[Durham INC] FW: Legislative Update

Fri May 20 17:26:06 EDT 2011

Note the progress of the billboard bill.  Regards, pat

Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 15:36:09 -0400
From: will.morgan at sierraclub.org
Subject: Legislative Update
To: NC-CONS-FORUM at LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG

Friends,
Here's a look at the week ahead and a recap of this week's action:
The Week Ahead

Regulatory Reform Committee Continues to Meet:  Last Wednesday the Joint Regulatory Reform Committee met for the second time since the conclusion of the public hearings.  The committee started off by passing out a document (see attachment) that categorizes the public comments that were received.  Overall there were 340 comments in "support" of regulatory reform, and 734 opposing regulatory reform.  However, as you will see on the document, in an effort to skew the results the committee subtracted from the totals any "form letters", bringing the new total to 344 in support of reform and 167 opposed to reform.  One other interesting note is that of the 344 comments supporting reform, 162 of them related to legalizing raw milk or marijuana.  After presenting the document, the remainder of the committee meeting was spent by committee members firing questions at DENR Assistant Secretary Robin Smith about what they perceive as problems with DENR.  At the end of the meeting. committee chair Senator David Rouzer announced that next week the committee will reveal an "outline" of the regulatory reforms they plan to pursue.  The committee will likely meet next Wednesday.

Billboards Bill Continues Slow Journey Through Senate: Last week Senator Harry Brown's (R-Onslow) billboard bill (S183) was in the Senate Finance committee yet again.  Although Senator Brown continued to insist that the bill was a final compromise, committee members criticized the bill and proposed amendments.  Senator Brown wouldn't entertain any amendments during the committee meeting, but agreed to continue to work with interested parties before the bill appears on the Senate floor.  After Brown agreed to work on additional amendments, the committee voted to pass the bill out of committee.  At this point it is unclear whether the bill will return to the committee for additional amendments, or if any additional amendments would be added on the Senate floor.

Fracking Study Bill in House Finance: H242 - The Fracking Study Bill sponsored by Representatives Mitch Gillespie (R-McDowell) and Mike Stone (R-Lee) will likely be in the House Finance Committee this week.  As a reminder, this bill was in the House Environment Committee over a month ago.  The bill is overall a good bill that directs DENR to study the potential impacts of fracking in North Carolina.  The NC Sierra Club and other environmental groups submitted comments to the bill sponsors for additional items to be included in the study, and the bill sponsors have told us that most of those suggestions have been incorporated into a new version of the study bill that will be in the House Finance Committee this week.

Senate Budget Revealed:  The Senate is expected to roll out its version of the state budget early Tuesday morning.  The budget likely be voted out of sub-committees early in the week, voted on by the full Senate Appropriations Committee later in the week, and finally voted on by the full Senate the following week.  

Recap of Last week
Trilogy of Water Bills in House Environment:  Yesterday the House Environment Committee took up three different bills relating to water quantity.  At the start of the meeting, committee chair Ruth Samuelson (R-Mecklenburg) told the committee that the three bills were all related, and she hoped they would move as a package.  Representative Chuck McGrady (R-Henderson), a sponsor of 2 out of the 3 bills, began his presentation of the bills with an explanation of how the bills related to each other, and urged the committee to move the three bills as a package.  The first bill, H609 - Promote Water Supply Development, was explained as a bill aimed at streamlining the permitting process for building new reservoirs, a process which committee members said can take up t o 10 years.  The committee voted unanimously to pass this bill.  The second bill,  H586 - Enhance Water Supply Funding, which allows water from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to be used to acquire land for reservoirs also easily passed out of committee.  The third a final bill, strongly supported by the environmental community, was H787 - The NC Water Efficiency Act.  Unfortunately this bill did not pass the committee as easily as the first two.  Representative Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) expressed concern that the bill would place additional burdens on local governments, and said he would not be voting for the bill.  This sparked a discussion among the committee about various provisions of the bill, which lead to bill sponsors Rep. McGrady and Rep. Samuelson agreeing to displace the bill until a later date so that any issues could be worked out.  Rep. Samuelson did state that the first two bills would not be voted on by the full House until H787 passed so that the three bills could continue to move through the legislature as a package.

Bill Allowing Burning of Whole Trees Passes the Senate:  On Wednesday the Senate voted to pass S279 - Clarify Renewable Energy Resource Definition.  The state's renewable energy portfolio standard currently allows companies to burn "wood waste" to produce energy.  Until now, there has been controversy over whether that means companies are allowed to burn whole trees as part of this process.  This bill would clarify that burning whole trees does qualify as renewable energy under the state's renewable energy portfolio standard.  The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 47-2, and you can view the votes here.

Terminal Groins Conference Committee Meets, Unable to Reach Agreement:  The special Terminal Groins Conference Committee met for the first time this week, but according to this article they were unable to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of S110.

-- 
Will Morgan
Director of Government Relations
North Carolina Sierra Club 
112 South Blount Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Office: 919-833-8467

Cell: 336-707-9019 

will.morgan at sierraclub.org
http://www.nc.sierraclub.org

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