“Who demonstrates more than people of color?” Michaux says. “It would give some folks the idea,” he says, to intentionally run over people “because you’ve got a group of black folks out here or a group of Latinos out here.”

The idea of immunizing drivers appears to have originated in North Dakota, where state Rep. Keith Kempenich proposed a similar bill in January after his mother-in-law allegedly was swarmed on a roadway by protesters opposed to construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The measure was rejected in a 41-50 vote in February.

Tennessee lawmakers also took up the cause after a driver ran into protesters opposed to an action by President Donald Trump and wound up with "five or six" on his hood. Sponsors were tight-lipped amid negative press and the bill failed in committee in March.

The potential for bad press did not deter lawmakers in North Carolina, who passed the bill over a warning from Democratic Rep. Graig Meyer that it was inviting jokes about “those dumb rednecks” in the state.

The bill says drivers are not protected from liability if they are "willful or wanton" in plowing over pedestrians, but are protected if they are exercising "due care" and hit someone who is "participating in a protest or demonstration and blocking traffic in a public street or highway."

The measure includes language barring immunity if a driver strikes a pedestrian who has “a valid permit” allowing a protest in the public street "where the injury occurred."

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's office did not respond to a request for comment, nor did thebill's sponsor, Republican state Rep. Justin Burr,or the state Senate's Republican majority leader, Harry Brown.

Republicans hold substantial majorities in both chambers of the state legislature and could make the bill law by overriding a potential gubernatorial veto. They overrode vetoes on two bills this week.

---

One Democrat voted for the protester-collision bill on Thursday, and three Republicans voted against it.

Michaux believes the legislation is likely to become law through an override vote and sees a lawsuit as the only way to keep it off the books. He looks to the 1969 Supreme Court ruling in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, which says it’s not always necessary to have a permit to march in the street....

3rd world election rank report

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/27/headlines/report_north_carolina_no_longer_a_fully_functioning_democracy

https://www.facingsouth.org/2016/10/guide-outside-political-groups-spending-north-carolina-elections

Billions of Gallons of Animal Waste From Factory Farms Poses Health Risks in Wake of Hurricane Matthew see climate change and Food and Water 10/16.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/factory-farms-are-putting-north-carolinians-risk-interactive-map

NONPROFIT LOSES FIRST ROUND IN FIGHT WITH N.C. OVER THIRD-PARTY SOLAR SALES: North Carolina regulators ruled against NC WARN after it installed solar panels on the roof of a church and sold it the electricity, saying the arrangement violates the state's private utility monopoly system. The nonprofit says it will take the case to court. (4/18/2016)

ez to make fun? "agenda" but track recd of biz not good?

http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/14/solar-farm-rejected/

... Pork Council’s voicemail doesn’t mention any of those problems, preferring to focus on jobs and wages instead. But even there, the message rings hollow. In Duplin County, North Carolina, where there are more pigs per capita than anywhere else in the country, median household income is only about $34,000 (that’s household income, not individuals’ wages), and more than a quarter of the population lives in poverty. Meanwhile, the handful of corporations that control U.S. pork production are raking in billions of dollars in revenue every year. You can bet that that money isn’t staying in the local economy—especially since Smithfield Foods, which runs the world’s largest slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was purchased by a Chinese holding company in 2013.

The consolidation of the pork industry hasn’t been good for the family farm. As is true in most of the country, the number of farms and farmers in North Carolina has been steadily decreasing, while the average size of farms has gotten larger and larger. The number of North Carolinians employed by hog farming makes up less than one half of one percent of the state’s population (9.94 million people as of the 2014 census).

In part, the decline is occurring because it’s harder and harder to make a decent living as a farmer, thanks to the dominance of big agribusinesses. These days, most hog farmers don’t own the hogs they raise. Rather, the farmer is under contract with a multinational corporation, which owns the hogs from conception to slaughter and dictates exactly how the farmer must raise them. In this scheme, the farmer does most of the work and bears most of the costs and risks, but the corporation gets most of the profits.

The North Carolina Pork Council probably wouldn’t be paying for thousands of robo-calls if they weren’t desperate to make a bad industry sound better than it is. Don’t believe the hype—North Carolinians deserve better. That’s why Earthjustice is partnering with state and local organizations to stand up for clean air, clean water and accountability from these so-called “integrator companies” that own the hogs “from squeal to meal.” We’re also taking on the hog industry on civil rights grounds for the impact hog feces and urine have on nearby low-income communities of color. Join us in sending the pork industry’s propaganda out to pasture. earthjustice 12/15

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Charles Koch gave $90 million to influence higher ed in the South

Last month, the provost of Western Carolina University in North Carolina asked the public school's chancellor to approve an academic center funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, a private nonprofit run by the billionaire chairman, CEO, and co-owner of the Koch Industries oil and chemical corporation. The foundation funds academic programs, professorships, scholarships, conferences, lecture series and economics centers, all for the purpose of promoting the free-market agenda embraced by Koch and his brother David.

The chancellor has come out in support, and on Dec. 4 the school's trustees will vote on the fate of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise, which would launch with $2 million from the Charles Koch Foundation over five years and $1.4 million from the university.

The proposed agreement has come under fire from the school's faculty senate, which voted 21-3 to oppose the center's creation. The group raised concerns about academic freedom, cost, reputation, and the lack of peer review.

"The Charles Koch Foundation has previously set forth explicit expectations in line with their political views in exchange for monetary gifts to universities," the faculty senate said in a statement, "thereby constraining academic freedom by influencing and interfering with the development of new knowledge."

The proposed center at WCU is part of a long campaign by Koch to influence higher education. The Charles Koch Foundation along with three other groups led by Koch gave nearly $108 million to 366 colleges and universities from 2005 to 2014, finds an Institute for Southern Studies investigation, building on research by Greenpeace. The other groups are the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. (For more about these groups, see "The Koch-led charities funding higher education" at the end of this story.)

Eighty-five percent of the donations — or $91 million — went to 147 Southern colleges and universities.

The bulk of the money given by the four nonprofits — $77.7 million — went to George Mason University, a public school in Fairfax, Virginia. Much of that went to the school's Mercatus Center and Institute for Humane Studies, nonprofits housed at the university that focus on teaching and promoting free-market economics. But even when the GMU donations are excluded from the total giving, Southern schools received 45 percent of the remaining contributions.

Besides GMU, the other schools that received the most money from the Koch foundations are all in the South:Florida State University at $2.3 million, West Virginia University at $1.3 million, Clemson University of South Carolina at $1.3 million, and Troy University of Alabama at $1.1 million...

fac so

INSTITUTE INDEX: The big money behind the latest attacks on renewable energy

Date on which North Carolina state Rep. Mike Hager (R-Rutherford) told the audience at an event in Wilmington sponsored by Americans for Prosperity — a front group for the billionaires behind the Koch Industries oil refining and pipeline conglomerate — that he will continue his fight to freeze the state's renewable energy portfolio standard (REPS) during next year's legislative session: 11/12/2015

Under North Carolina's REPS, percent of electric utilities' retail sales that must now come from renewable sources: 6

Percent the REPS says must come from renewable sources by 2021: 12.5

Number of legislative proposals to freeze the REPS at current levels that Hager, a retired Duke Energy engineer and vice chair of the Public Utilities Committee, championed in this year's legislative session, and which passed the state House with AFP's backing and are pending in the Senate: 2

Hager's rank among the North Carolina legislature's top recipients of Duke Energy's campaign contributions: [1](http://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?s=NC&y=2016,2015,2014,2013,2012,2011,2010,2009&f-core=1&f-fc=2&d-eid=856#[{1|gro=c-t-id)

While Duke Energy claims to be "neutral" on North Carolina's REPS, amount it has contributed to a group called Consumers for Smart Solar, which is challenging a proposed pro-solar constitutional amendment in Florida: $60,000

Amount Duke Energy spent to help elect Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who has campaigned against pro-solar policies: at least $600,000

Amount contributed to Consumers for Smart Solar by the 60 Plus Association: $100,000

Between 2008 and 2013, amount 60 Plus received from five Koch-connected nonprofits: more than $40 million

Date on which Florida voters will go to the polls to vote on a pro-solar ballot initiative, as well as a competing anti-solar measure put forward by Consumers for Smart Solar: 11/8/2016

Amount invested in clean energy development in North Carolina since it adopted its REPS in 2007: over $2.6 billion

Number of full-time jobs that development supported in the state annually: 37,100

Monthly REPS charge for the average Duke Energy Carolinas customer, which Hager and his allies claim is excessive: $.39

Amount REPS is expected to save North Carolina electricity customers through 2029 by avoiding the need for expensive new power plants: $651 million

(Click on figure to go to source.)

A few years ago, as anti-immigrant sentiment roiled the country, Arizona enacted a draconian law, SB 1070, that expanded the role of local police in enforcing federal immigration policies, requiring them to determine someone's immigration status if there was "reasonable suspicion" they were not in the U.S. legally. Several states including Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina soon followed Arizona's lead with laws targeting immigrants.

At the end of October, North Carolina joined the ranks of states with harsh immigration policies when Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed into law HB 318. The new law expands requirements to verify employees' immigration status and invalidates consular IDs and other alternative forms of identification except in certain situations with law enforcement. It also bans local ordinances limiting police involvement in federal immigration enforcement — what are known as "sanctuary city" or "community trust" policies since they're intended to foster cooperation between local police and immigrants.

North Carolina's law was passed amidst a conservative backlash against community trust initiatives nationwide sparked by this summer's murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant who had been released by local police in accordance with city policies. The news of her death led to the introduction of federal legislation banning such policies, including a version that passed the U.S. House but was blocked last month in the Senate. Steinle's story was also referenced by North Carolina legislatorsduring their discussion of the local ordinance ban, which was added to the bill in late September a few months after her death.

But language in North Carolina's sanctuary city ban predates Steinle's death: It comes from a model bill, titled "No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants," crafted in 2009 by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit that brings together corporate representatives and conservative state policymakers to craft model state legislation that member lawmakers then introduce in their home states. While ALEC is officially tax-exempt, its 501c3 status has been challenged by good-government advocates who say it operates more like a corporate lobby than a charitable nonprofit.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-urge-north-carolina-gov-mccrory-veto-sweeping-anti-environmental-bill

nvironmental advocates in North Carolina are stepping up pressure on Gov. Pat McCrory (R) to veto a bill they say is the most anti-environmental of the 2015 legislative session — and possibly of McCrory's tenure.

Dubbed the "Polluter Protection Act" by opponents, House Bill 765 started out as a one-page technical corrections bill tweaking regulations on highway transport of sand, gravel and rock. But after passing the House, the Regulatory Reform Act of 2015 was transformed in the Senate into a sweeping 61-page wish list for polluting industry — with some of the provisions being added in closed-door conference sessions. Lawmakers passed it in the chaotic last days of the session.

During an Oct. 20 press conference about the legislation held by environmental groups, Dr. Jonathan Kotch*, a maternal and child health specialist with UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, called it a "paradigm example of special-interest legislation."

Among other things, the bill would:

* Offer immunity and confidentiality for companies that self-report pollution, making it harder for communities to identify potential environmental health threats;

* Repeal idling restrictions for heavy-duty vehicles, allowing them to emit more health-damaging air pollution;

* Reduce water-quality regulations on intermittent and small headwater streams, which account for more than 50,000 stream-miles in the state;

* Allow incomplete cleanup of soil and groundwater contamination; and

* Reduce the number of air-quality monitors across the state, which people with asthma and other health conditions rely on to help protect themselves from excessive pollution.

