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Major energy bill coming to NC House floor as lawmakers struggle to grasp impact
By: Travis Fain, WRAL statehouse reporter July 13, 2021 RALEIGH, N.C. — Energy legislation laying out close to a decade’s worth of policy and setting up a glide path to retire coal-fired electricity plants in North Carolina will likely be up for key vote in the coming days. Lawmakers are struggling to understand House Bill 951, a lengthy, complex bill negotiated over months. The bill delivers a number of regulatory changes that Duke Energy, the state’s largest power provider by far, has wanted for years. It would also dial back – years earlier than planned – on coal-burning plants in North…
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Major energy bill emerges at NC statehouse
By: Travis Fain, WRAL June 17, 2021 RALEIGH, N.C. — State lawmakers released a long-anticipated energy bill Tuesday, saying it would retire coal-fired power plants faster, cut greenhouse gas emissions and shape North Carolina energy policy for the better part of a decade. The bill came together over months of closed-door negotiations with Duke Energy, other electricity providers, the solar power industry and large electricity users, such as manufacturers and retailers. The 47-page bill is complex, wide-ranging and may morph as it begins the public stage of its legislative journey. Environmental groups and others cut out of the crafting process thus far were digesting the…
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‘The stakes are very high’: In North Carolina, more interest than ever in Duke Energy’s long-range plans
By: Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network March 22, 2021 With North Carolina businesses, communities, and residents increasingly committed to climate action, Duke Energy’s 15-year power generation plan has drawn more attention than ever before. More than two dozen cities, counties and corporations have submitted comments on the utility’s plan, which will dictate whether and how they achieve their own ambitious renewable energy goals. A record number of stakeholders — from tech company Apple to the City of Charlotte — are formally intervening in the process by which regulators review and approve the document, in an effort to gain more leverage in the proceedings. A…
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Duke, Dominion Cancel Plans for Unjust Atlantic Coast Pipeline
The cancelling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a victory for justice of many kinds! Environmental Justice, because the African American and Indigenous communities along the pipeline route can breathe easier that this massive project that will not victimize them yet again by disproportionately harming their health, safety, economics and access to their lands. Climate justice, as the routine emissions of methane from the ACP and the fracked gas it supplied were estimated in our 2019 study to increase climate impacts by as much as 13% over EPA’s estimate of current national methane releases. Economic Justice, as ratepayers of the mega-utilities Duke and…
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Belinda Joyner Is Tired of Fighting the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, But She’s Still Fighting
By: Lewis Kendall, IndyWeek July 1, 2020 “We are tired of being dumped on.” In February, Belinda Joyner caught a ride to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alongside a couple of close friends, the 67-year-old rode from her home in Garysburg, a 1,000-person town near the North Carolina-Virginia border, up to Washington, D.C. They were there to watch the court hear arguments over whether the U.S. Forest Service should be allowed to issue permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to be built through national forest lands connected to the Appalachian Trail. The 600-mile, $8 billion pipeline—spearheaded by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy and first…
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Duke Energy gave half a million to political group before primary, new filings show
By: Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network April 29, 2020 North Carolina law allows the utility to hide which candidates benefited from its political spending. Duke Energy funneled half a million dollars through a tax-exempt political group to pay for polling, television ads, and mailers in advance of North Carolina’s March primary, new documents submitted to the Internal Revenue Service show. At least three state legislative candidates got help from the entity named Citizens for a Responsible Energy Future, according to media reports and filings with other federal officials. But that aid accounted for less than a tenth of the group’s total expenses, leaving…
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Stopping Rate Hikes for Duke Energy’s Dirty Energy & Climate-Busting Plans!
The fight for full excavation of Duke Energy’s toxic coal ash pits finally came to a close when the company signed a settlement agreement with DEQ and community groups to remove over 80 million tons of coal ash from unlined pits across the state. While this marks a major victory for impacted community members living near these sites, Duke is trying to slap them with the bill to pay for massive cleanup. Rate cases for both Duke Energy Carolinas (DEC) and Duke Energy Progress (DEP) are currently underway, with Duke seeking to recover costs associated with coal ash cleanup, upgrades…
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ACP Case Could Gut 100 Years of Safeguards for Federal Parks
By: Kathryn Miles, Politico March 3, 2020 When is a hiking trail not the same as the land it sits on? That’s a question before the Supreme Court, which last week heard oral arguments concerning the siting of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5.1 billion project that, if completed, would transport over a billion cubic feet of gas each day from West Virginia to North Carolina. The arguments were the latest in five years of legal snags for the project that has…
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Environmental advocates, fossil fuel industry debate Atlantic Coast Pipeline at the U.S. Supreme Court
By: Sarah Vogelsong, NC Policy Watch February 24, 2020 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Where does a trail end and the land beneath it begin? That’s just one of the thorny questions the Supreme Court grappled with Monday morning during a one-hour hearing on a U.S. Forest Service permit for the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The hearing has been hotly anticipated by both the gas and oil industry, which supports the pipeline, and the environmental advocacy community, which opposes the project. Since its inception, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile conduit that would bring natural gas from West Virginia, through Virginia and…
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Coal ash case: DEQ 2, Duke Energy 0
By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch Oct. 29, 2019 An administrative law judge has again ruled against Duke Energy, determining that state environmental regulators acted appropriately in several aspects of requiring the utility to fully excavate its unlined coal ash basins. Judge Selina Malherbe ruled on two motions yesterday: DEQ provided adequate notice to Duke Energy prior to issuing the April 1, 2019 closure election decision; DEQ properly limited Duke Energy to filing a single closure plan for each coal ash impoundment. “The judge’s ruling confirms that DEQ acted openly and transparently as we made an informed decision on the closure of the coal…
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