Pro-business or anti-environment?

Some of the main environmental proposals being debated in the N.C. General Assembly.

Responding to massive fish kills in rivers nearly two decades ago, the legislature enacted measures to protect the state’s waterways. Among them: buffers along rivers and streams to filter out pollutants.

Environmentalists say HB 760, a sweeping regulatory reform bill passed by the House, endangers those so-called riparian buffers by granting exemptions. Among other things, cities and counties would no longer be able to exceed the standard 50-foot buffer without approval of the state Environmental Management Commission.

The bill “will significantly weaken use of riparian buffers to reduce water pollution,” blogged Robin Smith, an environmental attorney and former assistant secretary at the Department of Natural Resources.

Bill supporters say such fears are exaggerated. They say waterways will still be protected as they try to balance the interests of government and property owners.

“We have to be mindful of private property rights,” says Rep. Charles Jeter, a Huntersville Republican.

One bill would make it harder for North Carolina to comply with federal clean air standards. Another, at least for now, would cost Mecklenburg County about $400,000 in money to control vehicle emissions.

Currently the state automatically adopts federal air quality rules put out by the Environmental Protection Agency. Under SB 303, passed by the Senate, the state Environmental Management Commission would have to reconsider rules and adopt them by a three-fifths vote.

The bill grew out of concern with new rules involving wood stoves, popular in Western North Carolina.

The rules, Republican Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine told the Senate, are “a point where the EPA has really hopped on the crazy train for us in Western North Carolina.”

Meanwhile HB 927, a transportation bill, would eliminate the portion of the gas tax that goes to the state’s Water and Air Quality Account. That typically pays about 40 percent of operating costs for N.C. Division of Air Quality. For Mecklenburg, it would mean a loss of about $400,000.

The bill is still in committee. GOP Rep. John Torbett of Gaston County, a main sponsor, says the provision could be changed.

The Charlotte area, where some air pollution drifts from the west, has long had the state’s worst ozone problem, and one of the worst in the country. In 2013 the American Lung Association ranked metro Charlotte 19th worst in the U.S. for ozone pollution.

North Carolina’s solar industry took a double hit this week when the House passed a regulatory reform bill.

Among other things, HB 760 would freeze the amount of energy that has to be produced from renewables such as solar at 6 percent. It’s now scheduled to rise to 12.5 percent by 2021. It also would reduce the incentive to build large solar farms by changing how green-energy producers are paid by utilities such as Duke Energy.

“We think the bill would have a negative impact on the clean energy economy in North Carolina, which will result in lost jobs and investment,” said Betsy McCorkle of the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Rep. Mike Hager, who earlier sought to end the renewables target altogether by 2018, agreed to a compromise that would freeze the target goal and launch a study of long-term energy needs. Hager says the state has been helping the solar industry get off the ground for nearly a decade.

“I guess a lot of us feel that eight years is enough to get an industry going,” Hager said.

Americans for Prosperity, funded by the conservative Koch brothers, called the renewable energy standards “state government’s culture of corporate favoritism.”

But solar advocates say the changes will hurt what’s become a $5 billion industry in the state.

“We’re kind of killing the golden goose,” McCorkle said. “That’s an unfortunate change in direction.”

Solar advocates support another bill, HB 245. It would let solar energy producers bypass utilities and sell power directly to consumers.

Gov. Bob Scott created the State Environmental Policy Act in 1971, what he declared “the year of the environment.” It requires environmental impact studies of projects involving state money or public lands.

Critics, including the N.C. Chamber, argue that SEPA slows the construction of roads and other projects. Hager, the Rutherfordton Republican, says environmental regulations adopted since 1971 have lessened the need for the act.

Last week, the House passed HB 795, which goes to the Senate. It would require environmental impact studies only on projects costing more than $10 million in public funds or affecting 5 or more acres of public land. “We didn’t take out SEPA,” Hager says. “We just modified it.”

Critics of the bill warn of unintended consequences, including how it would affect compliance with federal regulations. They say the changes were rushed without studying their impact.

“No one knows the impact of the bill … because it was never examined,” said Molly Diggins, state director of the Sierra Club.

Supporters call HB 304 a jobs bill that would help companies maintain and replace aging highway billboards.

A Sierra Club spokeswoman says it would mean “unprecedented new giveaways” to the billboard industry.

The bill, in a House committee, would give outdoor advertising companies more leeway and limit local regulations such as tree ordinances. It also would make it easier for companies to convert billboards into digital screens and raise the cost of acquiring billboards by the Department of Transportation for purposes such as road widening.

Among other things, billboard companies also would get more leeway to cut native dogwood and redbud trees.

Billboard legislation has been controversial before. In 2012, lawmakers expanded the industry’s right to clear land around its signs. In 2013, they gave billboard companies the right to replace aging billboards with new steel structures, even in areas not zoned for billboards.

This story was originally published May 8, 2015 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Pro-business or anti-environment?."