"These provisions were inserted by the Senate into a one-page House bill through a process that minimized opportunities for public involvement," stated a letter sent to McCrory last month by an alliance of 15 environmental advocacy groups. "The provisions drew bipartisan opposition in the legislature; yet, they have arrived at your desk, and now can be stopped only by your veto stamp."...

North Carolina’s four Clean Air Heroes are Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Reps. Brad Miller (DNC13),

David Price (D-NC4) and Melvin Watt (D-NC12).

And now a pair of anticlimactic updates: Last week North Carolina’s Republican governor vetoed a law targeting agricultural whistleblowers, but this week his party overruled that veto.

And last month I wrote that Bunge shareholders had the opportunity to push the company to a more aggressive position in ending deforestation. What happened? The shareholders said no.

http://insideclimatenews.org/todaysnews/08062015/tide-turning-against-alec-renewable-energy-battle

6/15

Powerful interests are facing off on the future of renewable energy in North Carolina.

A bill to freeze the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) — a mandate on how much clean energy utilities have to use — was shoved through committee last month, but despite a wide Republican majority (34-16), the bill hasn’t been brought to the Senate floor. Similar legislation has been introduced and shot down in past years.

Environmental and business groups fighting the bill say that reintroducing the same bill until it passes is a classic American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tactic. The North Carolina bill was brought by a legislator affiliated with ALEC, the conservative group backed by the Koch brothers, whose billion-dollar enterprise is built largely on fossil fuels.

But despite the time and money ALEC is pouring into fighting the transition to renewable energy, it seems that wind and solar have some powerful supporters, as well. Big businesses, including data services and clean energy developers, have paired with environmental advocates to stymie many of ALEC’s challenges.

Last year, ALEC-affiliated legislators in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Ohio proposed rolling back state RPSs. New Mexico and New Hampshire saw efforts, as well. Only the efforts in Ohio were successful, while Kansas reached a different agreement this year.

Across the country, supporters have relied on free market rhetoric to say RPSs make electricity more expensive. “The high cost of renewable energy is paid by all state citizens, including those who already struggle to pay the cost of electricity,” according to ALEC’s sample legislation for repealing an RPS.

In North Carolina, where a companion bill already passed in the House, Americans for Prosperity’s North Carolina state director Donald Bryson echoed ALEC’s position, saying that the customer fees were set to triple.

“This compromise measure provides relief to families who pay their utility bills and work hard to grow the economy without taxpayer support or government favors,” Bryson said.

The local utility company, though, disagreed with that analysis.

Duke Energy, North Carolina’s giant electricity company — which doesn’t have the cleanest record — doesn’t have a problem with the RPS, and says that ratepayers have not been put on the hook for clean power investment in the state.

We don’t think the current REP is a cost burden to customers.

“We did not ask for this legislation; we are actually neutral on this legislation,” Randy Wheeless, a spokesman for Duke Energy, told ThinkProgress. The utility has stayed “well under” the cost cap stipulated in the RPS, Wheeless said. “We don’t think the current REP is a cost burden to customers,” he said. In his home area, customers pay about 50 cents a month to support renewable energy development.

North Carolina has been something of a solar success story. Last year, the state was in the top five for solar job growth, adding 2,500 workers, , $652 million was invested in solar installations, and 13 times more solar was installed than in 2010. In fact, North Carolina recently extended an investment tax credit for solar, and the state has attracted some of the biggest names in technology. Data centers use a phenomenal amount of power, and for tech companies, renewable energy is a key component in plans to go green.

While the bill flounders awaiting Senate vote, Apple, Facebook, and Google co-signed a letter to state leadership last week, saying the RPS actually saves money for ratepayers. The companies cited the RPS as a reason they have located in North Carolina.

“The undersigned companies have chosen to locate in North Carolina in part because the state’s existing energy policies enable us to operate and grow our businesses in furtherance of the goals mentioned above,” the lettersays.

Renewable energy might save money, but it also has widespread support. A recent University of Michigan pollfound that the majority of Americans, “of every race, income and education level, and religious and political affiliation,” support state-level mandates on renewable energy.

The more popular renewable energy is, the more pressure companies have to get off fossil fuels. In one stark example, Amazon has been asked to account for its energy mix after announcing new cloud computing centers in coal-heavy Ohio (which did freeze its RPS last year). Yahoo, Hootsuite, and 17 other online companies have all asked the company to reveal its energy sources.

...

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/the-tide-is-turning-against-alec-in-the-renewable-energy-battle/

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5/15

SPECIAL REPORT - DRIVE TO DRILL: Gov. McCrory goes to bat for Big Energy

By Sue Sturgis

(The second in a three-part series. To read the first, "Energy lobbyists behind governors' crusade for Atlantic drilling," click here.)

When Pat McCrory was elected governor of North Carolina in 2012, the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition wasted no time in recruiting him to join its crusade to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.

The Coalition was formed in May 2011 by four Republican governors in coastal states. As a Facing South investigation found, by early 2012 the Coalition had turned over its day-to-day management to the Consumer Energy Alliance, a "dark money" nonprofit whose members include leading energy companies and which is closely tied to HBW Resources, a corporate lobbying and public relations firm that represents energy interests.

The Governors Coalition was eager to bring McCrory on board as a spokesman for its pro-drilling agenda. As the governor of North Carolina, he represents the state with the second-longest coastline on the U.S. eastern seaboard — second only to Florida, where state leaders have opposed offshore drilling as a threat to tourism. McCrory's voice would be especially valuable given that, under federal law, the views of coastal governors carry significant weight in deciding the future of oil and gas leases in Atlantic waters.

For his part, McCrory was equally enthusiastic about joining the Governors Coalition and promoting the cause of offshore drilling. According to internal Coalition emails obtained by Facing South through public records requests, on Jan. 23, 2013 — three weeks after McCrory took office — energy lobbyists and state officials corresponded about North Carolina's possible involvement in the group.

The next day, McCrory's economic advisor at the time, Tony Almeida, emailed contacts of the Governors Coalition, which was then chaired by Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and based in his office: "Thanks to all. North Carolina is in!"....

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NJ lets exxon off hook but

North Carolina has fined the utility giant Duke Energy $25.1 million, the largest environmental fine in state history. The penalty concerns groundwater contamination from a coal ash plant near Wilmington. It is separate from a pending fine at the federal level for Duke’s spill of more than 35 million gallons of coal ash into the Dan River, one of the worst such spills in U.S. history.

SPECIAL REPORT - Tar Heel Power Brokers: Special interests spend big to get their way in Raleigh

By Alex Kotch and Brian Freskos

The North Carolina General Assembly is back in Raleigh for the 2015 long session and preparing to tackle a host of issues, including tax rates, school spending, the future of Medicaid and environmental standards.

Behind the scenes, an array of special interests is clamoring to influence the views and votes of state lawmakers. Which special interests have the ear of legislators and have the most clout to push their agenda?

In the first study of its kind, Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies (ISS) looked at the top special interests in North Carolina politics and measured their influence in the state. The Facing South/ISS report looks at two key ways special interests wield their influence:

* Election Spending:Money that special interests have spent directly and indirectly to elect state-level politicians in the 2012 and 2014 elections, based on analyzing thousands of state and federal campaign finance reports.

* Lobbying Clout: Special interests with the strongest lobbying presence in North Carolina government, drawing on the latest rankings produced by theN.C. Center for Public Policy Research.

After analyzing both the election spending and lobbying power of special interests, Facing South/ISS produced a list of top "Tar Heel power brokers" — companies and other key players that have unique influence in the halls of state power.

The top Tar Heel power brokers revealed in the Facing South/ISS study:

1) DUKE ENERGY: The Charlotte-based utility giant, which merged with Progress Energy in 2012, tops the list of special interests in the state. Among the interests analyzed in the Facing South/ISS report, Duke ranked second in lobbying clout with a team of top-rated lobbyists that includes Dana Simpson of the firm Smith Anderson and former Raleigh mayor and state GOP chair Tom Fetzer. Duke also ranks among the top five for election spending, pouring more than $940,000 into political campaigns and independent committees in 2012 and 2014.

Duke Energy's political influence includes ties to top state officials including Gov. Pat McCrory, a former Duke employee. The company has been the subject of intense scrutiny, especially in the wake of the massive coal ash spill at one of Duke's power plants on the Dan River in February 2014. In 2013, Duke successfully pushed to insert language into a regulatory reform bill that eased coal ash cleanup requirements. After the spill in 2014, the state legislature passed a bill requiring coal ash cleanup at four of Duke's plants while leaving out 10 others, despite evidence that all of the coal ash pits are leaking pollution into the state's water supplies.

2) NATIONWIDE: Ranking second among Tar Heel power brokers isNationwide Insurance & Affiliates, one of the world's largest insurance and financial services companies. In the Facing South/ISS report, Nationwide ranked at the top for lobbying influence, hiring the three most influential lobbyists in the state. The Ohio-based company also spent more than $690,000 to help state candidates in the 2012 and 2014 elections, ranking seventh for political spending.

Like other insurance companies, Nationwide closely follows — and weighs in on — a wide range of policy measures taken up by state lawmakers. In 2013, for example, the company was one of several auto insurers that successfully sought to defeat a "Good Driver Discount Bill," which would have allowed insurers to bypass rate restrictions.

3) N.C. ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS:The nonprofit "Voice of Real Estate in North Carolina" ranks third among North Carolina power brokers in the Facing South/ISS analysis. The trade association's team of lobbyists ranks seventh in North Carolina for its influence with state lawmakers. The group spent more than $1 million on state-level elections in 2012 and 2014, ranking third in political spending. It donated more than $680,000 directly to candidates and PACs and spent another $383,000 in independent expenditures, mainly through its political arm, the N.C. Homeowners Alliance.

4) N.C. CHAMBER: The conservative-leaning business association and its affiliated groups rank fourth in the Facing South/ISS study, largely due to money spent on state elections. In 2012 and 2014, N.C. Chamber and its sister group, N.C. Chamber IE, injected nearly $1.5 million into state-level races for the legislature and higher courts. The Chamber, whose "cornerstone" members include Duke Energy and other top influencers in the state, also ranks 30th in lobbying clout.

5) N.C. BEER AND WINE WHOLESALERS ASSOCIATION: Perhaps surprisingly, the trade association representing beer and wine distributorscomes in at No. 5, driven by its strong lobbying presence. The group has the third-most influential lobbying team in the Facing South/ISS rankings. The Wholesalers Association also spent more than $468,000 in 2012 and 2014 on state-level campaigns and committees.

Rounding out the list of top 10 Tar Heel power brokers are the Alliance for Access to Dental Care; AT&T North Carolina; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina; State Farm; and the N.C. Association of Electric Cooperatives.

The Facing South/ISS analysis looks at special interests that, by combining lobbying clout with election spending, are well positioned to influence North Carolina politics.

As a result, interests that may be known for their lobbying presence — like the pharmacy chain CVS CareMark, with the fifth-highest rated lobbying team — but haven't spent much on state elections don't score high in the overall power broker rankings. Conversely, a group like N.C. Advocates for Justice — the second-biggest spender on state elections among the groups analyzed in the study — is only 14th overall on the list of top brokers due to its perceived lower influence among current lawmakers, according to the latest N.C. Center for Public Policy Research survey.

