DEQ Secretary
Adam Wagner, The News & Observer, 9/12/24
N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser, the first woman confirmed to lead the state’s environmental agency, resigned Thursday. Gov. Roy Cooper nominated Biser in June 2021, and the N.C. Senate confirmed her to lead the agency in August of that year.
In recent months, Biser’s leadership of the agency has been defined by an effort to enact enforceable groundwater and surface water quality standards for forever chemicals. DEQ’s proposed standards have met stiff opposition from powerful trade groups, namely the N.C. Chamber.
“Under Governor Cooper’s leadership, we have advanced the fight against forever chemicals, used historic state and federal funding to increase access to clean water and proved that a healthy environment and a healthy economy go hand in hand,” Biser said in a statement.
During her time in office, Biser also served as president of the Environmental Council of the States, a national nonpartisan group of environmental regulatory agency leaders. Biser’s time leading the group ended on Sept. 6.
Biser will return to the private sector, according to a release from Cooper’s office.
Cooper has named Mary Penny Kelley to lead DEQ for the remainder of his time in office.
Kelley, an environmental attorney, is coming to DEQ from a role as special adviser to the state’s Hometown Strong Initiative. That initiative is meant to boost the state’s rural communities, in part by helping them land federal grant funds.
“Safe air, land and drinking water are vital for strong communities, healthy families and a growing economy and I look forward to continuing to protect these vital resources and hold polluters accountable,” Kelley said in a statement.
As an attorney for the N.C. Attorney General’s Office beginning in 1997, Kelley’s portfolio included environmental issues such as coastal development and water quality. Kelley became the then-N.C. Department of Natural Resources’ general counsel in 2005, rising to an assistant secretary role in 2009 and then to chief deputy secretary in 2012. After leaving the department for much of the McCrory administration, Kelley returned in February 2017 in a senior adviser role focusing on community engagement and carbon-free energy issues.
She left in late 2017 to work on Hometown Strong, serving as the initiative’s executive director from June 2020 to June 2024.
“Mary Penny Kelley’s long career in environmental law and experience within DEQ make her the right person to lead the department and continue to work to protect North Carolina’s air and water,” Cooper said in a statement. Cooper also vowed that Kelley would continue working to address PFAS in North Carolina.
Biser was Cooper’s third appointment to the DEQ secretary role. Michael Regan served in the role for Cooper’s first term in office, leaving the job to serve as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President Joe Biden. Cooper initially chose Dionne Delli-Gatti to succeed Regan, but the N.C. Senate denied Delli-Gatti’s confirmation. After that, Cooper named Delli-Gatti as his clean energy director and appointed Biser to lead DEQ. [Source]
Alexander Memories
Matthew Sasser, State Affairs Pro, 9/12/24
State legislators regaled the legacy of late Mecklenburg Rep. Kelly M. Alexander Jr. on the House floor Wednesday.
Alexander died Sept. 6 at the age of 75. He was appointed to the House in 2008 and served as president of the state NAACP, a position formerly held by his father for over three decades.
During debate on the House floor this week, a state flag and flowers adorned Alexander’s desk. All U.S. and North Carolina flags at state facilities were lowered to half-staff Tuesday in honor of the longtime representative, as ordered by Gov. Roy Cooper.
Rep. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, said she first met Alexander long before his time in the House chamber. Carney recalled he welcomed her at an NAACP meeting in a local church he was leading alongside his brother, Alfred, while she was running for her local board of education.
“He made me feel like I was a part of a family,” Carney said. “He [also] did that when he came to Raleigh.”
Two major legislative initiatives of Alexander’s were legalizing cannabis and eliminating an unenforceable literacy test from the state Constitution. Carney said he filed a discharge petition for the literacy test every year that many sitting in the chamber signed in support.
“He’s an incredible person that we all, if you knew him or if you were even around him, you had to know his greatness. He did not ever meet a stranger,” Carney said.
A resolution commemorating the life of Alexander will be introduced the next time the House meets in October.
