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A failing grade on the environment
The legislature took another step toward allowing natural gas fracking wells like this one on Montana. Photo: EPA
Coastal Review Online
When they took over the General Assembly last year, Republicans didn’t hide their desire to reshape the state’s environmental regulations and, along with it, its top regulatory agency, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Using the recession as its backdrop and rules-cost-jobs as its mantra, the GOP-controlled legislature slashed the agency’s budget, trimmed it of several divisions, made fashioning new environmental regulations more difficult and passed a number of bills that earned Republicans record low scores for protecting the environment. One bill in particular drew ridicule and scorn from around the world.
Critics, like Rep. Joe Hackney, charge that the legislature’s actions in just one and a half sessions have set environmental protection in North Carolina back decades.
“They want to take us back to ‘60s and ‘70s,” said Hackney, a Democrat from Orange County and one the legislature’s staunchest environmental defenders.
Republican leaders counter that the actions were needed to reform out-of-control regulations that are hurting the state’s economy.
“The rules have happened so fast. (the coast) is a difficult place to live, to run a business and afford a home,” Sen. Harry Brown, a Republican from Onslow County and the N.C. Senate’s majority leader, said at a recent committee meeting. “It’s just a constant attack on citizens on the coast.”
The budget and DENR
In a time of lean state budgets, North Carolina’s main environmental agency, known as DENR, saw its budget cut in 2010, and Gov. Beverly Perdue’s proposed more cuts in her budget the following year. But GOP leaders, in charge of the legislature by then, took more off the table, cutting the department’s budget by 30 percent in last year’s budget. They cut it again, though not as drastically, this year.
A comparison of pre- and post-recession funding levels by the N.C. Budget and Tax Center found that funding for natural and economic resources from the legislature fell more than 49 percent since the recession began in 2007, with the bulk of the drop in programs and agencies under DENR.
DENR not only lost funding for scores of positions, but almost half of its employees when the Division of Forest Resources was moved to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, an agency controlled by a Republican secretary. Some parts of DENR went elsewhere while others were simply zeroed out.
This year’s adjustment to the state budget spared DENR another round of deep cuts after its seven regional offices passed a legislature-mandated review and had their funding restored.
But the budget continues the parceling out of agencies within DENR to other departments. It shifts the Geodetic Survey Section, which serves as the official state mapping agency, to the Division of Crime Control and Public Safety. Also on the horizon is the possible merger of state’s Wildlife Resources Commission and DENR’s Division of Marine Fisheries. A study bill looks at combining the two and restructuring oversight of the new agency by July 2013.
Dan Conrad, legislative counsel for the N.C. Conservation Network, said while the cuts aren’t as deep this year, DENR continues to be a target.
“It’s the same kind of piling on we’ve been seeing,” he said of this year’s budget.
But aside from hydraulic fracking, the legislature has concentrated on changes to rules and regulations that Conrad says are intended to strip away DENR’s ability to regulate. “This session has been death by a thousand cuts,” he said.
While cutting its budget, the legislature has added to DENR’s workload with an accelerated effort to create rules for fracking, a controversial method to drill for natural gas and oil. Banned in North Carolina because of its potential environmental effects, the legislature passed a law in the short session to allow it.
The law requires that rules to safeguard the environment and public health be fashioned in two years, and it charges DENR with doing much of that legwork. Several times during a grueling two-day debate on fracking the focus was on DENR’s ability to handle this added responsibility and its normal duties without more money and help.
At a hearing of the House Environment Committee, Robin Smith, one of the department’s assistant secretaries, said DENR would have to pull in staff from other areas to work on fracking. She said to do the amount of work to develop fracking rules within the mandated time would take an additional seven specialists. Pressed by Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, Smith said without more money the department would have a difficult time meeting its obligations to enforce state and federal environmental laws.
Rep. Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell, the House appropriations committee chair who managed the floor debate on the fracking bill, fought back several amendments that underlined DENR’s lack of resources.
“There is plenty of time to get the funding if we need it,” Gillespie said, adding that if the department is having trouble making the deadlines, the legislature can step up funding next January. Gillespie said the department has more than 100 unfilled positions.
Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, countered that he has no doubt DENR is having trouble recruiting new staff given the “lack of security and stability of the agency that we’ve laid waste to.”
The bills
The N.C. League of Conservation Voters has been scoring legislators on environmental issues since 1999. The league’s tabulators, though, had never seen the likes of the new crowd in Raleigh.
The average score in the N.C. House for the 2011 session was 43 percent, down from 67 percent for the 2009-2010 average; the Senate average was a mere 27 percent, compared to 69 percent in 2009-2010.
Of particular interest were the average scores of the incoming freshman legislators as compared to the lifetime scores of those they replaced. In the House, the average score for the 27 new representatives was 35 percent, drastically down from the outgoing legislators’ lifetime average of 73 percent. The Senate scores were even more shocking with the 15 new senators averaging just 18 percent as compared to their predecessors at 70 percent.
“Legislators in the 2011 long session made poor choices when it comes to protecting our natural resources and quality of life,” Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations for league, said on the group’s web site. “With North Carolina consistently ranking at the top of lists for best places to live and do business in the country, the legislators failed to realize the impact their decisions will have on our quality of life for the long-term.”
Here is a rundown of some of the major bills that the legislature passed or is considering that weaken environmental protection :
• Rules: A bill to “reform” rulemaking makes it much more difficult to pass environmental rules and prohibits any new rule that adds “additional costs of $500,000 on the aggregate of persons subject to the rule” unless “required to respond” to some new legislation, federal rule, court order, or “serious and unforeseen threat.” It also prevents new rules from being more stringent than equivalent federal standards.
• Terminal groins: The bill creates a large hole in the state’s longstanding ban on groins, jetties, seawalls and other types of hard structures along the oceanfront by allowing up to four small jetties at inlets.
• Funding for clean water: The budget bill last year sliced funding to the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust to about $11 million, the lowest appropriation in the fund’s 16-year history. The budget that the N.C. House passed this year keeps funding at that level and no longer guarantees any funding in the future. By statute, the fund is supposed to get $100 million. The fund has spent almost a billion dollars all over the state on measures to control water pollution and buying environmentally sensitive land.
• Fracking: The bill allows this controversial method of drilling for natural gas and oil. It creates a new commission to regulate the activity on which seven of the 11 voting members will have ties to the oil and gas industries. It also prevents local governments from passing ordinances that prevent or restrict fracking.
• Offshore drilling: The bill encourages the drilling for oil and natural gas off the N.C. coast and requires the state to enter into compacts with neighboring states to encourage drilling. Perdue vetoed the bill, and it’s awaiting a possible vote to override her veto.
• Toxic air: The bill severely weakens the state’s law to control toxic air emissions by exempting the largest polluters, which have to meet similar but not as stringent federal requirements.
• Boards and commissions: A proposed bill revamps the state’s two major regulatory commissions, the Environmental Management Commission and the Coastal Resources Commission, by cutting membership that will give industry more votes.
• Sea-level rise: The bill prevents the state from using modern scientific methods to calculate the future rate of sea-level rise because of global warming. It has been the subject of hundreds of newspaper articles and editorials, TV broadcasts and blog posts. It has been roundly ridiculed for ignoring science. The bill passed the Senate and is awaiting action in the House.
Hackney, who is retiring after 16 terms in the House, said that during his tenure strengthening environmental protections has never been easy.
“It’s always been an uphill battle,” he said.
But the going has gotten tougher, he said, as GOP leaders made the effort to reshape DENR and the state’s approach to regulation a key part of their legislative agenda. Finding GOP allies to protect the environment, Hackney said, has become much more difficult.
On the homepage: N.C.Division of Environment and Natural Resources photo.
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ken says:
Typical one-sided report, the outer banks voice is turning into a haven for liberalism.
The current environmental rules and regulations are so stifling now, that our freedoms have been greatly reduced. I hope the current legislature continues to purge the government of their over-reach into our personal and public property rights!
chaser says:
Mittens best way to create jobs…pollute more! And hope his magic underwear doesnt fail him.
