Mixed messages
Published May 28, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, May 28, 2014.
State Senate Republicans’ latest regulatory reform bill is full of contradictions.
It requires carbon monoxide alarms in lodging establishments and raises fines for taking protected plants and illegally parking in handicapped places — good.
It also bars the state’s Division of Air Quality from conducting tests that aren’t required by federal law. If this reflects the notion that what we don’t know won’t hurt us, it’s a flawed idea.
The division already had set up an air-monitoring station in Lee County in anticipation of fracking operations there. Testing air quality before and after would help determine the impact of natural gas drilling. The Senate has other ideas.
That’s one provision in the 62-page bill that should come out before final approval scheduled for today. Gov. Pat McCrory should defend his administration’s ability to protect the state’s air quality. This Senate proposal has no merit from an environmental standpoint.
Another section of the bill is more complex. It would grant limited immunity from penalties to companies that conduct their own environmental audits and report violations to state agencies. Democratic Sen. Josh Stein of Raleigh called this a “get out of jail free” card, allowing polluters to break the rules and escape punishment by ’fessing up.
Sen. Trudy Wade of Greensboro, one of the bill’s Republican sponsors, called it a common-sense approach to encourage compliance. It’s necessary because the state can’t field enough regulators to catch all violations, she said. Since the legislature has cut funding for regulatory agencies, she’s right about that.
A summary sheet given to senators to explain the bill said this provision was requested by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Not so, a DENR spokesman told the Associated Press.
Its most troubling feature assures confidentiality when polluters report their own violations. That denies the public’s right to know when environmental regulations are broken. It’s also impossible to tell how this immunity provision is working if information about it is kept secret.
Otherwise, it requires some reasonable conditions before immunity is granted. The disclosure must be truly voluntary and not an effort to dodge accountability. The violation cannot be willful. It can’t pose a significant threat to public health or the environment. It must be fixed.
Its real purpose may have more to do with easing enforcement than protecting the environment. In any case, it would work more effectively if the legislature boosted funding for state regulatory agencies. Voluntary disclosure is less likely in a weak regulatory environment.
Overall, the bill is a mixed bag. It eliminates some outdated and unnecessary rules. It adds some needed new regulations. It imposes a perplexing hands-off approach to air-quality monitoring.
Its total impact isn’t clear because many of its provisions appeared suddenly last week and didn’t get much scrutiny.
A closer look is needed now. If that doesn’t happen in the Senate, then the House and governor’s office should make sure this bill does less harm than good.
May 29, 2014 at 9:50 am
Norm Kelly says:
'In any case, it would work more effectively if the legislature boosted funding for state regulatory agencies. Voluntary disclosure is less likely in a weak regulatory environment.'
Let's see how this has played out in the past. One thing is true: history is a good indicator of future events. Anyone who is not aware of the past, has no knowledge of the past, is doomed to repeat it. Whether that past is good or bad, unless you learn from the past, you will make the same choices.
When the Demon party ran Raleigh, did they fully fund regulatory agencies? When the Demon party ran Raleigh, did they accept voluntary disclosure at all, or would they prosecute the offender to the fullest extent knowing that regulators hadn't caught the violation?
Let's look at the Duke coal ash spill. How long did this environmental disaster exist, how long was it known about before it caused an issue? How well funded were the regulating departments, people paid to protect citizens AND the environment, when they were controlled & funded by the Demons? Did the Demons spend sufficient money on the regulators? I've seen nothing in ANY editorial complaining about funding (of anything for that matter!) when the demons were in charge. So we can only assume that funding was at appropriate levels during the entire tenure of the demons and the budgets were only cut once the Republicans took control. So, with this being obvious, why is it that the regulators knowingly let the coal ash ponds exist? Why did the regulators allow the coal ash ponds to exist so close to fresh water supplies? Why did the fully funded regulators turn a blind eye? What were the demons in Raleigh doing, who were they doing it with, that they didn't force the regulators to do their job? Who was being paid to ignore the situation?
The media, used-to-be-news outlets, and demons are screaming at the top of their lungs that Pat McCrory is guilty as h-ll because he used to work for Duke Energy and therefore he KNEW that the coal ash ponds were an environmental disaster but he CHOSE to do nothing about it. What do the FACTS show? The general public has no idea what the facts are because the demons and their allies in the media, libs in general, are keeping the truth from them. Ask the average citizen when the coal ash problem started and the normal answer would be that it didn't start until McCrory was inaugurated. Ask the average citizen who controlled Raleigh when the coal ash disaster was being created and the average answer, perhaps majority answer, would be that the problem has only existed since Republicans were elected to the majority in the legislature. The average person probably believes, as this editorialist does, that only with full funding of regulatory agencies will disasters like this be avoided in the future.
Sad that so many people know so much about Survivor and Idol, but so little about what impacts their every day life. Demons insist on spending more, taxing more, doing less, and the sheeple don't even know it. It's unfortunate that so many reality TV watchers believe the demon party is out to protect THEM. The truth is that the demon party is out to protect itself. The truth is that the truth will be ignored if it doesn't HELP the demon party. And the average, perhaps majority, media outlet is willing to let the demons slide. Because they are allies? Why is it that this editorialist insists on not providing full information about full funding and how it hasn't worked in the past? Does more money solve the problem or does it just make libs feel good? We all know that everything always comes down to feelings for libs. So long as they throw enough money at the problem, they consider the problem solved. It doesn't have to be, so long as a majority of sheeple believe libs when their lips move, the libs in power are content. Which makes the average sheeple content. Nothing was necessarily done, but feelings are doing ok, so no one can or should complain. Withhold information about prior funding, lack of actual oversight, and simply blame the Republicans, so demons can get power back. Not solve anything, not make anything better, but get power.
