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North Carolina’s Republican majority in the state legislature found enough Democratic votes to override eight of 14 bills previously vetoed by Gov. Josh Stein. 

Two of those bills will impact the environment, public health and climate change and cement a future powered by fossil fuels.

House Bill 402 (also known as the REINS Act) will slow down or even stop creation and enforcement of any government regulations.

Senate Bill 266 is a re-write of state energy policy that exempts Duke Energy from the climate-change goals it agreed to four years ago, allows the company to charge customers for future power plants that aren’t yet built, and changes the formula used to determine power bills. 

According to Stein, the new formula will decrease energy costs to industry and big businesses and pass those costs on to families, raising residential energy rates.

Three Democrats voted with the Republican majority on SB 266: Carla Cunningham (D – Mecklenburg), Nasif Maheed (D – Mecklenburg) and Shelly Willingham (D – Bertie, Edgecombe, Martin). Cunningham and Willingham also voted with the majority on HB 402.

“These officials that were elected on the promise of environmental protection and community protection have failed us,” said Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop. “I encourage North Carolinians to contact these folks, and let them know that this is a betrayal of our shared values of clean water, a stable climate and healthy communities.”

House Bill 402

Read Sound River’s previous article about HB 402.

“The passing of this bill means that protection of public health and our natural resources is likely to be sacrificed until this is overturned. It just smacks of giving more power to big industry and big polluters,” Heather said. “This is something we will have to prioritize to overturn in future years, because this is a nonworkable way to run government.”

It’s not just the Environmental Management Commission that will be impacted — all rulemaking bodies will be subject to the law that creates new requirements of the commissions: if any rule costs the state more than $1 million over a five-year period, two-thirds of the relevant commission must approve its implementation. If the cost is more than $10 million over five years, approval must be unanimous, and if costs exceed more than $20 million over five years, it must be approved by the state legislature. 

According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, rules dealing with emerging contaminants such as PFAS or 1,4-dioxane — toxic chemicals that have affected water supplies across the state — are likely to surpass these thresholds.

Heather also pointed out that since HB 402 removes the cost/benefit analysis of a given rule, fiscal analysis will be tasked to state staff, creating an additional burden on already underfunded departments, and slowing down the process even more.

“This is a layer of extra work with no funding for extra staff to do it,” Heather said.  

The bill will impact a wide range of future attempts to make new rules and regulations across government agencies.

“Our government is meant to be able to respond to new information and new threats and new needs — whether for public health, a new contaminant that science uncovers, a new threat caused by climate change — and now it will be very difficult or even impossible to address these things. It’s going to ground rulemaking to a halt,” Heather said. “I think we’ve just made ourselves less safe, less able and nimble to protect the natural resources that most North Carolinians care about.”

Senate Bill 266

The Power Bill Reduction Act, SB 266, will raise energy costs for residential customers, allow utilities in North Carolina to charge customers up front for funding methane gas and nuclear plants that have yet to be built and releases Duke Energy from reaching 2030 carbon emissions goals, which the company agreed to just four years ago. 

In 2021, the NC General Assembly and the Governor reached a bipartisan agreement to establish the first carbon emissions reduction goals for the electricity sector by a state in the southeast. This agreement was enacted into law as House Bill 951: Energy Solutions for North Carolina (HB 951).

SB 266 was heavily supported by Duke Energy.

“It essentially throws our climate goals in the trash, by eliminating North Carolina’s goal of 70% emissions reductions by 2030, shifting the burden of cost from industry to residents, and locking us into a future of runaway climate change by pre-emptively charging us for new fossil fuel facilities,” said Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop. “This will not only raise costs, but make us even more vulnerable to climate change. We’re on the heels of two devastating floods — Helene and Chantal — in the past 12 months, and more extreme storms causing flooding. We see the negative side of climate change every year, yet we keep kicking the can down the road even though the solutions are right in front of us.”

“I think it’s just really bad news.”

“We’re going to have to organize more on the local and statewide level around climate action that can combat this catastrophic policy,” she added.

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