Big changes, big hurry

Published April 27, 2015

by Doug Clark, Off the Record, Greensboro News-Record, April 24, 2015.

How fast is major legislation moving in the General Assembly right now?

The N&O provides a good example.

House Bill 795 was introduced April 14. It was given a "hearing" in the Environment Committee yesterday.

"With little discussion and no study of the potential consequences, state legislators are looking to gut an environmental protection law that has been on the books since 1971," the N&O's Craig Jarvis reports.

"The law is meant to ensure that when state or local government agencies spend tax dollars on major projects, there is public input, all the possible impacts are considered and alternatives are evaluated. The bill’s sponsors say the State Environmental Policy Act is outdated and that any benefits are outweighed by unnecessary costs for taxpayers."

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, now dedicated to "environmental assistance and customer service," says the act applies when a project "has a potential detrimental environmental effect upon natural resources, public health and safety, natural beauty, or historical or cultural elements, of the state's common inheritance."

Maybe all that does incur unnecessary costs. But that's the opinion of politicians. You'd think overhauling a 44-year-old law would warrant some study. What do the professionals say?

At yesterday's hearing, the N&O reports, "Lawmakers had questions for officials from the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. But staff members who attended a committee hearing said they hadn’t analyzed the bill."

Who had time?

Was there any opposition? Yes, Molly Diggins, the state director of the Sierra Club.

"The only opponent allowed to speak, Diggins, who said she was also speaking for the Environmental Defense Fund and the N.C. Wildlife Federation, was given one minute and then cut off when she went over the allotted time."

So let's see: No testimony from DENR professionals. One minute from opponents.

The committee approved the bill in a "split voice vote," Jarvis wrote.

April 27, 2015 at 10:23 am
Richard L Bunce says:

You fatal flaw is in assuming that because government is attempting to do something such as protect the environment that the government bureaucrats responsible actually succeed and not just waste a lot of time and money. Our little Town started a wastewater project and it was terribly flawed. I contacted the relevant State agency and enumerated it's many flaws. This agency it turns out is not in the business of stopping these projects no matter how flawed they might be but have only one goal, to move the project forward. I suspect they see it as a bureaucracy funding issue, they don't get paid to stop projects.