“Somebody with a great sense of humor and just such a good man who genuinely cared about everyone in this state,” House Speaker Tim Moore said of Alexander, adding he would welcome an opportunity for his family to visit the General Assembly to more formally recognize his achievements.
Rep. Abe Jones, D-Wake, said Alexander was a great civil rights leader who inspired him as a lawyer to get involved in the work of employment discrimination. “He’s a smart guy and he knew his business, and he inspired me,” Jones said.
House Democratic Leader Robert T. Reives II said Alexander was always even-keeled as a legislator, someone who was easygoing and relaxed even during contentious debates and provided their caucus a lot of life perspective.
“As you serve here, know that it is an honor. Know that it is an opportunity,” Reives told his fellow legislators. “What I will always remember [about] Kelly is that he embodied what should be our golden rule: ‘You can disagree without ever being disagreeable.’”
A visitation will be held on Saturday, Sept. 21, from noon to 1:00 p.m. at St. Paul Baptist Church in Charlotte.
Voter ID
Gary D. Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/12/24
The Republican Party sued North Carolina’s elections board on Thursday to block students and employees at the state’s flagship public university from offering a digital identification as a way to comply with a relatively new photo voter ID law. The Republican National Committee and North Carolina filed the lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court three weeks after the Democratic majority on the State Board of Elections approved the “Mobile UNC One Card” generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a qualifying ID.
The law says qualifying IDs must meet several photo and security requirements to be approved by the board. The UNC-Chapel Hill digital ID, which is voluntary for students and staff and available on Apple phones, marks the qualification of the first such ID posted from someone’s smartphone. The Republican groups said state law clearly requires any of several categories of permitted identifications — from driver’s licenses to U.S. passports and university and military IDs — to be only in a physical form. The law doesn’t allow the state board “to expand the circumstances of what is an acceptable student identification card, beyond a tangible, physical item, to something only found on a computer system,” the lawsuit reads. The state and national GOP contend in the lawsuit that the board’s unilateral expansion of photo ID before registering and accepting voters at in-person poll sites “could allow hundreds or thousands of ineligible voters” to vote in the November election and beyond. North Carolina is a presidential battleground state where statewide races are usually very close.
An electronically stored photo ID may be easier to alter than a physical card and more difficult for a precinct worker to review, including when there are computer network problems, the lawsuit says. The groups also filed a separate request for a judge to issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction preventing the use of the mobile ID. In response to an email seeking a response to the lawsuit, a state board spokesperson pointed late Thursday to the board’s discussion at its Aug 20 meeting. A board attorney said during the meeting there was nothing in the law that specifically limits approval to printed cards. Board Chair Alan Hirsch, a Democrat, cited trends in technology in giving the ID his OK, saying that airline passengers now show boarding passes from their smartphones. The current voter ID law was initially approved in late 2018. But it didn’t get carried out until the 2023 municipal elections as legal challenges continued. The board has OK’d over 130 traditional student and employee IDs as qualifying for voting purposes in 2024, including UNC-Chapel Hill’s physical One Card. Someone who can’t show a qualifying ID casts a provisional ballot and either fills out an exception form or provides an ID before ballot counts are complete. In-person early voting begins Oct. 17. People casting traditional absentee ballots also are asked to put a copy of an ID into their envelope. A board official said that UNC-Chapel Hill voters with the One Card can now insert a photocopy of the One Card displayed on their phones to meet the requirement. [Source]
Medical Debt
Michelle Crouch, NC Health News, 9/13/24
North Carolina hospitals are poised to cash in big by committing to the state’s ambitious medical debt relief plan — and we now know exactly how much each hospital stands to gain.
A public records request made to the state by Charlotte Ledger/NC Health News revealed that Atrium Health alone is expected to rake in about $1.7 billion in federal Medicaid money in fiscal year 2025.
That amount is nearly double the $892.5 million it would have received had it not opted into the debt relief plan, according to preliminary calculations from the Department of Health and Human Services reviewed by the Charlotte Ledger/NC Health News.
