DEQ Nominee Disapproved by Senate Committee — What Now?
June 2, 2021 — After a month long delay, the Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee voted along party lines today to disapprove Governor Cooper’s nominee to be Secretary of the...
View ArticlePipelines
June 4, 2021. The NC. Senate voted yesterday to disapprove the nomination of Dionne Delli-Gatti as Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Republican Senators continued to tie the...
View ArticleU.S. Supreme Court v. EPA Climate Rule
July 12, 2022 — On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision striking down an Obama era rule regulating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing power plants. The decision in West Virginia...
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Climate Choices Part I — N.C. and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
January 4, 2023. By coincidence rather than design, two different approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector have been under discussion by North Carolina agencies...
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Climate Choices Part II — Session Law 2021-165 (Carbon Reduction Plan)
January 22, 2023. A 2021 North Carolina law requires the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) to “take all reasonable steps” to achieve a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electric...
View ArticleState Law: Removing Wetlands from “Waters of the State”
June 7, 2023 — In an unfortunate sequence of events, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a decision significantly limiting federal Clean Water Act regulation of wetlands just as the N.C. General...
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Wetlands Protection Update
October 30, 2023. An earlier post described the interaction of new state limits on wetlands protection and a U.S. Supreme Court decision reducing federal Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction over...
View ArticleN.C. Water Quality Legislation (2023)
December 14, 2023. Having regained a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, the N.C. General Assembly returned to a very aggressive effort to influence environmental rules in 2023. The annual...
View ArticleOther 2023 N.C. Environmental Legislation
December 19, 2023. The previous post covered significant water quality legislation enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2023. This post briefly summarizes other 2023 environmental...
View ArticleObstructing Environmental Standards
January 26, 2024. In North Carolina, adopting a new state rule involves many steps and multiple levels of review. But the rulemaking process has recently obstructed a water quality standard in ways not...
View ArticleGroundwater Standards for PFAS — Public Health and Regulatory Relief
July 11, 2024. Yesterday, the Environmental Management Commission’s Groundwater and Waste Management Committee voted to recommend against moving forward with groundwater standards for five of eight per...
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