With executive order, Cooper targets transportation for next NC emissions cuts
Transportation is the next target for North Carolina’s greenhouse gas reductions.
Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order Friday directing the N.C. Department of Transportation to create a Clean Transportation Plan to guide the state’s transition to electric vehicles. Cooper signed the order during an event at N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University, the nation’s largest historically Black university.
In many ways, Friday’s Executive Order 246 builds on the targets set forward in 2018’s Executive Order 80. For instance, Friday’s order sets statewide greenhouse gas reductions targets of a 50% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050, raising the target of a 40% reduction by 2025. The order also significantly raises North Carolina’s goals for electric and other zero-emission vehicle registrations.
Titled “North Carolina’s Transition to a Clean, Equitable Economy,” Friday’s order highlights environmental justice. Cooper is directing North Carolina’s state agencies to consider equity in their spending decisions and to identify an environmental justice lead person. By the end of June, state agencies also will have to create public participation plans that guide how they seek input about projects and explain their impacts.
“This is an important day for our state,” Cooper said. “I am excited to see the new green energy jobs and the efforts that we are making to get students from many of these communities to get trained for the jobs that will improve their lives, their family’s lives and the life of the planet, as well.”
Cooper continued, “I do recognize that there is a lot more to do, but I believe that this order can help establish a framework for all of us to succeed.”
Transportation is North Carolina’s second-largest contributor of greenhouse gases, according to the state’s most recent greenhouse gas inventory. Per the report, transportation created 32.5% of the state’s emissions in 2017, trailing only the energy sector.
Executive Order 246 also orders the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to update the state’s greenhouse gas inventory by the end of January, and then every two years after.
Cooper signed Executive Order 80 in the weeks after Hurricane Florence. Like Friday’s action, the October 2018 executive order was a wide-ranging effort geared toward better preparing North Carolina — and its economy — for the climate change era.
Initiatives established in Executive Order 80 included the North Carolina Climate Science Report, a scientific explanation of the state’s near-certain warmer and wetter future. It also included the state’s Clean Energy Plan, which would play a key role in shaping the final version of last year’s House Bill 951, legislation requiring Duke Energy to cut emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
“First steps” on environmental justice
Concerns about low-income energy consumers were a key concern about House Bill 951. Critics including the N.C. Justice Center blasted the legislation for failing to including protections for low-income customers.
Jim Johnson, chairman of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board, said the executive order represented “bold action” on environmental justice, but also acknowledged there is more to be done.
“Environmental justice concerns particularly can tarnish the state’s image as an attractive, prosperous and inclusive place to live, work, play and do business, derailing future growth if left unaddressed,” Johnson said.
In addition to calling for new environmental staff and public participation plans, Friday’s executive order opens the possibility for future action on environmental justice, albeit without a concrete timeline. The order says that DEQ’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board and the Andrea Harris Task Force will work with state officials to explore further executive actions on environmental justice.
“I think it’s a very good first step in acknowledging the disparate health impacts of climate change and the importance of really addressing those issues. People are suffering,” said June Blotnick, the executive director of CleanAIRE NC.
Those conversations will include ways to “identify and prioritize key issues,” including cumulative impacts.
Cumulative impacts occur when communities are burdened by multiple environmental exposures, with effects growing worse as risks are layered on top of each other. Those places often have high proportions of Black or Hispanic residents or are places where lower-income people live.
“Decisions that state government makes about locating certain facilities can be in communities that are affected by this. We want to get greater input, we want to do things that can help those communities,” Cooper said, “and we also want to create a strategic plan here. This executive order does not have all of the answers.”
Cooper also said that the use of federal funds to address climate change dovetails with environmental justice efforts. He noted that the same communities that experience environmental exposures often face higher risk of flooding and other impacts. Federal funds could be used, Cooper said, to build infrastructure that better prepares those places for flooding or to move residents out of high-risk places.
Beyond electric vehicles
The new target of 1.25 million zero-emission vehicles by 2030 dwarfs the Executive Order 80 target of 80,000 zero-emission vehicles by 2025.
But the transportation portion of the order goes in other directions, too, directing NCDOT to consider how to transition trucks and buses to zero emissions, but also calling upon the department to think about how
Kym Hunter, a Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney, said Friday’s events were indicative of a shift in how NCDOT considers climate change.
Then-NCDOT Secretary Jim Trogdon was not present when Cooper signed Executive Order 80, she noted. Friday, NCDOT Secretary Eric Boyette featured prominently, discussing how the department can prepare roads and bridges for more intense storms while also planning for what he called “a clean transportation future.”
“To see Secretary Boyette stand up there and say (climate change) is the responsibility of NCDOT — not just to fix roads that are being wrecked by storms, but also to reduce emissions — is a huge step forward,” Hunter said.
Hunter noted that the order will likely give more emphasis to several climate-related provisions that SELC secured in a 2019 settlement with NCDOT allowing the extension of N.C. 540 to move forward. Those included an agency task force investigating how to reduce vehicle miles traveled in the state and the measurement of greenhouse gases associated with new highway construction.
This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 at 1:18 PM with the headline "With executive order, Cooper targets transportation for next NC emissions cuts."