Other hospitals across the state participating in the debt relief plan are set for similarly large gains, with all nearly doubling what they would have received in Medicaid reimbursement had they not participated. Novant Health, for example, will see its payout surge from $391 million to $751 million in 2025, while the payment to UNC Health will grow from $551 million to $1.06 billion, the calculations show.
The figures help explain why all 99 of the state’s acute care hospitals signed on to the state’s debt relief plan, even though it requires them to forgive medical debt deemed uncollectible for low- and middle-income patients dating back to 2014.
Previously, Atrium and Novant — two of the state’s largest hospital systems — had refused to get involved in debt relief.
The new program also requires hospitals to make significant changes to their financial assistance policies, including: offering discounts ranging from 50 percent to 100 percent to low-income patients, capping the patients’ interest rates on hospital-held medical debt at 3 percent, proactively screening all patients for financial aid eligibility, and agreeing not to report medical debt to credit agencies.
Medical debt has become a growing concern in North Carolina and across the country, with more than 41 percent of Americans reporting they have some debt from medical or dental bills. In North Carolina, about one in five residents has medical debt in collections, according to an Urban Institute analysis.
After North Carolina lawmakers were unable to advance such legislation in 2023, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and state health officials saw an opportunity to take a different approach by leveraging extra dollars flowing to the state because it expanded Medicaid. It is a solution that has been praised by Vice President Kamala Harris and by health policy experts who believe it could be a model for other states to provide a financial remedy for cash-strapped families.
Jonathan Kappler, DHHS chief of staff, said the initiative is “the only effort in the country that will have such a widespread and timely benefit to people.”
Critics, such as state Treasurer Dale Folwell, say nonprofit and government hospital systems already receive millions of dollars in tax exemptions and should not require additional incentives to fulfill their obligation to give back to the community.
“This is a multibillion-dollar bailout for hospitals,” said Folwell, a Republican whose office has published a series of reports critical of the state’s hospitals. “It’s perfectly clear why all the hospitals signed on: The rich get richer, and they’re laughing all the way to the bank.”
Others, including The Wall Street Journal editorial board, say that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to expand what they call a perverse incentive to “expand the reach of the welfare state.”
DHHS officials maintain the program doesn’t actually change the amount of federal money flowing to North Carolina. Instead, DHHS says, it took advantage of flexibility within HASP that allows states to design their own reimbursement formulas and eligibility criteria to determine how hospitals receive funds under the program. [Source]
Harris Events
Mary Ramsey, Nora O’Neill, Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi and Kyle Ingram, The News & Observer, 9/12/24
The 2024 election is a “fight for our future,” Vice President Kamala Harris declared in North Carolina Thursday as she looked to cement herself as the forward-thinking candidate and “the underdog” in the race.
Harris addressed a crowd of thousands at Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte Thursday afternoon, her first campaign appearance since her first presidential debate against Trump. She held a second rally in Greensboro Thursday.
It’s part of her campaign’s post-debate “New Way Forward Tour,” which will also include events in other swing states through the weekend featuring Harris, her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and their spouses.
In Charlotte, the Democratic nominee touched on familiar themes from her debate appearance and the Democratic National Convention: abortion access, her economic policies and the need to reach across party lines in a “very tight race.”
“Understand that we are the underdog,” said Harris, who’s built a narrow lead nationwide and in some critical states since taking over the Democratic ticket.
Harris on Thursday touted the support she’s received from officials in previous Republican administrations, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. She said it’s a sign of what a second Trump administration would mean for the country — particularly after a Supreme Court ruling that shook up the legal precedent on presidential immunity.
“Across our nation we are witnessing a full on assault on other hard-fought, hard-won fundamental freedoms, like the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to breathe clear air and drink clean water, and the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride,” she said. As the crowd periodically interrupted with chants of “we’re not going back,” Harris said she represents a new generation of leadership — a contrast to criticism that Republicans use against her.
Hours before her rally in Charlotte, Republicans used a news release to say she has “no vision, no solutions and no answers on how she’d be different” than President Joe Biden.