The Facing South/ISS analysis also limited its study to interests that have both a significant lobbying presence and have spent at least some money on the 2012 and 2014 elections. That leaves out groups that have a strong lobby corps but don't spend on elections at all, like Business and Education Leaders for Smart Start and Jobs, and WakeMed Health and Hospitals. It also omits big election spending groups who don't lobby. During the last two election cycles, outside groups like Justice for All N.C., N.C. Families First and others havedirectly and indirectly funneled millions of dollars into state elections.

For interactive profiles of all of the power brokers analyzed in this report, clickhere. Click here for a PDF copy of the full report.

(To comment on or to share this story and to see the accompanying graphics, click here. Research and analysis for the "Tar Heel Power Brokers" report by Alex Kotch and Brian Freskos, with assistance from Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis. Graphics and data visualization for the project by Allie Yee.)

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INSTITUTE INDEX - Tar Heel Power Brokers}:

Of the 768 registered lobbyists in North Carolina at the end of the 2013 legislative session, number included in the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research's ranking of the state's top lobbyists in 2013: 60

Of those 60, the number of top lobbyists who were hired by North Carolina-based utility giant Duke Energy: 4

Combined amount that Duke gave to North Carolina state-level candidates, party PACs and an independent political spending group in 2012 and 2014:$944,250

Ranking of Duke on the Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies list of special interests with the most political clout in North Carolina: 1

Amount that Duke has also donated in the last three years to the Republican Governors Association, which has supported North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a former Duke executive, and other friendly gubernatorial candidates: over $3.7 million

Amount Duke gave to the Democratic Governors Association over the same period: $855,500

Date that the N.C. Coal Ash Management Act, which allows Duke Energy to continue storing most of its coal ash waste in pits that are leaking toxic pollution to water supplies across the state, became law: 9/20/2014

Duke's 2013 earnings: nearly $2.7 billion

The rank of Nationwide Insurance and Affiliates in our overall political power broker list: 2

Number of top North Carolina lobbyists hired by Nationwide, which captured the No. 1 spot on the Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies lobbying power rankings: 5

Amount that Nationwide gave to North Carolina state-level candidates and party PACs between 2012 and 2014: $692,500

Year in which Nationwide was one of several auto insurers that successfully sought to defeat a "Good Driver Discount Bill," which would have allowed insurers to bypass rate restrictions: 2014

Amount that the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest spender of all organizations analyzed by Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies, put into state-level races in 2012 and 2014: almost $1.5 million

Amount the N.C. Association of Realtors, ranked third among the state's top power brokers, spent on state-level races over the same time period: over $1 million

Number of top lobbyists hired by the realtors' association: 5

Date that Senate Bill 521, which financially benefits real estate agents by allowing them to charge customers for market analyses, became law:7/12/2012

Amount the Alliance for Access to Dental Care, a conservative-leaning super PAC ranked No. 6 in overall political influence, racked up in independent political expenditures, much of them supporting Thom Tillis, now a U.S. Senator, when he was speaker of the N.C. House: $370,000

As the result of a 2012 bill, number of members the Alliance was allowed to appoint to a six-member state task force charged with making recommendations for regulation of dental management companies: 2

(All of the numbers in this index are from "Tar Heel Power Brokers: Ranking special-interest influence in North Carolina politics.")

NC Supreme Court a 'virtual sinkhole' for environmental law, and it could get worse

The North Carolina Supreme Court has racked up an "extraordinary record of hostility" to the environment in major cases it's considered over the past 15 years -- and with the seven-member court's three Democrats facing tough re-election challenges this year, it could soon get even more inhospitable to environmental concerns.

So concludes a study released this month by John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School and a former attorney for the National Audubon Society and American Rivers.He looked at the judicial electoral process in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Montana and Washington -- states that use either a partisan or nominally non-partisan method for selecting judges for their high courts -- in order to identify changes in the ideological direction of the courts' decisions.

In North Carolina, where high court elections are nominally nonpartisan, Echeverria considered a total of seven environmental law cases during that period. They pertained to the state law designed to limit sediment pollution in waterways, open burning rules, water quality standards, and hog farm regulations.

"Over the last fifteen years, in every instance in which the Court has reviewed a major environmental law issue, the Court has sided with the anti-environmental protection side of the dispute," Echeverria writes.

He notes that the probability of the court ruling against the environment in all seven cases is 1 in 128 -- "long odds indeed." North Carolina's high court, he says, "has become a virtual sinkhole for environmental law."

Echeverria explores the connection between the court's hostility to environmental claims and financing of state judicial elections. In 2004, North Carolina implemented a public financing program that was used by 80 percent of judicial candidates and curbed special-interest spending in campaigns. That program was repealed in 2013, a move that has increased the flow of corporate special-interest dollars into judicial elections.

At the same time, independent groups have increased their spending on North Carolina judicial races. In 2012, super PACs and other outside groups spent nearly $3 million on just one N.C. Supreme Court race, with about 90 percent of the money benefiting conservative justice Paul Newby. In this year's primary, outside groups spent almost $1.3 million to unseat Associate Justice Robin Hudson -- a registered Democrat who was elected in 2006 and who Echeverria found has been the sole dissenter from the court's pattern of weakening environmental protections.

Hudson faced a heated primary challenge from conservative trial judge Eric Levinson and Jeanette Doran, chair of the N.C. Division of Employment Security Board of Review. Doran is also a former staff member of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, a limited-government advocacy group founded and funded by influential conservative money man Art Pope, who as former state budget director played a key role in killing the judicial public financing program.

The primary race featured a controversial ad attacking Justice Hudson for being "soft on child molesters," leading one political observer to call it "perhaps the most despicable advertisement ever aired in the state." That ad was sponsored by Justice for All NC, an outside spending group funded by the Republican State Leadership Committee, which in turn has received major contributions from corporations with a financial stake in cases that may come before the N.C. Supreme Court. They include Koch Industries, the Kansas-based oil and chemical conglomerate that has operations in North Carolina, and North Carolina-based Duke Energy, which currently has a case related to groundwater contamination from its coal ash ponds before the high court after the justices exercised their discretion to take the case away from the N.C. Court of Appeals.

At the same time Justice for All NC was running the controversial ad attacking Hudson, the NC Chamber IE, the independent expenditure arm of the NC Chamber, was running positive ads supporting Doran and Levinson. Koch Industries was also among the companies that contributed to the NC Chamber IE.

Echeverria observes:

An undisclosed subtext of the attacks on Justice Hudson is that she is the single justice on the present Court who has distinguished herself by voting in favor of environmental protections in the cases that have come before her.

In the end, Hudson survived the primary. She is now facing off against Levinson in the general election -- a contest that’s shaping up to be North Carolina's most expensive state court racethis year.

Echeverria found that the last time the N.C. Supreme Court handed the environmental side a win was 1998, when a majority of justices rejected a legal challenge to the revocation of an aerial pesticide applicator's license for violating state regulations.

Four years earlier, the court handed down another major environmental ruling in Empire Power Co. v. N.C. Department of Environment, upholding the right of citizens to go to court to protect themselves from air polluters. Reversing the N.C. Court of Appeals, the high court held that the owner of land next to a proposed power plant was entitled under state law to challenge the department's issuance of an air pollution control permit to Duke Power.

But that precedent is now threatened by a similar case involving property owners and environmental groups challenging state's air quality permit for a new cement manufacturing facility in New Hanover County.

Last year an administrative law judge, siding with the state Division of Air Quality, arrived at what Echeverria calls "the novel conclusion" that in order for a person to challenge an air emissions permit he must show how much additional pollution would be produced and what specific injuries would result. The N.C. Environmental Management Commission upheld the judge's ruling, and the plaintiffs filed an appeal in Superior Court. That case could eventually make its way to the N.C. Supreme Court, which would have the chance to reverse its Empire Power ruling.

While Hudson's re-election would be no guarantee that wouldn't happen, her loss would make it even more likely that it would.

"Given the current and likely future makeup of the Court, Justice Hudson would be unlikely to sway the Court in many environmental cases," Echeverria concludes, "but at least she can -- if reelected -- serve as a counterweight to the other justices on the Court who appear to have less sympathy for environmental protections."

Sue Sturgis on Thu, 10/23/2014 - 14:

This election year, candidates for U.S. House and Senate to date have raisednearly $1.2 billion for their campaigns, a number that grows every day.

That doesn't include the money flowing in from outside groups -- 527 super PACs, 501c4 "social welfare organizations," business associations, and others who are spending money this election season that is, at least ostensibly, not coordinated with a campaign or party.

According to the latest data, the total of this independent spending is nearing $500 million -- a number that is also relentlessly growing as we move closer to Election Day.

And a large and growing share of that is so-called "dark money" spent by groups that don't have to disclose their donors. A recent report by The New York Times found that about 55 percent of this outside money flows through dark money groups, where the donors aren't disclosed, with the remaining 45 percent being spent by super PAC-style committees, which do list their contributors.

You see the impact of the election spending arms race in state politics in North Carolina as well. In some ways, special interest money has an even bigger influence at the state and local level. When a super PAC or political group unleashes $100,000 or a quarter million in a Congressional race, it's a drop in the bucket. But that kind of money can make a big difference in a small state house or senate district.

And that’s what we've increasingly seen in recent years. In 2010, the year of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, more than $2.6 million from outside groups flooded into elections for the N.C. General Assembly. Roughlythree-quarters of that came from groups connected to millionaire conservative donor Art Pope, giving Republicans a 10-to-1 advantage in outside spending that contributed to their historic gains in the legislature.

At the Institute for Southern Studies, we were closely watching this money and realized there was no easy, accessible way for media and the public to see what groups were spending and how they were influencing state politics. We launched FollowNCMoney.org, which since its launch in spring 2012 has tracked nearly 1,000 expenditures.

In 2012, more than $14.5 million was spent by these outside groups in state-level races. One of the biggest surprises was that $2.9 million of that were ads for a N.C. Supreme Court race, with 90 percent of the money benefiting the conservative incumbent justice Paul Newby. The infamous "banjo ads" that blanketed the state were backed by a maze of donors and groups, with the bulk of the money originating in a D.C.-based super PAC, the Republican State Leadership Committee.

My associate Alex Kotch at the Institute for Southern Studies, who runs ourFollowNCMoney.org website, has detailed the backers of the RSLC, who include Duke Energy, Reynolds Tobacco and many other interests in North Carolina that frequently have business before the state courts.

This year we're seeing more of the same, with at least $3.2 million in spending by outside groups, with much more that hasn't been reported yet. sue s 10/14

10/14

just came back from North Carolina and I can tell you this is real.
CREDO SuperPAC organizers and volunteers have even run into Koch-funded campaign workers spreading misinformation on voting in African-American neighborhoods.

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2014 SPECIAL REPORT - NC judicial candidates set to spend record sums to get elected

By Alex Kotch

This year, seven seats on North Carolina's highest courts are up for election -- an unusually large number of open seats that could affect the ideological balance of the N.C. Supreme Court and N.C. Court of Appeals. This year's judicial elections will also be the first in a decade without the state's "clean elections" program that curbed spending on court races, and a new analysis by Facing South reveals that judges are poised to spend record sums in the coming weeks to get elected....

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...

But back to North Carolina; why no uproar? McCrory had been collaborating with the Republican legislature to overturn decades of state progress on environmental protectionwithout much seeming political price until Feb. 2, when 80,000 tons of coal ash and contaminated water flooded into the Dan River from an improperly maintained Duke Energycoal ash pond in Eden, North Carolina.

