[Durham INC] Some dangerous ideas in the legislature

[Pat Carstensen]

The General Assembly in Raleigh is just full of bad ideas.  These are the environmental bills the Sierra Club is following this week.  I put in larger print what I see as the neighborhood implications of these bills.  


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 S17: Joint Regulatory Reform Committee: Last week I [Sierra Club lobbyist Will Martin] told you that the Senate had filed a resolution to set up a Joint Regulatory Reform Committee tasked with identifying burdensome regulation that could be eliminated in order to "create a strong environment for private sector job creation".  While the committee is technically set up to review all types of regulations, we suspected that it was primarily aimed at environmental regulations.  The resolution's primary sponsor Senator David Rouzer confirmed that suspicion in an interview this week when he said that the committee was formed to respond to consitutent complaints about regulations, of which "9 out of 10" are environmental.  This week the Senate passed the resolution with only one minor change, which was to increase the number of committee members from 16 to 18.  The resolution has now moved to the House, where it has been assigned to the Rules committee. 
No-one has seen the list of regulations they would throw out, but this could really harm the quality of our air and water.  The "job creation" will probably end up being how to clean up the mess created by lack of regulation.

 S22: APA Rules: Increasing Costs Prohibition : With the ball rolling on their committee to get rid of existing regulations, the Senate also moved to stop any new regulations.  S22, which prohibits  (with a few narrow exceptions) any new rule that would increase costs by even $1 without any consideration of the benefits of the rule, was considered by the Senate environment committee on Tuesday, and came to the Senate floor for a vote on Wednesday.  On the Senate floor Senator Bob Atwater offered an amendment to put an expiration date of January 2013 on the bill's moratorium.  Surprisingly the bill's sponsor David Rouzer agreed to the amendment, and the Senate voted to pass the bill and the amendment by a vote of 49-1.  The bill will move to the House next week, where we hope to have it significantly amended.
Even where the exceptions would allow regulations (for example, the health and safety exception would probably let us regulate new drugs like "spice" even tho those regulations would cost the dealers money), the regulations would probably get delayed with all kinds of legal appeals.

 H45/S48: Accelerate Cleanup of Industrial Properties: H45 is the most recent version of the same risk assessment bill we have seen and defeated several times over the past several years.  Some version of the bill is almost certain to pass this year, with the new leadership in both houses. Under our state’s current groundwater cleanup policies, responsible parties are required to clean up contaminated sites to unrestricted use standards – meaning that anything from a playground to an industrial plant can locate on the site and be assured of safe groundwater. H45 proposes to change current policies by allowing cleanup according to the anticipated future use of a site, rather than unrestricted future use.  Industrial applicants would have to submit a plan to clean up groundwater to an agreed upon level; land use of the site would be restricted.  The bill was heard in the House environment committee on Thursday morning.  While most of chairs of other committees have so far not allowed public comments on bills and have forced same day votes, House environment chair Ruth Samuelson (Republican, Mecklenburg) insisted on public comments, including one from Molly.  Molly told the committee that while we still stand by our belief that the state should not switch to a risk-based system, we believe that this version of the bill is by far the most responsible version we've ever seen and therefore the environmental groups in Raleigh who have been tracking the bill have decided we will not formally oppose the bill. The bill will be taken up by the House environment committee again next week when it will likely pass.


As we have found with the dry cleaning issue in Durham, pollution doesn't stay under one property.  Not to mention there tends to be a lot of "I forgot" about promises made about never using a property for anything where the remaining pollution would be an issue.  Plus if passed, Durham would have to bear the costs of updating the UDO and monitoring for compliance, including any incompatible accessory uses (like cafeterias and day care centers in industrial areas)

 H62/S64: Prohibit Boylston Creek Reclassification:  Like H45, this bill is exactly the same as one that was defeated last year.  Under the federal Clean Water Act, once a body of water meets the criteria for a new classification, the state is required by law to reclassify the stream.  In 2009 the state's Environmental Management Commission followed the requirements of the federal law by reclassifying a stream in western North Carolina to protect documented native trout in the stream.  H62 attempts to override that reclassification, which would not only remove water quality protections, but also violates the state's requirements under the federal Clean Water Act.


This is part of an on-going development story that makes the 751 Assemblage look honorable, and has included the NC Supreme Court saying that damage from the development would be "temporary," which is probably true if you are thinking of geological time-scales.  I think that court decision represents a worrisome new principle in development law: if you whine and wave your wallet, someone will help you out.




Regards, pat

 		 	   		  
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