Legislature Overrides Governor Veto
Enact Policies that will harm water, air and public health
Recent votes on damaging policies demonstrate that North Carolina legislative leaders do not believe clean water, clean air and public health are priorities. This week the legislature voted to override the Governor's veto of Senate Bill 781, Regulatory Reform Act, which is a polluter's wish list.
Senate Bill 781 dramatically rewrites the process by which our state government adopts rules, making it more expensive and less efficient. The legislation would bring key state protections down to the federal minimum requirements, make new protective rules essentially impossible, and gut current rules by endless cost-benefit analyses. The Governor vetoed this terrible legislation but unfortunately the general assembly was able to muster enough votes to override her veto. North Carolina now has little say over the protection of our natural resources and public health.
While S781 is arguably the most egregious of all of the anti-environmental legislation, several other bills rank a close second.
- House Bill 119 left the house as an eight section technical corrections bill and quickly turned into a 23 section polluter wish list in the Senate. Included in this legislation is a section weakening the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse buffer rules; the most cost-effective management tool we have for protecting water quality.
- Senate bill 110 removed the long-standing ban on hardened structures on our coast. The bill and resulting senate/house compromise will allow for the construction of up to four terminal groins- engineered structures that have been shown to be highly destructive. Almost every coastal scientist in NC supported the continuation of the nearly 30 year old ban.
- Budget: Again the GOP, with help from five Democrats, voted to override the Governor’s veto on the budget. Most striking in the budget is a 12% decrease in funding for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and loss of 1,050 jobs in cuts and transfers; an 85% cut to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, elimination of the oyster sanctuary program, elimination of four out of five filled positions that support county health department testing programs for new drinking water wells in the first year of the biennium and eliminates the fifth position in the second year.
- Senate Bill 709 Energy Jobs Act- Vetoed by the Governor and pending an override vote in the house, this bill directs the Governor to pursue offshore drilling, puts on on the path to allow for natural gas extraction using the controversial method hydrofracking (currently banned), and changes the appointments of the Energy Policy Council converting it to the Energy Jobs Council focused on fossil fuels and not renewable energy solutions.