It took Duke Energy, for whom McCrory worked for almost three decades, two months to begin clean up. In early March, a court ruled that Duke had an obligation under North Carolina law to begin to clean up its 33 coal ash ponds because they were polluting the state’s waterways. Duke immediately appealed the ruling—and the McCrory Administration promptly joined the appeal, seeking to restore a sweetheart settlement it had entered into the previous year which required no clean-up from Duke at all.

But the politics was changing. Under increasing public scrutiny, both houses of the North Carolina legislature began to move new laws which would crack down on polluting coal ash ponds. The new bills, appearing to be supported by McCrory, dealt with the short term issues: “The bill gives Duke Energy 60 days to come up with closure plans for four critical sites, including the company’s Asheville and Riverbend plants…”

But after this promising start, the bill bogged down in differences between the House and Senate over how to decide which ash ponds required full evacuation and which could be capped—the bill failed to pass.

It was this failure which caused Governor McCrory to announce that he would act without the legislature. But McCrory’s action promised even less relief than existing law (according to the March court ruling) required. It’s a fig leaf. That, and the fact that the Governor has otherwise been, however reluctantly, a Tea Party collaborator, explains why his announcement that would use Executive power in the face of a paralyzed legislature has generated none of the heat that the Tea Party has reserved for Obama’s executive orders....

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SPECIAL REPORT - NC passes fracking law, seeks taxpayer subsidies for industry

By Sue Sturgis

This week North CarolinaGov. Pat McCrory (R) signed into law a bill that opens up the state to fracking for natural gas. The Energy Modernization Act will allow drilling permits to be issued 61 days after the state Mining and Energy Commission approves final rules for the industry, which is expected to happen by next summer.

The new law breaks a pledge from legislators that they would review and approve the rules before the state's drilling moratorium could be lifted. Environmental advocates also criticize the law for failing to adequately address the risks associated with fracking and for weakening safeguards. Supporters claim it will boost North Carolina's economy....

sturgis:

NC fracking bill orders prison time for disclosing chemicals, ignores health risks

North Carolina's legislature convened last week, and lawmakers introduced a bill that brings the state one step closer to allowing oil and gas drilling.

One aspect of the Energy Modernization Act (SB 786) that's gotten considerable attention is the provision that would make it a Class I felony for someone to intentionally disclose chemicals in fracking fluids that are classified as trade secrets. A conviction of this lowest-level felony could bring civil fines and several months in prison.

The bill requires the state geologist in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to serve as the custodian of trade secrets, including ingredients in fracking fluid. It allows information about such secrets to be disclosed only to emergency responders, health care providers dealing with emergencies, and federal and state agencies that need the information to carry out their functions.

Hannah Wiseman, a Florida State University assistant law professor who studies fracking regulations, told Mother Jones that North Carolina's proposed law "is far stricter than most states' provisions in terms of the penalty for violating trade secrets." She said that the bill was "so poorly worded" that it's unclear whether emergency responders would be charged with a felony for disclosing the information they obtain legally.

But while the bill is careful to protect what corporations claim are trade secrets, it fails to address some of the biggest risks fracking poses for the environment, public health and landowners, according to an analysis by the N.C. Conservation Network.

Among the concerns the legislation does not address are compulsory pooling, whereby drillers can drill on land without the owners' permission; disposal of toxic fracking wastewater; toxic air emissions from fracking operations; long-term contamination that comes to light after a drilling operation is finished; and how to protect landowners and the environment from the lines that move gas from wells to processing facilities. In addition, the bill shrinks the zone of liability for drillers who cause drinking well contamination from 5,000 feet to 2,640 feet, and it prohibits local bans on fracking or the siting of wells.

The bill's primary sponsors are Republican Sens. Robert Rucho of Mecklenburg County, E.S. "Buck" Newton of Wilson, and Andrew Brock of Mocksville. It also has six co-sponsors, all of them Republicans. The GOP holds supermajorities in both the North Carolina House and Senate.

The legislation was introduced as new revelations surfaced about the outsized role industry interests have played in shaping the state's proposed approach to chemical disclosure.

Greenpeace recently obtained a cache of emails and meeting schedules from members of the N.C. Mining and Energy Commission (MEC), a 15-person body in charge of crafting fracking regulations for state lawmakers. The documents show what the environmental advocacy group calls a "cozy relationship" between the industry and the MEC -- including Chairman George Howard drinking beer and spending evenings with D. Bowen "Bo" Heath, a lobbyist with the law firm McGuireWoods who represents fracking giants Halliburton and Koch Industries. Howard is the CEO of Restoration Systems, an environmental remediation company; his former business partner is DENR Secretary John Skvarla.

An earlier version of the chemical disclosure rule crafted by the MEC was pulled from consideration last year after Halliburton complained it went too far. Instead, Greenpeacereports, Heath promoted a weaker chemical disclosure bill from Colorado that was based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that promotes corporate interests in state legislatures. Heath has ties to ALEC, having attended the group's annual meetings.

The legislation introduced last week in North Carolina would disband the MEC next year and replace it with an Oil and Gas Commission that would administer civil penalties and adopt new rules as needed. The bill also creates a Mining Commission within DENR to issue fracking permits.

Twenty states now require companies to disclose the chemicals they use in the hydraulic fracturing process used to pry gas and oil from tight geological formations. But, as part of the omnibus Energy Modernization Act, SB 786,North Carolina Republicans want to impose civil and criminal penalties, including prison time, on anyone who makes such a disclosure.

The bill has nine co-sponsors, all of them Republicans. Both houses of the state legislature have Republican super-majorities.

Molly Redden at Mother Jones reports:

"The felony provision is far stricter than most states' provisions in terms of the penalty for violating trade secrets," says Hannah Wiseman, a Florida State University assistant law professor who studies fracking regulations.

The bill also allows companies that own the chemical information to require emergency responders to sign a confidentiality agreement. And it's not clear what the penalty would be for a health care worker or fire chief who spoke about their experiences with chemical accidents to colleagues.

"I think the only penalties to fire chiefs and doctors, if they talked about it at their annual conference, would be the penalties contained in the confidentiality agreement," says Wiseman. "But [the bill] is so poorly worded, I cannot confirm that if an emergency responder or fire chief discloses that confidential information, they too would not be subject to a felony."

Michael Biesecker of the Associated Press reported last week that three members of the state's Mining and Energy Commission met privately with officials of companies that use fracking chemicals before the bill was introduced. Among them was Halliburton. The bill assigns the task of issuing fracking licenses to the commission.

Greenpeace, which obtained a cache of emails and meeting schedules from the MEC, concluded that there is a "cozy relationship" between the commission and industry.

Please read below the fold for more on this bill.

duke water polution payoffs:

...

The EMC isn’t reacting this way because they are too busy, or because they don’t have the resources to enforce the cleanup – they joined the appeal because Duke Energy owns the state government in North Carolina.

The EMC claims to operate independently from the influence of state government, but they are directly appointed by the government. The board consists of 15 members appointed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory (8 appointments to the board), Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis, and Republican Senate leader Phil Berger (7 collective appointments to the board.) The common thread among these politicians is that their campaigns were all funded by Duke Energy and a host of other dirty energy heavyweights.

Governor McCrory’s incestuous relationship with Duke Energy goes far beyond the $1.1 million that the company has poured into his campaigns over the years. McCrory was employed by the company for 28 years before leaving in 2007 to start his political career.

Knowing that the EMC panel would be faced with decisions about Duke Energy, it is nearly impossible to believe that the governor would appoint anyone who would dare question his former employer and top campaign donor’s activities.

What about Berger and Tillis? They have both been the recipients of Duke Energy campaign cash to the tune of $8,000 apiece in their last elections. North Carolina law allows a contribution limit of $4,000 for a campaign, and an additional $4,000 for the primary. Again, they would be reluctant to appoint a staunch environmentalist to a panel that decides the fate of their favorite campaign donor (or any of their dirty energy donors, which includes Koch Industries for both Republican leaders.)

One of the committee members, Benne Hutson, had to recuse himself from the panel’s decision to join Duke in the appeal, as he is actually an attorney for Duke Energy. That alone tells you all you need to know about the caliber of people appointed to Governor McCrory’s EMC panel.

This is not the first time that Governor McCrory’s government officials have worked on behalf of Duke Energy. After this year’s Dan River coal ash spill, Mother Jones explained that the North Carolina government stepped in several times in the last 12 months to shield the company from environmental lawsuits:

The Associated Press reports that McCrory's Department of Environment and Natural Resources blocked three federal Clean Water Act suits in 2013 by stepping in with its own enforcement authority “at the last minute.” This protected Duke from the kinds of stiff fines and penalties that can result from federal lawsuits. Instead, state regulators arranged settlements that carried miniscule financial penalties and did not require Duke to change how it stores the toxic byproducts of its coal-fired power plants. After blocking the first three suits, which were brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the state filed notices saying that it would handle environmental enforcement at every one of Duke's remaining North Carolina coal ash storage sites—protecting the company from Clean Water Act lawsuits linked to its coal waste once and for all.....

http://www.alternet.org/environment/industry-funded-politicians-hope-thwart-pollution-penalties-north-carolina

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alec awards

Gary Salamido (North Carolina Chamber of Commerce), State Chair of the Year
Rep. Fred Steen, II (R-NC), State Chair of the Year
Rep. Peter Illoway (R-WY), State Chair of the Year
Jody Levin (Levin Strategic Resources; lobbies for Verizon), State Chair of the Year
Wendy Lowe (Peabody Energy), State Chair of the Year^[1]

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3 water incidents, w va and NC; NC gov worked for 28 years

DENR took over 3 lawsuits by waterkeeper orgs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/north-carolina-regulators-coal-ash_n_4766062.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's environmental agency sought late Monday to delay its own settlement with Duke Energy a week after a busted pipe at one of the company's coal ash dumps spewed enough toxic sludge into the Dan River to fill 73 Olympic-sized pools.

Lawyers for the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources asked a judge to disregard their proposed settlement with the nation's largest electricity provider. Under the deal, Duke would have paid fines of $99,111 over groundwater pollution leaking from two coal dumps like the one that ruptured Feb. 2.

The state's letter came one day after a story by The Associated Press in which environmentalists criticized the arrangement as a sweetheart deal aimed at shielding Duke from far more expensive penalties the $50 billion company might face under the federal Clean Water Act. The settlement would have required Duke to study how to stop the contamination, but included no requirement for the company to actually clean up its dumps near Asheville and Charlotte.

"DENR asks this court to hold in abeyance any further consideration of the proposed consent order while DENR undertakes a comprehensive review of all North Carolina coal ash facilities in view of the recent coal ash release into the Dan River," said the state's letter to Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway, a copy of which was obtained by the AP. "DENR will advise the court when it has completed this additional review of North Carolina coal ash facilities and the requirements of the proposed consent order."

Drew Elliot, a spokesman for the state environmental agency, said late Monday that he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment.

uke Energy spokeswoman Tammie McGee said it is the company's policy not to comment on pending litigation.

On the afternoon of Feb. 2, a security guard patrolling the grounds of Duke's Dan River Steam Station discovered that a pipe running under a 27-acre toxic waste pond had collapsed. The company reports that up to 82,000 tons of coal ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water drained out, turning the river gray and cloudy for miles. The accident ranks as the third-largest such coal ash spill in the nation's history.

The public was not told about the breach until the following day and initial reports provided by Duke and DENR did not make clear the massive scale of the disaster. It took six days for the company to finally seal the pipe.

State regulators initially said testing showed levels of arsenic, lead and other toxic contaminates in the river water were at levels low enough to be safe for both fish and humans. On Sunday, however, the state officials admitted they had made an "honest mistake while interpreting the results" and issued an advisory warning people to avoid prolonged contact with the water.