ComfortablyBum says:
Ken,
Accusing people of being one sided then issuing a broad label to a whole website based on one editorial is far more narrow minded than this article was.
They cite facts and bills. You spout rhetorical talking points. And offer up only hollow mantras chanted by your side. Who is being more partisan? Why don’t you debate the actual issues in the article instead of dismissing everything they said on the merits that they are in a different party?
In case you didn’t notice people have differences of opinions on a lot of things, and the proper way to sort them out is to talk about them like adults and debate the issues. Now our politics has devolved into childish taunts and name calling. Our country was founded on compromises, and will cease to function if everyone refuses to work with those they disagree with.
Yes there are some environmental regulations that seem excessive, but there are plenty that need to be strengthen even more. Pollution is an example of an externalized cost. It is a way for people to pass on their clean up costs onto the other citizens. Making someone clean up the mess they make is not burdensome regulation that raises the price of products. It is merely shifting the cost to those responsible for creating it. If that makes the price go up then good. That makes the consumer pay for the price as well.
If you want to talk about taking away freedoms I would point out that an oil spill would take away my freedom to use the beach. I already can’t eat tuna every day because of the mercury from Coal. When sound side beach accesses are closed due to elevated levels of pollution, my freedom to use that beach are impinged upon. If I own a well and my neighbor installs their septic field wrong, then he has messed with my rights. If my child has asthma and a factory releases particulates into the air, then my child will be hospitalized. So stop acting like the polluters are the victims. Do you tell the cop that writes tourist a littering ticket that he is attacking their freedom to have a fun day at the beach because he makes them pick up their trash?
Beach Bouy says:
Ken, like most conservatives, has his head stuck so far up his a$$ that he can’t see what lousy stewards of the environment we’ve been in the past century. He, like many of his conservative counterparts, don’t have the foresight to see the long term damage politically conservative policies on the environment will have on our health, our recreation, or even the quality of life our grandchildren will enjoy. In fact, I hate to even use the term “conservative”, because there is nothing ecologically conservative about typical republican environmental policy. They don’t care about the future. They only care about their own selfish interests, the short term considerations that affect *their* experience, with little or no regard for what comes after. People like Ken disgust me.
nags head bob says:
Way to prove Kens point. Good job guys!
Prince of Peeps says:
I tend to agree with Ken. The Voice loves publishing one-sided Coastal Review articles (there have been several, Bum, not just this one,) but I haven’t seen any supporting the other side of the issue.
Beach Bouy says:
What’s too support??? Any policy that doesn’t consider the impact on the environment and seek to sufficiently protect it, especially in coastal areas where the ecology is so sensitive to human impact, is simply irresponsible and indefensible.
KDHgal says:
Failing grade doesn’t even begin to describe the fallout from these disastrous bills.
I’m so overwhelmed reading this article that I am speechless at the lack of integrity and common sense coming from the Republicans in the State Legislature.
Money has screamed again!
Prince of Peeps says:
KDHgal, it’s because you read and believe these one-sided, biased reports that you are overwhelmed. Listening to a steady diet of liberal doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world hysteria would leave anyone with the opinion that Republicans lack integrity and common sense. “Republicans want dirty air and dirty water, they want to starve your children, and push granny in her wheelchair over a cliff. Republicans are evil moneygrubbers.” If you are that cynical to believe that kind of crap about your neighbors, without any basis, you’re hopeless. It is the Republicans who are using common sense in this case, instead of listening to the Chicken Little hysteria screaming, “We gotta do something, and we gotta do it right now!”
Do a little research, and you’ll find out that the push behind environmentalism isn’t about the environment. It’s simply a tool to control the people. The picture they paint of the end of the world if we don’t do what they say is particularly designed to scare us into compliance. Question is, do you want to listen to Chicken Little, or do you want to find out the truth? The problem is that Chicken Little is really a wolf in chicken’s clothing. The price you will pay will be your life and liberty.