If elected, Harris said she would work with Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, an assault weapons ban and legislation to reinstate the protections for abortion that existed before the landmark case Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Harris pointed out Trump’s comment during the debate that he has “concepts of a plan” for what he’d replace the Affordable Care Act with if he repealed it — a moment that’s taken off as a meme.
On the economy, she reiterated her proposals to give small businesses start-ups a $50,000 tax credit and expand the child tax credit for some families. She pledged to “cut red tape and work with the private sector to build 3 million new homes” in her first term to address a housing shortage. Harris also highlighted a report from Goldman Sachs economists released earlier this month that said the U.S. economy would see a bigger boost if she were elected than Trump.
The report said Trump’s plans to increase tariffs and crackdown on immigration would slow economic growth, according to Reuters.
In Charlotte, Harris said she’d like to debate Trump again, but the former president said on social media he won’t participate in another debate.
A CNN instant survey found 63% of debate watchers felt Harris won to Trump’s 37%. That’s a bigger-than-average margin of victory than past candidates have notched, according to data released by CNN.
Trump leads by just one-tenth of a percent in the Tar Heel State, and Harris’s national lead is just 1.5%, according to the latest RealClearPolitics’ averages. Polling analyst Nate Silver now considers North Carolina the second-most likely “tipping point state” in the presidential election. Democrats haven’t carried the state since 2008, but Trump posted his slimmest margin of victory in any state here in 2020. [Source]
Rural Tour
Matthew Sasser, State Affairs Pro, 9/12/24
The NC Rural Center will convene 15 meetings of its listening tour next week to prepare its policy agenda for the 2025 legislative session. Davidson-Davie Community College in Thomasville will be the first stop of the tour on Sept. 17.
Subsequent dates across the state will gather information from nonprofit organizations, chambers of commerce, local governments, elected officials and faith communities from mid-September through October. “By the time we finish all 15 of these, you have a really good sense of the mood of rural North Carolina and also the things that need to be our priorities when we get ready for the next long session of the General Assembly,” Patrick Woodie, president and CEO of the NC Rural Center, said.
North Carolina has the second largest rural population in the United States, behind Texas. However, a 50-year shift in North Carolina, according to Woodie, has reduced the number of rural legislators and expanded districts to accommodate the necessary population to constitute a state House or Senate district, as well as congressional districts.
“We’re a state with a history of predominantly rural state governments. That’s been the biggest voice,” Woodie said. “That’s changed. We’re a state now that is roughly equally divided between rural, suburban and urban. There are fewer and fewer legislative districts that are purely rural.”
According to an NC Rural Center analysis, 50 North Carolina House districts had a rural majority representation in 2004. For the 2024 election cycle, there will be 43 such districts. In 2024, 73 districts will have no rural representation, an increase from 62 in 2004.
“In the 2004 election, 21 [North Carolina Senate] districts were majority rural,” the report states. “For the upcoming election, that has declined to just 14. The decline is not as pronounced in districts that have 40 percent rural population or less.” The report attributes much of this change to a minor decrease in population in rural areas, while suburban counties saw a slightly larger population increase. Another potential factor, the analysis finds, is redistricting.
While the rural areas of the state have consistently been in the greatest need year to year, Woodie said the goal of the listening tour is to attune the staff to the regional nuances of each area so their agenda can best represent the state’s 78 rural counties. Access to broadband has been a top priority on the NC Rural Center’s previous agendas.
Woodie said broadband underpins the workforce development and small-business growth needs in rural areas and aligns with another area of high need for rural areas: access to quality health care. Concerns from small businesses in the 2022 round of listening sessions led to a “robust” policy agenda for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, Woodie said. He said that although rural and urban districts have similar priorities, the NC Rural Center advocates to legislators that one size does not fit all and policy can look very different between western and eastern North Carolina among various populations.
“I think the Legislature very much understands that. I think that’s something we’re all very proud of in this state” Woodie said of the diversity from the mountains to the coast and the beauty of small towns. The conversations that are the product of the listening session dates will be collected by the NC Rural Center staff and distilled into the highest common denominator issues. About a half dozen top priorities will be identified.