AP reported Sunday that environmental groups have tried three times in the past year to use provisions under the Clean Water Act to sue in federal court to force Duke to clear out leaky coal ash dumps after North Carolina regulators failed to act on evidence of serious groundwater contamination.

Each time, the state agency blocked the citizen lawsuits by intervening at the last minute to assert its own authority under the act to take enforcement action in state court. After negotiating with the company behind closed doors, the state proposed settlements many regard as highly favorable to the company.

Clean water advocates have long complained that state regulators are too cozy with the polluters they regulate. But they say that coordination and cooperation has become even more overt since the January 2013 inauguration of Gov. Pat McCrory, a pro-business Republican who worked at Duke Energy for 28 years.

Since his unsuccessful first campaign for governor in 2008, campaign finance reports show Duke Energy, its political action committee, executives and their immediate families have donated at least $1.1 million to McCrory's campaign and affiliated groups that spent on TV ads, mailings and events to support him.

After winning in 2012, McCrory appointed Raleigh businessman John Skvarla to head the state environmental agency charged with policing his former employer. Skvarla has described his agency's role as being a "partner" to those it regulates, whom he refers to as "customers."

Lawyers for the environmental groups who had tried to sue Duke in federal court were shut out of the negotiations between state regulators and the company that produced the now scuttled settlement proposal. They had hoped to convince the state judge overseeing the case to reject the deal.

Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, worried that Monday's about-face might be just another tactic by the state to help Duke avoid paying for the harm it has done to the North Carolina's rivers and lakes.

"Instead of taking action to clean up coal ash pollution and protect the public, DENR is going back to the drawing board and proposing to delay action for who knows how long," Holleman said. "It is time to act, not to delay."

---

Peter Gilbert.

When poverty and competition for jobs are intensified during a capitalist economic crisis, one common result is the rise of an extreme right-wing faction in the ruling class.

In the U.S., this phenomenon is seen in the far-right Tea Party faction of the Republican Party. In collaboration with certain key corporations, this faction has taken complete control of the state apparatus in North Carolina.

In 2011, the far-right took control of the state Legislature — the first Republican legislature in North Carolina since Reconstruction. They attempted to pass a number of reactionary measures, including stripping teachers of dues deduction, repealing the Racial Justice Act, a racist voter ID bill, and a bill that would allow hydraulic fracking for natural gas.

Popular pressure forced the former Democratic governor to veto these measures, but that was only a temporary victory. In addition, the Legislature redrew all of the voting districts along racial lines to minimize the voting power of African Americans and secure right-wing control of the state government for the future.

In 2012, the far-right elected Gov. Pat McCrory, a former executive with the North Carolina-based Duke Energy, the largest U.S. utility. The same election saw the passage of Amendment One, which made same-sex marriage unconstitutional in North Carolina.

With McCrory in office, the right-wing takeover was complete. All of the bills that had been vetoed were quickly passed and signed, along with closing abortion clinics, massive cuts to public education, eliminating tenure for teachers, cutting unemployment support to 170,000 North Carolina workers, rejecting federal funding for Medicaid for 500,000 people, and changes to the income tax system that will benefit the rich on the backs of poor and working people.

North Carolina once had a better public education system than many Southern states, and some minimal social welfare programs and some degree of environmental protections. Many of these had been hard won through decades of struggle — so why were they so easily taken away?

Before I answer that question, I want to turn to the dramatic and historic fightback this year — mostly in the form of the Moral Monday movement led by the state NAACP. The first Moral Monday in April led to 17 arrests at the General Assembly, with about 50 protesters. Over the following months, this grew to almost 1,000 arrests and tens of thousands demonstrating at the General Assembly. Thousands more have attended Moral Monday demonstrations around the state.

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npr? other states stunned at rollback on education, teacher's unions, no pay for MA etc

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new moyers doc: RealJobsNC hit/dark$ led to both houses 1st x n 100 yrs 2010

5. North Carolina SEN: As Roll Call recently reported, no contest so far has seen more TV advertising dollars than this race. The contest also will pit the state’s favorable demographics for Democrats (sizable African-American and Latino populations), versus the Republican Party’s gains in the state in the 2012 election. And here’s why the 2014 map is so challenging for Democrats: Out all of the competitive contests so far, North Carolina is the one where Obama performed the best in ’12 (getting 48% of the vote). 2014

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Art Pope: A Backroom Bully Goes Public

In North Carolina these days, few people think Francis first when they hear “Pope.” A different Pope has been dominating headlines here, an exceedingly deep pocket who owes his fortune to a discount store chain his daddy built.

In the run-up to the 2012 elections, this Art Pope invested [20] over $40 million of his personal wealth to gerrymander how North Carolinians cast their votes.

The gerrymandering worked. This year opened with the state sporting — for the first time ever — a conservative GOP governor, Supreme Court majority, and legislature all at the same time. The state budget director? Pope himself.

Pope’s budget priorities would soon start wreaking havoc with the lives of North Carolina’s most vulnerable. In a state with America’s fifth-highest jobless rate, lawmakers indebted to Pope and his millions slashed [21] top weekly jobless benefits and denied 170,000 long-term jobless special federal aid [22].

North Carolina’s conservatives didn’t stop there. They put in place, notes [23] one Duke University analyst, an agenda that cuts education and social programs, shifts the tax burden “toward the less affluent,” and restricts voting rights.

North Carolinians have responded to this rich people-friendly legislative onslaught with spirited demonstrations. The latest protest: an “educational picket campaign [24]” outside the discount stores the Pope family owns.

Art Pope, notes [25] state NAACP president William Barber, has brought a “cynical and sinister form of wealth and power manipulation” to North Carolina.

Pope has put his stores “deliberately and publicly in communities of low wealth,” exploited people in these communities with low wages, and then employed his resulting wealth “to push and promote policies,” sums up Reverend Barber, that undercut the quality of average people’s lives. alternet

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cafo killed billion fish 1991 in NCaro; after Hurr Floyd kiled 30k hogs? and spread sludge, epa cleaning up, then b2 granted immun from CWA, CAA and superfund in ret for small # to vol mon

Literary Classic "Invisible Man" Banned in North Carolina

In the latest crazy move by Republicans in North Carolina, the National Book Award winning novel has been banned for having no "literary value." alternet

Art Pope

James “Art” Pope, a founding board member of the Kochs’ conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, took the brothers’ brand of charitable devastation and concentrated it at the state level. He is, as the New Yorker’s Jane Meyer put it [12], the “conservative multimillionaire [who] has taken control in North Carolina,” a discount retail baron that has used his unrivaled influence as the state’ssingle largest political donor [13] to literally buy his way into office [14]. While his network of conservative foundations continues steering the debate rightward, Pope puts policies in motion as the state’s deputy budget director.

The Institute for Southern Studies [13] has extensively documented how Pope uses his family nonprofit — the John William Pope Foundation, worth nearly $150 million [15] — to pour tax-exempt donations into thinly veiled conservative advocacy groups like the John W. PopeCivitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation and the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Over the years, these groups have worked closely with Tea Party organizers [16], attacked climate science [17] (and scientists [18]) and generally championed free market principles.

Pope’s is an impressive empire of shell charities: his foundation spends more than two-thirds of its money providing some 90% [19] of the funding for North Carolina’s leading conservative organizations, at most of which he enjoys a leadership role. In 2010, three of these groups — Civitas Action, Real Jobs NC and Americans for Prosperity — banded together with Pope and his family to flood [20] North Carolina’s legislative races and stage the first Republican takeover of the state since 1896 [21].

Since then, Pope’s puppeteering has pushed North Carolina into free-fall, galvanizing the grassroots, Moral Monday [22] opposition that’sspreading across the country [23]. Policies long advocated by Pope foundations are now proposed and enacted on a daily basis, seeking to eliminate corporate and income taxes [24], shrink healthcare coverage [25], gut environmental regulations [26], remove early education opportunities [27], oppose public transit [28] and defund public schools [29] and higher education [30].

It’s this last foray that student groups like the North Carolina Student Power Union [31] are fiercely resisting, mounting a statewide campaign against Art Pope’s involvement in the University of North Carolina system. In exchange for his foundation’s more than two dozen grants over the past 15 years, last year Pope was rewarded [32] with a seat on UNC’s “blue ribbon” panel to craft a five-year strategic plan for the 16-campus system. Students claim the move defies UNC’s mandate for public accountability, reeking of blatant corruption.

Pope is hardly an educator, and his gifts [33] demonstrate a Koch-like determination to indoctrinate college students at any cost, bidding to bring them into the fold while they’re young. His past contributions include $900,000 for pro-free market political science program [34]at North Carolina State University; an attempted $10 million [35] for a UNC program in “Western civilization,” later diverted to football coaches’ salaries after widespread outcry; and a similarly ill-fated $600,000 attempt to launch a constitutional law center [36] led by the director of a Pope-funded nonprofit at North Carolina Central University....http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/philanthropy-trouble

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North Carolina: North Carolina’s four Dirty Air Villains are Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and

Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-NC2), Virginia Foxx (R-NC5) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC10).

North Carolina’s four Clean Air Heroes are Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Reps. Brad Miller (DNC13),

David Price (D-NC4) and Melvin Watt (D-NC12).

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AlterNet [1] / By Kristin Rawls [2]

North Carolina Becomes the Front Line of a Brutal Corporate Assault on Education Raging in America

July 31, 2013 |

Corporate education forces are on a destructive march throughout the U.S. While busting teachers' unions has been long been an initiative of the GOP and Christian Right, it’s also on the agendas of urban mayors like Chicago Democrat Rahm Emmanuel and New York City independent Michael Bloomberg. And it’s a large component of the regressive agenda that has sparked mass popular uprisings in Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.

Enter the notoriously right-wing North Carolina General Assembly. The NCGA has been on the warpath since 2010, when the Tea Party took the state legislature and for the first time in over 150 years of NC history, conservatives gained control of both houses. Since coming to power, they have mounted vicious attacks on voting rights, abortion rights, Medicaid access, unemployment benefits, and public education.

The extreme agenda has prompted the North Carolina NAACP and its president, Rev. Dr. William Barber [3], to spearhead the Forward Together [4] coalition movement, a broad-based group of 150 organizations [5] in the state, including everything from NARAL Pro-Choice NC to Black Workers for Justice joining together in the fight. The coalition is best-known for drawing tens of thousands to the General Assembly between April and July to protest the aggressive legislative session. The protests galvanized public support throughout the state and led to 925 civil disobedience-related arrests [6] in the NCGA.

It’s no accident that the NC-NAACP-led coalition has made public education a rallying point. Rev. Dr. Barber first gained widespread recognition [3] in the state for his advocacy on behalf of public schools. He became a central figure in Triangle-area organizing against the resegregation of Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools, as well as school choice policies in Wake County that would have destroyed the area’s progress fostering diversity and equal opportunity.

Privatized Education Takes NC by Storm—And NC Teacher Association Fights Back

So the NC-NAACP and its coalition partners were ready when the GOP mounted a full-on assault on public education: In 2013 alone, North Carolina deregulated charter school administration, introduced school vouchers into the state budget, terminated most teaching assistants, raised class sizes, reduced funding for schools, ended supplemental teacher pay for graduate education and dismantled due process protection for teachers, called tenure. The new budget provided no teacher raise – remarkable only because it marked a six-year period in which teachers received virtually no raises and only one 1 percent raise to cover new health insurance costs.