Beach Bouy says:
KDHgal, Prince of Pinheads is obviously a misguided fool who feeds his ill-informed soul on a steady diet of intellectually deprived conservative talk shows. No doubt, he believes everything Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh and FOX News wants him to believe. Yet, he accuses you of reading liberal doom-and-gloom environmental conspiracy terrorists reports and insists that liberals want to control the people. HA! What the hell do the republicans want? They want to control the liberals so they can rape the planet until there is nothing left to rape, or sustain future generations, for that matter.
Prince of Pinheads probably doesn’t believe the President is a U.S. citizen, either. You can’t reason with unreasonable people. Conservatism is a brain disorder. Sufferers can’t help thinking the way they do, especially when they never watch anything on tv except Fox News.
No amount of legitimate fact is good enough for them. Anything contrary to what they think is a liberal conspiracy. They are so paranoid about the truth that they pass legislation to hide and ignore the truth.
Like yourself, I am stunned by the lack of integrity and common sense exhibited by the State Legislature with the passing of recent bills.
But, i don’t think it’s money. I think it is sheer conservative stupidity.
Nags Head Bob says:
Give it up peeps. They are lost.
ekim says:
Comfortably DUMB! you an your mambe pambe LIBERAL LIES are DONE. This AWESOME COUNTRY IS GONA KICK YOUR WHINING ASSES!!!!!!
Beach Bouy says:
There’s a conservative response. Is it any wonder why conservative leadership is a threat to civilized society?
Prince of Peeps says:
Beach Bouy: ekim is just trying to speak your language. All you libs have is name calling. You never argue the issues. You can’t, because you would lose.
ekimmm says:
Nice try BeachBoy, This great country has let you mama boys do to much against this great place, You have done nuthing but Wussafi this country the gig is up, Get over IT!!!!! WE ARE GOING TO PUT THIS GREAT NATION ON TOP AGAIN!!!!
James says:
Oh wait, I forgot, all of us who want clean air and water are really being controlled by a UN conspiracy called Agenda 21, right? Take off your aluminum foil hat and join the rest of us in the real world. There is no conspiracy, just sensible people.
Ekim, you may pretend to be a tough, working class type. But when they start fracking next door to your water supply and you get cancer, I’m sure you’ll cry just like anyone else. Take your lame wannabe drill sergeant act somewhere else.
Comfortably Bum, you make good points. Pollution is an externality and those responsible should be held responsible. Simple as that. Any free-market conservative should agree with that fundamental point.
Bill says:
Yea, with peeps and ekim. Screw the future, lets take care of ourselves NOW and deregulate everything! Heck, we will all be dead by the time we have to worry about it anyway. As as for our kids and future generations, they will figure out a way to deal with the problems caused by our actions today.
Yea, lets get this GREAT NATION on the track to FREEDOM lead by our corporate leaders who will be our stewards and do the RIGHT thing. I have completely faith in the ability of free market competition when it comes to large industrial enterprise!
PS: Peeps and ekim, you with me?!
simpleman says:
DENR’s power to help keep North Carolina clean and green.Is being over powered by the UN mission on global climate change.Through geo engineering.The air you breathe in Eastern NC.Is being polluted through the solar radiation management program.In an effort to reflect 30% of the sun’s rays back in space.Our environment and our health will pay the nasty price of this.And weather manipulation through the HAARP program will effect us all.Check out http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org for more info.Or google chemtrails.
Prince of Peeps says:
Such a display of cockiness, while being totally ignorant of the facts. “Never argue with fools….”
Beth Gordon says:
SIMPLE SOLUTION: JUST VOTE GOD BACK INTO OUR COUNTRY AND SUPPORT OUR CONSTITUTION…..WE HAVE ALL BEEN BRAINWASHED AND BLACKMAILED BY TRAITORS TRYING TO TURN THE U.S.A. INTO A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY…..THANK GOODNESS & GOD, “WE THE PEOPLE” ARE WAKING UP….SOME ARE JUST A LITTLE SLOWER THAN OTHERS!
ken says:
It’s worthless to argue with these brainwashed liberal idiots, who would rather believe unproven theory versus common sense!!
first great scientific theory, The world is flat, and liberal “Sheeple” believed it to be true. since then we’ve had the Theory of evolution, Big Bang theory etc.. all unproven but believed by idiots.
in 1987 US News and World report wrote an article that Oceanographers disagreed with the Greenhouse effect, saying in short; that if you heat the world and the ocean temps rise that will create evaporation, leading to cloud cover, that in turn will block the sun and cool the earth.
