Stein vetoes bills on Duke Energy, charter schools, empowering state auditor

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoed three more bills passed recently by the state legislature, saying the proposals will harm privacy, the environment, people's pocketbooks and the state constitution's framework of checks and balances.

The vetoes set up yet more political battles between the Republican-led state legislature and the Democratic governor, who has also vetoed other bills to amp up immigration enforcement and repeal the state's concealed carry rules.

His vetoes Wednesday targeted Senate Bill 266, a series of proposed changes to energy policy; House Bill 549, which would expand the power of Republican state Auditor Dave Boliek to investigate private people, businesses and nonprofits; and Senate Bill 254, proposing changes to charter school oversight.

Spokespeople for House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, responded to requests for comment Wednesday by predicting they had the votes to override Stein's veto of the Duke Energy bill; they made no comment on the other two.

The vetoes of the charter school and auditor bills were expected due to their highly political nature. The energy bill's fate had been less certain. Nearly all energy in North Carolina is provided by Duke Energy. The company and its leaders spend large amounts of money to influence political races in the state, and Duke wields substantial influence on both sides of the aisle. The bill passed the state legislature in a series of contested but ultimately bipartisan votes.

But consumer protection advocates and environmentalists have pressured Stein to veto the bill despite the fact that it passed with veto-proof support in the legislature, and he did.

"This bill guts a critical bipartisan climate target and puts our clean energy progress at risk,” Zach Wallace, Policy Director at Audubon North Carolina, said after Stein announced his veto Wednesday. “A veto was the right move, and we’re ready to work with lawmakers to make sure it stands.”

If it becomes law, SB266 would exempt Duke Energy from needing to meet the carbon-reduction goals that it agreed to just four years ago as part of a separate law. It would also allow the company to charge its North Carolina customers for power plants that have not yet been built.

Supporters say the bill will help keep power bills low in the long run. Critics, including Stein, say it will do the opposite.

"Josh Stein is a Green New Deal Radical," Berger said Wednesday. "His veto of a commonsense bill, which would save North Carolinians $15 billion dollars on their electric bills, proves it. I look forward to leading the Senate in overriding Gov. Stein’s veto.”

Stein said it wouldn't save North Carolinians any money, instead predicting it would lead to $28 billion in higher costs over the next 25 years.

“This summer’s record heat and soaring utility bills has shown that we need to focus on lowering electricity costs for working families — not raising them," Stein wrote in vetoing the bill. "And as our state continues to grow, we need to diversify our energy portfolio so that we are not overly reliant on natural gas and its volatile fuel markets."

He added that an independent analysis showed the bill could increase electrical bills in North Carolina by billions of dollars over the next several decades, and he said it would change calculations so that residential customers would pick up a larger share of costs in the future, in order to benefit factories and other large-scale users of electricity.

"This bill not only makes everyone’s utility bills more expensive, but it also shifts the cost of electricity from large industrial users onto the backs of regular people," Stein wrote. "Families will pay more so that industry pays less. Additionally, this bill walks back our state’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions, sending the wrong signal to businesses that want to be a part of our clean energy economy. My job is to do everything in my power to lower costs and grow the economy. This bill fails that test."

Duke Energy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Stein's veto. But a spokesperson previously told WRAL, about a slightly different version of the bill than the one that ultimately passed, that the changes proposed will help it keep up with the state's booming population and the subsequent energy demands.

“Policies that enable more timely recovery of investments in modern infrastructure like always-on nuclear power plants help keep overall costs down for customers and result in more predictable energy prices by avoiding sudden spikes," Duke said in March. "This process would be subject to regulatory oversight to ensure the protection of customers’ interests.”

Republicans don't need Democratic support to override vetoes in the state Senate but got three Democrats to vote for the bill anyway. And in the House, where Republicans need just one Democratic defector to override a veto, the Duke Energy bill passed with support from 11 Democrats.

"I’m disappointed in the governor’s veto of the ‘Power Bill Reduction Act,’ which would have delivered cheap, reliable energy to North Carolina, cut the red tape that is choking innovation and long-term energy solutions, and saved consumers over $12 billion dollars," Hall, the House speaker, told WRAL Wednesday. "Considering the strong bipartisan support in both chambers, we anticipate overriding this veto."

Auditor powers

Stein alsop vetoed a bill expanding and clarifying the powers of the North Carolina State Auditor. House Bill 549 seeks to clarify and expand the auditor’s existing abilities to investigate state agencies and entities that are publicly funded.

The bill added language stipulating that the auditor can demand access to databases, datasets and digital records needed “for any purpose within the authority of the auditor, including performing audits of any type, assessing government efficiency, risk assessment, fraud detection, audit planning, and evidence gathering.” And it gives the auditor the power to seek court intervention when someone doesn’t comply.

The bill also includes a variety of updates empowering the office to identify and collect debts owed to the state.

Supporters of the bill have said it’s necessary to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent. Critics have said the rules the bill adds or modifies are too intrusive.

“Giving the Auditor this intrusive power may undermine our state’s efforts to recruit businesses to North Carolina,” Stein said in a statement Wednesday. Stein also took issue with provisions that would remove the Office of State Auditor from the state’s cybersecurity efforts led by the Department of Information Technology, which he says would put “North Carolinians’ personal identifying information at heightened risk of a breach.”

Boliek, in a statement, called on the legislature to override Stein's veto.

"Governor Stein's veto undercuts the important principles of accountability and transparency that taxpayers expect from their government," he wrote.

Charter-school oversight

Stein also rejected Senate Bill 254, which would largely cut the state superintendent of public instruction and State Board of Education out of the oversight of the state's charter schools — shifting oversight away from elected officials to a board largely appointed by GOP state lawmakers.

“Senate Bill 254 is an unconstitutional infringement on the authority of the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction,” Stein said Wednesday. “Additionally, it weakens accountability of charter schools when every North Carolina student deserves excellent public schools, whether traditional or charter.”

Lawmakers shifted the final say over charter school approval to the review board in 2023, but left the state superintendent in charge of hiring the executive director of the Office of Charter Schools and some other oversight and left the State Board of Education in charge of approving rules for charter schools. The bill would shift those powers over to the Charter School Review Board.

Republican sponsors of the bill said the Charter School Review Board was better equipped to make decisions about charter schools than the state superintendent, Democrat Mo Green.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are independent of traditional public school systems and not required to follow as many of the same rules, though they are subject to renewal requirements every so many years. They've proliferated nationwide since the 1990s as some politicians and education think tanks believed they could be centers for education innovation. They're now championed as being choices for families who are not satisfied with their assigned traditional public school.

Many charter school backers have given large sums of money to Republican politicians in their efforts to first get them legalized in North Carolina, and since then to change the rules governing them. Charter schools tend to be opposed by lobbying groups representing traditional public schools and teachers, which support Democrats.

"Although some charter schools are excellent and offer valuable contributions to their communities, many charters are corporate chains or run by financiers who put profit over students," the teacher lobbying group North Carolina Association of Educators says on its website.