Now North Carolina, long near the bottom in teacher pay, is lowest in teacher salary growth [7]. Plus, the state is rapidly approaching the bottom [8] when it comes to per-capita student spending. The cuts were so severe that when the punitive state budget passed almost two weeks ago, school superintendent June Atkinson, who usually stays below the radar of education politics, noted that she was worried about students [9] in North Carolina for the first time in 30 years.

The GOP’s attacks on education have antagonized the state’s major teacher union affiliate, the North Carolina Association of Educators [10], which assumed a leading role in the Moral Monday protests after the draconian budget passed. President Rodney Ellis spoke at the July 22 rally, where he said [11] he committed disobedience on behalf of the more than 95,000 teachers and 1.5 million students who would be negatively affected by the state budget. He also challenged teachers to play an active role on July 29, the final Raleigh Moral Monday protest of 2013.

Like every other Moral Monday, the final one had a theme: This time it was the future of education in North Carolina. According to organizers, the protest drew an estimated 10,000 participants. Teachers wearing “red for public ed” T-shirts crowded the lawn by the NCGA Building that day, and helped lead the march to Fayetteville Street. The downtown area became a sea of protest signs contesting corporate education “reforms “with messages like, “Say no to vouchers,” “I’m a teacher, not a tester,” “I teach the new voters of 2014,” “Just another public school teacher with a second job” and many others.

Barbara Parramore, 81, began her education career in Raleigh in 1954, serving as a teacher, principal and then NC State professor until her retirement in 1996. Though her career began during Jim Crow, Parramore says the future of education in the state looks bleaker now than at any time she remembers in the past. This is why on May 20, she committed civil disobedience alongside other protesters and suffered arrest (an experience she chronicled for AlterNet) [12].

Harnett County principal Angela Hill and teacher Gary Hill (husband and wife) share Parramore’s dreary assessment. Angela Hill, an educator of 12 years, tells AlterNet that finding and hiring good teachers is becoming more difficult. “Educators in North Carolina never wanted to go to South Carolina before, but now we have teachers and principals who are beginning to look for jobs there.”

Seventeen-year teaching veteran Gary Hill, meanwhile, discusses the inequitable system that vouchers and under-regulated charter schools will create. He also worries that dismantling pay raises for graduate education will diminish incentives for teachers to acquire greater expertise.

Retired Lenoir County public school teacher Lendell Wayne, who taught for 33 and a half years, says the changes “will be disastrous for the students of North Carolina. The very future of our children depends on every person who took time out to come to Moral Monday and take part in this struggle.” She says the policies will benefit an already privileged minority of students while leaving the masses in the dust, and she strongly opposes the use of her tax dollars to fund private school tuition.

North Carolina’s Historic Resistance to For-Profit Education

In Chicago, Mayor Emanuel has made fighting the Chicago Teachers Union—and replacing so-called “failed schools” with charters managed by for-profit companies—a central component of his program for the city. But North Carolina’s education landscape did not look much like that of Chicago in 2010 when the GOP took power. Because of North Carolina’s status as a right-to-work state and its generations-long suppression of labor organizing, the NCAE never had nearly as much leverage in negotiations as the Chicago Teachers Union.

But the story isn’t quite so simple. While North Carolina labor policy has always been backward, the state has served as an example of progressive approaches to education policy in other ways. During the late 1940s, Parramore says, the public became more aware that education opportunities for white and black students should be equalized. So an initiative to build better facilities for black schools meant that some were in better condition than white schools. In 1948, schools began paying equal salaries to white and black teachers, also a forward-thinking initiative for its time.

That the state government never really blocked challenges to Jim Crow made NC an unusual case. Over decades, the state—and especially the cities—developed a culture that was enthusiastic about promoting educational equity and student diversity. This is why many large school systems emerged during the 1970s and 1980s; the urban/suburban mix in places like Wake County allowed educational resources to be distributed equitably across large, diverse school districts.

While the populism that always inflected state education policy never quite helped unions, it did render the state more suspicious of the large-scale corporate reforms further along in other states. Policies that advanced disparity were looked on with disdain among both Democrats and some Republicans. Even former Wake County school board chair Bill Fletcher, a Christian conservative who pushed for abstinence-only education policies in the 1990s, backed Wake’s popular diversity policy. Wake was one of the South’s most successful turnarounds from the days of Jim Crow. Such idealism could be found virtually nowhere else in the U.S., not even in the Northeast’s highly segregated schools.

Before 2010, the state resisted opening its schools to expansive charter proliferation because charters are known [13] to entrench inequality and cause racial segregation in schools. Charters were capped, and Chicago-style “chain store” schools were never a part of the educational landscape. Those charter schools that did get off the ground were usually small parent- and/or teacher-led entities that had very little in common with Chicago charters.

While the right wing in other Southern states has long pushed vouchers—that is, the diversion of public resources into private school tuition—they were never part of the political discussion in NC, not even among state Republicans like former Governor Jim Martin. Even the state’s powerful Christian Right contingent has been slow to pick up the cause as a talking point or major policy initiative. Rather than pushing for vouchers, the movement has traditionally isolated itself in homeschools and private Christian schools.

It took a Tea Party super-majority in both houses of the General Assembly—and a puppet governor in Republican McCrory—to turn this tide. But now that it has turned, Barbara Parramore tells AlterNet, the progressive legacies of North Carolina public education could take generations to restore and the best things about North Carolina education are disappearing. So educators will continue the fight.

What’s Next?

No one denies the seriousness of the problem: This is one of the most severely GOP-gerrymandered states in the U.S. Combined with new voting restrictions, the redrawn voting map will make it difficult to unseat Republicans. Though barely 20 percent [14] of North Carolinians approve of the NCGA’s work thus far, true democratic elections will be difficult at best.

Teachers understand that a long-term battle is needed to stem the tide of Tea Party politics and save public schools. But many are hopeful since, like so many other North Carolinians, they are energized by Barber’s insistence that Tarheels must never again succumb to Old South politics.

Looking ahead, "Mountain Moral Monday" takes place in Asheville on August 5, and after that the movement goes on tour. Over the coming months, it will organize statewide resistance before the next legislative session and resumption of Raleigh protests. Meanwhile, the NC-NAACP and coalition partners have mounted what Rev. William Barber calls the “most aggressive” legal battle against civil rights challenges North Carolinians have seen in 50 years.

I have always said that North Carolina contains the very best and the very worst things about the U.S. The Moral Monday movement shows the state at its gentle—and deeply inclusive—best. If anyone can make a difference, it's these people. “What do we do?” Barber has often asked the crowd. “We fight, we fight, we fight” everyone responds. And given the righteous indignation of the charismatic preacher, people begin to believe they can really win

See more stories tagged with:

Alternative education [15],

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Armed Attack [17],

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Barbara Parramore [19],

bill fletcher [20],

bloomberg [21],

charter school [22],

Chicago Teachers Union [23],

chicago [24],

christian right [25],

Education economics [26],

Education in the United States [27],

education [28],

emanuel [29],

Forward Together [30],

Gary Hill [31],

governor [32],

jim crow [33],

jim martin [34],

June Atkinson [35],

Lendell Wayne [36],

Lenoir County [37],

mayor [38],

michael bloomberg [39],

NC Teacher [40],

NCGA Building [41],

new york city [42],

North Carolina Association of Educators [43],

North Carolina General Assembly [44],

north carolina [45],

Person Attributes [46],

Person Career [47],

Person Location [48],

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politics [50],

president [51],

Quotation [52],

rahm emmanuel [53],

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rodney ellis [56],

school superintendent [57],

school choice [58],

School voucher [59],

scott walker [60],

south carolina [61],

tea party [62],

united states [63],

wake county [64],

William Barber [65],

wisconsin [66],

Workers for Justice [67],

charismatic preacher [68],

democratic elections [69],

ended supplemental teacher [70],

former Wake County School Board [71],

large school systems [72],

major teacher [73],

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Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/activism/moral-monday-and-education

Links:

[1] http://alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kristin-rawls

[3] http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/firing-up-the-faithful/Content?oid=1196519

[4] http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/hkonj/forward-together.html

[5] http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/hkonj/hkonj-coalition-partners.html

[6] http://www.wsav.com/story/22897539/authorities-73-arrests-at-nc-legislative-protests

[7] http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/07/17/north-carolina-is-dead-last-in-teacher-salary-growth/

[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/02/states-education-spending_n_3375632.html

[9] http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/newsroom/news/2013-14/20130722-01

[10] http://www.ncae.org/

[11] http://www.wral.com/about-70-more-arrested-at-nc-legislative-protests/12691206/

[12] http://www.alternet.org/activism/80-year-old-north-carolina-educator-why-i-got-arrested-protesting-right-wing-agenda-schools

[13] http://www.prrac.org/projects/fair_housing_commission/los_angeles/orfield-mcardle.pdf

[14] http://www.wral.com/polls-mccrory-popular-legislature-not-so-much/12367948/

[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-education

[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/angela-hill

[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/armed-attack

[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/asheville

[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/barbara-parramore

[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bill-fletcher-0

[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bloomberg

[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/charter-school-0

[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chicago-teachers-union

[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chicago

[25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/christian-right

[26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-economics

[27] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-united-states

[28] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-0

[29] http://www.alternet.org/tags/emanuel

[30] http://www.alternet.org/tags/forward-together

[31] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gary-hill

[32] http://www.alternet.org/tags/governor-0

[33] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jim-crow

[34] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jim-martin

[35] http://www.alternet.org/tags/june-atkinson

[36] http://www.alternet.org/tags/lendell-wayne

[37] http://www.alternet.org/tags/lenoir-county

[38] http://www.alternet.org/tags/mayor

[39] http://www.alternet.org/tags/michael-bloomberg-0

[40] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nc-teacher

[41] http://www.alternet.org/tags/ncga-building

[42] http://www.alternet.org/tags/new-york-city

[43] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina-association-educators

[44] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina-general-assembly

[45] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina

[46] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-attributes

[47] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-career

[48] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-location

[49] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-party

[50] http://www.alternet.org/tags/politics-0

[51] http://www.alternet.org/tags/president-0

[52] http://www.alternet.org/tags/quotation

[53] http://www.alternet.org/tags/rahm-emmanuel-0

[54] http://www.alternet.org/tags/republican-governor

[55] http://www.alternet.org/tags/republican-party

[56] http://www.alternet.org/tags/rodney-ellis

[57] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-superintendent

[58] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-choice

[59] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-voucher

[60] http://www.alternet.org/tags/scott-walker-0

[61] http://www.alternet.org/tags/south-carolina

[62] http://www.alternet.org/tags/tea-party-0

[63] http://www.alternet.org/tags/united-states

[64] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wake-county

[65] http://www.alternet.org/tags/william-barber

[66] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wisconsin-0

[67] http://www.alternet.org/tags/workers-justice

[68] http://www.alternet.org/tags/charismatic-preacher

[69] http://www.alternet.org/tags/democratic-elections

[70] http://www.alternet.org/tags/ended-supplemental-teacher

[71] http://www.alternet.org/tags/former-wake-county-school-board

[72] http://www.alternet.org/tags/large-school-systems

[73] http://www.alternet.org/tags/major-teacher

[74] http://www.alternet.org/tags/professo

[75] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

Livestock pollution and water pollution

Huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, are prone to leaks and spills. In 1995 an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.
In 2011, an Illinois hog farm spilled 200,000 gallons of manure into a creek, killing over 110,000 fish.
In 2012, a California dairy left over 50 manure covered cow carcasses rotting around its property and polluting nearby waters.
When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded.
Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people.

