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The North Carolina General Assembly apparently wasn’t satisfied to hold one December 2016 Special Session. What started as one called session to approve disaster relief funds for victims of Hurricane Matthew and flooding turned into three sessions that included everything from House Bill 2 repeal discussions and limiting incoming Governor Cooper’s authority, to anti-environmental regulatory reform bills.

While the 2016 special sessions were action- packed, luckily no action was taken on the Regulatory Reform bill, and we’ll take that as a win. This bill, as drafted, included more cutbacks to clean water protections. As reported by the NC League of Conservation Voters, House Bill 3 would have made major cutbacks to local stormwater pollution controls and doubled the length of streams that could be destroyed without any mitigation requirement.