NC legislature votes to loosen environmental rules
The North Carolina General Assembly on Friday passed 46 pages of changes to the state’s water protection, fishing, food inspection, construction and state procurement laws.
House Bill 600 is the General Assembly’s near-annual regulatory reform bill — a grab bag of changes backed by the chamber’s Republican majority as a common sense way to help keep the state’s strong business climate humming.
Democrats complained that the bill sacrifices water quality. State Rep. Deb. Butler, D-New Hanover, called the measure “yet another loss for North Carolina’s natural environment.”
The measure passed the House late Thursday 72-38, with eight Democrats joining the Republican majority in supporting the bill. One Republican member voted against.
The Senate followed up Friday with a 25-16 party-line vote to finalize the bill and send it to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who can sign it into law or veto it. Cooper's office did not immediately announce a position on the bill. The governor typically takes time to review final legislation before doing so.
The Southern Environmental Law Center said the bill would violate federal civil rights law by ordering the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to issue water quality permits without factoring in those federal rules, protecting “polluters at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The SELC also said the bill would rubber stamp the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate pipeline, a line planned to transport shale gas into Alamance County. The bill also gives poultry farmers more leeway to compost animals who die off en mass without oversight from the Department of Environmental Quality.
Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a long-time advocate for the state’s agricultural industry, argued farmers can be trusted to protect the land and water.
“The overwhelming majority of the family farmers engaged in livestock operations, it’s a place where they raise their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren,” said Dixon, R-Duplin.