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Just recently in my home state of North Carolina, a legislative proposal was unanimously approved by the State Senate's Commerce Committee that could make it illegal for Tesla to sell to NC state residents, or at the very least sell in any way other than via the established dealer network. The irony of lawmakers trying to ban the sale of an American-built, Motor Trend Car of the Year that sources from over 30 manufacturers in NC makes me shake my head and wonder.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/13/north_carolina_tesla_ban_bill_would_prevent_unfair_competition_with_car.html

From the state that brought you the nation’s first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state.

The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It’s aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships.

The bill is being pushed by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, a trade group representing the state’s franchised dealerships. Its sponsor is state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Henderson, who has said the goal is to prevent unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers. What makes it “unfair competition” as opposed to plain-old “competition”—something Republicans are typically inclined to favor—is not entirely clear. After all, North Carolina doesn’t seem to have a problem with Apple selling its computers online or via its own Apple Stores.

Still, it’s easy to understand why some car dealers might feel a little threatened: Tesla’s Model S outsold the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8 last quarter without any help from them. If its business model were to catch on, consumers might find that they don’t need the middle-men as much as they thought.

Incidentally—not that he would be in any way swayed by this—I couldn’t help but notice that Apodaca received $8,000 in campaign contributions from the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association last year, the maximum amount allowed by state law. I’ve reached out to the senator for further comment and will update this post if he replies.

Tesla’s vice president of corporate and business development, Diarmuid O'Connell, told me he’s hopeful that the state legislature will amend the bill so that it doesn’t prohibit Tesla from doing business there. He said the company has already sold 80 cars in North Carolina, mostly through the Web, and has about 60 more orders in the works. It also has plans to build its first showroom in the state next year. The Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle in particular appears to be a hotbed of Tesla interest, O'Connell said, which makes sense given its similarities to Silicon Valley.

In its current form, North Carolina’s bill would be the harshest of a handful of anti-Tesla regulations around the country. In Texas, the company is fighting a law under which the employees of its “showroom” in Austin are not allowed to sell any vehicles, offer test drives, or even tell customers how much the car costs. But at least Texas still lets people buy the car online, which North Carolina’s law would prohibit.

Tesla’s O’Connell rejects the idea that laws prohibiting automakers from selling their cars are designed to protect consumers, as trade groups like the North Carolina dealers’ association claim. He says the franchise-dealer model might work fine for giant automakers, but not for a startup like Tesla—especially since Tesla’s products represent a challenge to the traditional auto industry on which dealerships rely. “How do you sell the future if your business depends on the present?” he asked.

Robert Glaser, president of the dealers association, told the News & Observer that the law prohibiting Tesla sales isn’t just about his industry’s self-interest. Pointing to the Tesla representatives at a recent hearing, he said, “You tell me they’re gonna support the little leagues and the YMCA?”

If that’s the real issue, then I may have some good news for all concerned: I asked O’Connell, and he assured me Tesla would be happy to support the little leagues and the YMCA if that’s what North Carolina requires in order to do business there. Problem solved! Right, Mr. Glaser?

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North Carolina attempts to legislate sea level

In June 2012, the North Carolina Senate passed a bill that would force the state’s Coastal Resources Commission to plan only for a steady linear rate of sea-level rise, whatever the actual numbers prove to be.

Though the US Geological Survey and other scientific organizations insist the North Carolina sea level is indeed rising at an accelerating rate, the denial law was advocated by NC-20, a coalition of coastal counties, and by allied real-estate agents and builders.

The NC-20 leader cited the late climate-change denier and thriller writer Michael Crichton in claiming that predictions of accelerated sea-level increase were unsupported by data. Moreover, NC-20 argued that the state could not afford to spend millions on elevating roads, buildings, septic tanks and other infrastructure, as an accelerated rate of sea-level increase would mandate.

Amid nationwide ridicule, the most offensive language in the new law did not survive the North Carolina House, but the final wording, which became state law in August, imposed a four-year moratorium on new sea-level calculations for regulatory purposes – meaning the same battle will be fought again in 2016. Moreover, the new law requires the Coastal Resource Commission to consider a “full range” of hypotheses next time, including falling sea levels, unchanged sea levels, and decelerating increase in sea level. This is comparable to state laws requiring “balance” between the teaching of evolution and the teaching of other notions, however farfetched.

NC-20 claimed a “huge win” and reiterated its position “that despite 80 years of manmade CO2 increase, there is no acceleration in Sea Level Rise.”

By allowing politics to get in the way of science, North Carolina legislators are putting their coast at risk and could cost the state more in the long run by delaying necessary infrastructure changes. Moreover, the story demonstrated again the extent to which US politicians defer to business interests in the face of scientific facts – a pressing issue up and down the East Coast, in the nation’s coalfields and oilfields, across its food-supply chain, and wherever drought is proving chronic. Most corporate news coverage of the North Carolina controversy, however, allowed audiences to dismiss it as a local issue and an instance of isolated backwardness.

References:

Bin, Omyung, et al. “Measuring the Impact of Sea‐Level Rise on Coastal Real Estate: A Hedonic Property Model Approach.” Journal of Regional Science 51 (2011): 751-767.

“Huge Win on Sea Level Rise.” NC-20: Twenty Counties, One Voice. July 2012. Accessed March 30, 2013. http://www.nc-20.com/

Lee, Jane J. “Legislating Sea Level Rise.” ScienceInsider.June 12, 2012. http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/06/legislating-sea-level-rise.html

North Carolina General Assembly. House Bill 819. “An Act To Study and Modify Certain Coastal Management Policies.” Aug. 3, 2012. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/PDF/H819v6.pdf

US Geological Survey. “Sea Level Rise Accelerating in US Atlantic Coast.” June 24, 2012. http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3256&from=rss_home#.ULte54Npf0e

Student Researcher: Caitlin Megonigal, Frostburg State University

Faculty Evaluator: Andy Duncan, Frostburg State University

http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2013/04/01/north-carolina-attempts-to-legislate-sea-level/

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DNC

duke energy http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/4/why_did_the_dems_choose_charlotte

wilmington riots, reactionaries : http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/4/grassroots_leader_rev_dr_william_barber citivtas/ pope

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/4/bright_lights_of_charlottes_dnc_cast

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/North_Carolina_and_coal

Duke Energy
- Headquarters in Charlotte, NC
- 3rd biggest coal energy producer in U.S.
- Controls 68 coal-fired generating stations with 18,579 MW total capacity
- Active proposals: Cliffside Plant, Edwardsport Plant

Progress Energy
- Headquarters in Raleigh, NC
- 15th biggest coal energy producer in U.S.
- Controls 23 coal-fired generating stations with 7925 MW total capacity

Cogentrix
- Headquarters in Charlotte, NC
- Owned by Goldman Sachs
- Controls 10 coal-fired generating stations with 574 MW total capacity

North Carolina Power, a subsidiary of Dominion

Duke proposes merger with Progress Energy

On January 9, 2011, Duke Energy said it agreed to buy Progress Energy for $13.7 billion in stock, creating the largest U.S. power company if it wins approval from regulators in North and South Carolina. The transaction would create an industry giant with approximately 7.1 million electricity customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, and 57,000 megawatts of generating capacity. State regulators have sought concessions from large power companies planning to merge, such as rate reductions.^[50] If the deal is approved by regulators, the combined companies would form the single largest utility in the United States.^[51]

In hearings before the NC Utilities Commission in September, 2011, a variety of organizations objected to the merger.^[52] The merger would mean "increased emissions from coal-fired generation" with an increase of 9.5 million MWH of coal-fired generation over the first five years after the merger, according to testimony on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, the SC Coastal Conservation League, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The merger as currently structured would also result in the creation of a dominant procurer of renewable energy that would limit the pool of renewable energy developers. ^[53]

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report this week addressing toxic air pollution in the U.S. With the report, they created a "Toxic 20" list of states "where residents are at a higher risk of numerous health problems just by breathing," the NRDC explains.

[excerpt:

The electric power sector is the largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in the United States. Thanks to new standards by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), toxic pollution from power plants will decline dramatically over the next several years. In fact, some companies have already begun reducing emissions in anticipation of the new standards.

Compared to 2010 levels, the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics standard (MATS) will cut mercury pollution from 34 tons to 7 tons, a 79 percent reduction, by 2015. Sulfur dioxide pollution will be reduced from 5,140,000 tons in 2010 to 1,900,000 tons in 2015, a 63 percent reduction. Another dangerous acid gas, hydrochloric acid, will be reduced from 106,000 tons in 2010 to 5,500 tons in 2015, a 95 percent reduction.]

According to a press release, the report "found that coal- and oil-fired power plants still contribute nearly half (44 percent) of all the toxic air pollution reported to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)."

NRDC's Pete Altman blogs, "Both senators from eight states of the 'Toxic 20' states -- Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi -- supported a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to repeal the health-protective mercury and air toxics standard."

AP Reports:

Maryland ranked 19th, an improvement from fifth place the year before. Delaware rose one spot from 21st the year before.

The new rankings are based on 2010 figures. The environmental group said pollution was down overall and that new standards imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency mean power plant pollution should continue to drop.

The NRDC said toxic emissions overall decreased 19 percent primarily due to installation of controls and increased use of natural gas.

John Walke, the NRDC's clean air director, said falling natural gas prices have been the "single most influential factor" in the decision to convert to natural gas or retire coal-burning units.

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ATI's droz

Criticisms Convince State To Back Off Projections of Dramatic Sea Level Rise , Carolina Journal News Reports, Sara Burrows, Feb. 20th, 2012[ed. note: John Droz, featured in article, is a Fellow at American Tradition Institute.]

RALEIGH — State officials are pressuring local governments to plan for a one-meter sea-level rise by 2100, even though many independent scientists have argued the rise is highly unlikely if not impossible.

Even though a state advisory panel no longer recommends regulations based on the one-meter projection, local government officials worry that state regulators will try to implement those rules.

Such a policy, they say, would have a devastating impact on coastal economies, property values, and citizens’ ability to secure financing and property insurance. North Carolina also would become the first state to enact policies consistent with a projected sea-level rise of that magnitude.

In a 2010 report (PDF), the Coastal Resource Commission’s Science Panel said the sea level is likely to rise one meter by 2100. Now the commission is drafting policy “encouraging” coastal communities to consider accelerated rates of sea-level rise in local land-use and development planning.

A group of independent scientists have challenged the panel’s report, pushing the CRC to revise its draft sea-level rise policy so that the regulations in it read more like suggestions and the one-meter benchmark no longer appears.

There’s nothing scientific about the way the science panel came up with its one-meter projection, said John Droz, a physicist and environmental activist. Droz, with the help of more than 30 other scientists, wrote a critique (PDF) of the panel’s “NC Sea-Level Rise Assessment Report.”..http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-fellow-john-droz-convinces-state-to-rethink-climate-related-policy-2/

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update on bill post-colbert mockery http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/nc-sea-level-calculation-_n_1618743.html?ir=Green

chesser ~ http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/06/the-pope-machines-wacky-attack-on-the-science-of-sea-level-rise.html

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Decades after one of the worst cases of drinking water contamination in U.S. history, thousands of affected Marines and family members may finally receive health care.

Estimates suggest that up to one million Marines and family members were exposed to drinking water contaminated with human carcinogens at the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune in North Carolina over the course of about 30 years.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a measure on Wednesday providing health care to those who lived or worked at the base from 1957 to 1987, the Associated Press reports.

The Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 will require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care for those with certain diseases and conditions resulting from exposure to the contaminated water, following what has been called "the largest recorded environmental incident on a domestic Department of Defense installation."

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. said in a statement, "This has been a long time coming, and unfortunately, many who were exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune over the years have died as a result and are not with us to receive the care this bill will provide ... While I wish we could have accomplished this years ago, we now have the opportunity to do the right thing for the thousands of Navy and Marine veterans and their families who were harmed during their service to our country."

"The push for answers continues, but in the meantime, veterans and family members are suffering," Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C. said in a statement. She added, "Many need treatment today and cannot afford to wait while studies are completed. The Marines and their family members affected by this tragedy have sacrificed to keep this country safe. After decades of denial, this country owes it to them to ensure they are taken care of in their time of need."

The bill was first blocked by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. due to concerns over fraud, but his issues were addressed in an amended version. The bill will now go to the House for passage, and McClatchy News reports the bill could reach President Obama by the end of the summer.

Earlier this year, HuffPost's Lynne Peeples reported on government watchdogs calling the U.S. Navy a "bully" over a redacted federal report on Camp Lejeune's drinking water supply. The U.S. Navy pushed to suppress details on the locations of active water lines, wells, treatment plants and storage tanks from the report, claiming national security concerns.

Rachel Libert, director of a Camp Lejeune contamination documentary, told Peeples at the time, "There really needs to be more accountability over the Department of Defense and what they do to the environment here and abroad."

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina lawmakers are adding protections for neighbors and landowners in a new proposal to legalize a form of underground gas drilling widely criticized for causing harm to water supplies and roads.

A Senate committee on Thursday introduced legislation that could allow hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in two years if needed regulations are in place by then. Fracking involves injecting a drilled well with chemicals, water and sand to crack shale rock and free trapped natural gas.

The revamped legislation holds gas drillers responsible if underground water supplies are tainted, sets minimum royalties and legal protections for landowners, and gives appointees to a mining commission the duty to write specific regulations. Its crafting was overseen by Rep. Robert Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, and Rep. Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell, who had previously been at odds on how quickly to allow fracking.

...

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grist 6/12

North Carolina is no stranger to the “if you dislike it then you should have made a law against it” model of legislation, but this is extreme: The state General Assembly’s Replacement House Bill 819 would rule that scientists are not allowed to accurately predict sea-level rise. By all legal calculations, the sea level will now rise eight inches by the end of the century. Sure, so far models have predicted an increase of more than three feet, but if they keep that shit up, they’re going to JAIL.

OK, there’s not really a prison sentence attached to this proposed rule, but that doesn’t stop it from being crazeballs. See, actual sea-level rise is nonlinear, because there’s feedback — the warmer it gets, the more the water volume expands, and the more stuff melts, and the more it expands, etc. That’s how most scientific models arrive at their predictions, because that is how physics works. But an increase that big is extremely inconvenient for a state with a beach-based tourist trade. So North Carolina’s solution is simple: Change how physics works, or at least change how people do physics.

Accordingly, this bill mandates that models use a linear increase — a consistent amount of change every year, based on historical data. This will lead to predictions that are much less catastrophic, and much more reassuring for people building resorts in the Outer Banks. The predictions will also be flat-out wrong, but that’s nothing new for North Carolina.

If it’s not obvious why this is stupid, look at it this way: In 1790, the year North Carolina is stuck in, the population was about 400,000. In 1900, it was 1.9 million. That’s an increase of 1.5 million in 110 years — so if there were an analogous rule for population, the state would prepare for 3.4 million residents in 2010. Which might cause some strife among the 9.7 million people who live there now, but you know, whatever — the law is the law, so screw you, math. If the 6.3 million people unaccounted for by the legal model wanted housing and services, they should have fallen in line with North Carolina reality.

Anyway, we wish North Carolina the best of luck in staving off disaster by legislating what mathematical calculations people can perform. It will probably be about as effective as fixing the health-care crisis through etymology, or balancing the budget with entry-level yoga. But if it works, I’m moving to North Carolina, where living in a fantasy world has the force of law.

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Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.

"I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don't think that science can prove it.... I certainly haven't seen anything that's conclusive, and anything that's claimed to be conclusive has proven to be somewhat sketchy."

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=North_Carolina

Helms the senator fails to provide for many North Carolinians. Only four states receive less per capita in federal funds; only eight have more residents living in poverty. The state currently ranks 42nd in the release of cancer-causing toxins, 43rd in manufacturing wages, and 44th in infant mortality.

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http://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141078608/the-multimillionaire-helping-republicans-win-n-c

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n the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures. Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington. It was an ingenious plan, and Gillespie is a skilled tactician—he once ran the Republican National Committee—but REDMAP seemed like a long shot in North Carolina. Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and remained popular. The Republicans hadn’t controlled both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for more than a century. (“Not since General Sherman,” a state politico joked to me.) That day in Raleigh, though, Gillespie had lunch with an ideal ally: James Arthur (Art) Pope, the chairman and C.E.O. of Variety Wholesalers, a discount-store conglomerate. The Raleigh News and Observer had called Pope, a conservative multimillionaire, the Knight of the Right. The REDMAP project offered Pope a new way to spend his money.

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For a list of politicians with known ALEC ties, please see ALEC Politicians.

This is a partial list of North Carolina politicians that are known to be involved in, or previously involved in, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It is a partial list. (If you have additional names, please add them with a citation. The names in this original list were verified as of posting.)

Legislators who have cut ties with ALEC publicly are also listed here.

North Carolina Legislators with ALEC Ties

House of Representatives

Former Speaker James B. Black ^[1]
Rep. Harold Brubaker (R-78), member of ALEC Board of Directors^[2], Public Sector Chair of the International Relations Task Force^[3] and attended the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting^[4] Civil Justice Task Force Member ^[5] (resigned July 12, 2012)
Rep. George Cleveland (R-14)^[6][7]
Rep. Fred Steen (R-76), ALEC State Chairman^[8] and Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member^[9], attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (declined to seek reelection in 2012)
Rep. Bryan R. Holloway (R-91), ALEC Education Task Force Alternate^[10]
Rep. Jerry C. Dockham (R-80), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member^[11]
Rep. Stephen A. LaRoque (R-10), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member, attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (lost the GOP primary election May 8, 2012)
Rep. Linda P. Johnson (R-83), ALEC Education Task Force Member^[12] , attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Former Rep. Curtis Blackwood (R-68), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force member,^[13] ALEC Education Task Force member 2003-2004^[14]
Rep. Ric Killian (R-105), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member^[15] (ran for U.S. House NC District 9 in 2012 and lost May 8 primary)
Rep. Ruth Samuelson (R-104), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member^[16] , attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Jeff Barnhart (R-82), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member^[17] , attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Julia Howard (R-79), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member^[18] , attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Tom Murry (R-41), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member^[19] , attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. William Current (R-109), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member^[20] (declined to seek reelection in 2012)
Speaker Thom Tillis (R-98), ALEC International Relations Task Force Member^[21] , 2011 ALEC State Legislator of the Year^[22], attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Justin P. Burr (R-67), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member,^[23] attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Tim K. Moore (R-111), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member,^[23] attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Dale Robbins Folwell (R-74), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member^[24], attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (ran for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor in 2012 and lost the May 8th primary election)
Rep. Daniel F. McComas (R-19), ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force Member^[25] (resigned in 2012 after being appointed chairman of the North Carolina State Ports Authority Board of Directors)
Rep. Tim Moffitt (R-116), ALEC International Relations Task Force Member^[26] and Communications and Technology Task Force Alternate^[27], attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Hugh Allen Blackwell (R-86), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member ^[28]
Rep. Paul B. Stam, Jr. (R-37), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force^[29] Member, attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-40), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Jamie Boles (R-52), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. William Brawley (R-103), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Bill Brisson (D-22), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Rayne Brown (R-81), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Bill Cook (R-6), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (ran in District 1 of the State Senate in November 2012 and won)
Rep. Kelly Hastings (R-110), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Mike Hager (R-112), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Craig Horn (R-68), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. David Lewis (R-53), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Darrell McCormick (R-92), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (lost in GOP primary for District 73 on May 8, 2012)
Rep. Chuck McGrady (R-117), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Bill Owens (D-1), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4] (declined to seek election in 2012)
Rep. Mike Stone (R-51), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Sarah Stevens (R-90), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. John Torbett (R-108), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]
Rep. Harry Warren (R-77), attended ALEC 2011 Annual Meeting^[4]

Senate

Sen. Tom Apodaca (R-48), ALEC Education Task Force Member^[30]
Sen. Donald Ray Vaughan (D-27), ALEC Education Task Force Member^[31] (declined to seek reelection in 2012)
Sen. David Rouzer (R-12), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member^[32] (ran for U.S. House NC District 7 in 2012 and lost)
Rep. Richard Morgan, currently running for NC Commissioner of Insurance. ^[33]
Rep. Connie Wilson. ^[33]

References

↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, ’99 ALEC Leaders in the States, organizational document, archived by the Wayback Machine December 8, 2000, accessed November 2012
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council Board of Directors, organization website, accessed July 2, 2011
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council International Relations Task Force, organization website, accessed May 27, 2011
↑ ^4.00 ^4.01 ^4.02 ^4.03 ^4.04 ^4.05 ^4.06 ^4.07 ^4.08 ^4.09 ^4.10 ^4.11 ^4.12 ^4.13 ^4.14 ^4.15 ^4.16 ^4.17 ^4.18 ^4.19 ^4.20 ^4.21 ^4.22 ^4.23 ^4.24 ^4.25 ^4.26 ^4.27 ^4.28 ^4.29 ^4.30 Craig Jarvis, ALEC likes Tillis, Charlotte News-Observer "Under the Dome" blog, August 5, 2011
↑ ALEC Task Force Packet August 2010, Common Cause, August 2010
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Letter to Robert C. Byrd and Nancy Pelosi RE: Federal health reform efforts, June 24, 2009
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid, RE: the EPA’s plan to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, March 10, 2010
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, "ALEC State Chairmen, organization website, accessed April 2012
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Education Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, organizational task force membership directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Education Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Membership Directory, December 2010, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, North Carolina Manual, state government political reference book, 2003-2004, archived by the WayBack Machine, accessed September 2012
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Membership Directory, December 2010, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Membership Directory, December 2010, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Health and Human Services Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Health and Human Services Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Health and Human Services Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Health and Human Services Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, International Relations Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, "Solutions for the States," 38th Annual Meeting agenda, on file with CMD, August 3-6, 2011
↑ ^23.0 ^23.1 American Legislative Exchange Council, Public Safety & Elections Task Force 2011 Spring Task Force Summit April 29, 2011 Minutes, organizational document, June 30, 2011, p. 5, obtained and released by Common Cause April 2012
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, [http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/tax_35-daymailing_stfs2011_updated%20Ohio.pdf – Full Name and Address], Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Communications and Technology Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, International and Federal Relations Task Force meeting and Federal Relations Working Group, meeting agenda and materials, August 4, 2011, on file with CMD
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Communications and Technology Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ organizational member spreadsheet, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ organizational member spreadsheet, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Education Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Directory – Full Name and Address, Education Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, [http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/tax_35-daymailing_stfs2011_updated%20Ohio.pdf – Full Name and Address], Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Membership Directory, August 2011, obtained and released by Common Cause
↑ ^33.0 ^33.1 American Legislative Exchange Council, Sourcebook, annual organizational publication, 1995

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