The leading proponent of the Greenhouse effect, at the time, was quoted 12 years prior that we were entering a new Ice Age.
The article also pointed out that, if there are no issues then funding from the government dries up, and so do their jobs.
You want Facts, Beach Buoy KDH Gal, and all you other you other followers, I prefer to call you “Intellectual Idiots” I just gave it to you. It’s all about soaking money out of us! Take your worthless Sheeple degrees, that taught you how to believe in anything, but common sense, and stick it in your @3$
Prince of Peeps says:
Dittos, Beth.
Ken, you are right that it is useless to argue with these people. 1) They are ignorant and have nothing to add to the conversation, because they know nothing. They wish to remain ignorant because it is easier for them. 2) They don’t care about the truth. Facts mean nothing to them. You could print 10 pages of facts, and they wouldn’t believe any of it. 3) They are indeed “sheeple,” and care nothing about their rights or their liberties, so long as their precious government takes care of them womb-to-the-tomb. 4) They are “yellow dogs,” here only for the sport of taking malicious potshots at Republicans and conservatives. Calling people names is their game. Their juvenile claims against us are so utterly ridiculous and obviously untrue, they should be ignored.
Prince of Peeps says:
The reason these people are raising such a hue and cry, not just posting here, but across the state and across the nation, is because they are losing and they know they are losing. Americans everywhere are waking up to the monstrous snow job the progressives have put on us. This is their last ditch effort to try to keep it all from unraveling. The internet, talk radio, and cable TV is bringing down their house of cards. Their boisterous squeal-like-a-stuck-pig attacks, hurling insults and vitriol at us, are all they have left. (One day when they understand what their liberal masters are doing to them, they will realize they are squealing like a pig as in the movie DELIVERANCE.)
simpleman says:
I see they removed my comment.On the truth of climate change and global warming…..Freedom of speech…not anymore in this country.
Beach Bouy says:
You conservative nut jobs are so self-righteous, yet void of any real substance to justify your position. You spout rhetoric with no factual references to back up what you claim to be a conspiracy to enslave you. You think any effort toward acting in good stewardship toward the planet that sustains us is an act of treason. You somehow believe that your backwards thinking conservative views that you learn from listening to too much conservative talk radio makes you intellectual. You don’t even read the material you talk about. You simply parrot what you hear from Rush or Shawn, because you haven’t got the brains to do your own research. To you, anyone capable of foresight and long term thinking is insane because you lack any foresight of that kind and can only comprehend what’s happening in your world right now. Conservatives are idiots. What good are rights and liberties if the world is so toxic or so poorly managed that you can’t even step outside to enjoy them? How do I know you’re a Limbaugh looney/Shawn pawn? Because that’s where you got the idea that liberals somehow want to alienate you from all your American freedoms and liberties. Well, I’m an American, I’m a progressive, and I have to desire or intention of giving up my unalienable, constitutional rights any more than you do. At least, not the ones I have left after 8 years of George Bush, who can’t even read the f**king constituion!
Prince of Peeps says:
Well, if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black! Beach Bouy, I wasn’t going to respond to you, because your bile laden ranting doesn’t deserve recognition, but against my better judgement, I’m going to reply, using your own words to point out your hypocrisy for one thing, and also for the benefit of anyone else who may be reading this.
You are the picture of someone “self-righteous, void of any real substance to justify your position.” All you do is revile conservatives using derogatory names and lies, but you have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion of the topic. “(Y)ou haven’t got the brains to do your own research.” As for me, if you have followed any of the comment strings on this site regarding environmental issues, you will have seen numerous posts by me, with many links to articles backing up what I say. From you — nothing. So who is “spout(ing) rhetoric with no factual references to back up what you claim?” Your verbal attacks describe and condemn yourself.
Then typical of liberals, unable to justify your argument, you resort to name calling and insults. It’s all you have. You can’t win a losing argument.
In spite of your patriotic assertions, anyone who adopts a progressive position is undermining the Constitution, or is a dupe who doesn’t know what Progressivism is, and what it’s goals are. Here’s just one tiny example. I’m sure that you have heard of Agenda 21, but I bet you’ve never read their charter, what their global goals are, and how they intend to bring them about. I’m sure that because the clarion call was put out by conservatives, you automatically discounted their validity. Well tell me this, Mr. Smarty Pants, are you for herding all people into cities to live in high density housing, where all our daily needs will be within walking distance? No more need for automobiles, so air pollution goes way down. Housing is much cheaper. Does that sound like a good idea to you? I bet it does — until I tell you that this isn’t voluntary, it’s mandatory! Say bye-bye to the OBX. Rural areas and suburbs will be returned to wilderness to maintain the environment. Owning and living on private property is too expensive. Doesn’t meet economic sustainability requirements. (The havoc they will wreak on the economy will force a lot of cost cutting and a much lower standard of living.) Cars and trucks will be replaced by high speed rail and public transportation. People won’t even be allowed to own cars. Personal property rights are anathema to these Progressives. So if you support this, seems your love for constitutional liberty isn’t very sincere. You’ve given up your choice of where to live, what you can own, and when and where you can go. And this is just one thing of hundreds on their march toward world domination and a one-world government. Their three-pronged attack on freedom is societal, economic, and environmental. All three are tools to control the people. By stealth, they already have hundreds of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) insinuated into all aspects of our lives, supposedly to help guide us toward sustainability. A third of the world is already Communist, another third strongly socialistic, and the rest are moving in that direction. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to move from President Obama to Chairman Obama?
You may think this sounds ridiculous. Are you willing to stake your future and your freedom on it? Don’t take my word for it. Look up UN Agenda 21, sustainability, and a host of other nice sounding terms they use to cover their real goals. “The truth is out there.” But you won’t. You will be true to your self-projection noted in your ranting post above. “You don’t even read the material you talk about.” You take more pleasure in being a naughty Buoy, giggling at your own obstreperous wit. You, Beach Bouy, are what is known as a “useful idiot,” (a term supposedly coined by Lenin. Look it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot It fits you to a T.)The question is, will the rest of the free world put up with it?
Nags Head Bob says:
Bush is still president? Wow. Progressives are about four years behind ….
Nags Head Bob says:
It’s OK. A lot of us want to forget these last four years.
KDHgal says:
Beach Bouy and James….there is no sense in arguing with people like Prince of Peeps and ekim. When you go back and read their comments, what they have accused us of is like reading the truth about themselves.
Here is a link to an excellent article about being ‘positively mistaken’ and why it does no good to try to change anyone’s mind with facts. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
This link is a comment on the first article. http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/facts_we_dont_need_your_stinking_facts_why_rightwing/
We can’t fathom their thinking… even though I have really made an effort to do so…and we can only hope we prevail.
Rick says:
What’s the matter with people? They vote these idiots into office who gut our regulations that protect our health. Maybe if we returned to the pollution of the 1950′s and 60′s then voters would realize the need to throw these people out of office and enact meaningful regs.
simpleman says:
Take a look at what main stream media is not telling you.Both current runners for president are being pushed by the u.n. to help establish a global or world government.Ran by big corporations and big money.Agenda 21 is no joke.Case in point,on fracking.State and local governments cannot stop company’s from fracking anymore.Federal law now prohibits that.That means your drinking water will get contaminated.Sorry RO systems can not remove everything.Through an earthquake in their too.The machine they use now to detect deep pockets of gas.Cause earth quakes within 3 mins.Thats by the guy who invented it.Main stream media is a soap opera now.Not news ,just a little of what they want you to know.This country will be operated by a global government in the future.You are not free,you just think so.