While there are fewer rural legislators and legislative districts, Woodie said that points to the need for a stronger public policy agenda from the NC Rural Center to build alliances and educate those from all the diverse parts of the state. “It’s really important that rural North Carolina carry a very coherent, focused agenda that we can get all of rural North Carolina behind,” Woodie said. The NC Rural Center’s 2025 advocacy agenda will be submitted to their board of directors in December and will be available to the public in January.
The 2024 Rural Issues Poll is online now. It asks respondents to rank the importance of 30 specific issues divided into six priority areas. The poll will also be used to shape the NC Rural Center’s 2025 advocacy agenda.
Landfill Contamination
Adam Wagner, The News & Observer, 9/12/24
North Carolina’s largest landfill intends to take steps to prevent contamination of nearby communities and stem greenhouse gas pollution, the result of an agreement with a Sampson County environmental group.
Under a proposed agreement with the Environmental Justice Community Action Network, GFL will install treatment systems to significantly reduce forever chemicals leaking from its Sampson County Landfill in Roseboro, N.C., into groundwater and surface water. The company also agreed to use drone technology to sense methane emissions from the facility and work with a third-party consultant to develop an air monitoring network around the facility.
GFL also agreed to make air monitoring results available on a public website. That site will include a feature allowing members of the nearby Snow Hill Community to submit complaints about odors and other impacts from the landfill.
“This at least allows the residents to know more about what’s going on at the landfill. At least there will be some transparency,” Sherri White-Williamson, EJCAN’s executive director, told The News & Observer. GFL did not respond to a request for comment.
About 500 people live within a two-mile radius of the landfill, according to a complaint the Southern Environmental Law Center filed on EJCAN’s behalf in late August. Those residents often depend on well water as their drinking water supply and have seen their quality of life diminished as the landfill has steadily expanded, the complaint alleges.
Under the agreement, GFL also agreed to set up a community fund for the residents of Snow Hill. Residents of the community will decide how the money is spent, White-Williamson said, and the money will be managed by a separate third party that is still being decided. The amount of the community fund was not publicly available, as details are included in a separate confidential agreement.
A press release from SELC and EJCAN said its use could include funding hookups to public water supplies or providing residents with filters that are capable of removing PFAS from drinking water supplies.
“This agreement with GFL to address toxic PFAS pollution, meaningfully investigate and address emissions from the landfill, and fund community-led remediation efforts provides crucial relief and empowers the Snow Hill community to repair and look forward,” Maia Hutt, an SELC attorney who represented EJCAN, said in the press release. [Source]
Debate Schedule
Matthew Sasser, State Affairs Pro, 9/12/24
A series of debates between Council of State candidates will take place over the next two months leading up to the election.
While voters may head to the polls with the presidential ticket at the top of their minds, these statewide races can carry just as much impact, according to Brad Young, executive director of the Institute of Political Leadership.
“These are still very important jobs that have an impact on the lives of a lot of North Carolinians,” Young said. “[It’s] very important for people to know who these candidates are and what the jobs do and give the candidates an opportunity to outline their vision for the office.”
The 2024 Hometown Debate Series will be hosted by the statewide cable network Spectrum News 1 and the NC Institute of Political Leadership. This is the ninth year the institute will put on the event. The last time the series featured Council of State races in 2020, an in-person audience wasn’t allowed because of COVID-19.
Young worked on two previous Council of State campaigns. He said voters often expressed they didn’t know they could vote in some races, such as state treasurer or labor commissioner.“We want people to know who these candidates are but also to keep going down the ticket and not necessarily just vote for president and call it a day,” Young said.
The debate slate is as follows:Sept. 24, the state superintendent of public instruction debate at East Carolina University in Greenville will feature Democratic nominee Mo Green and Republican nominee Michele Morrow.Oct. 1, the labor commissioner debate at Johnston County Community College will feature Democratic nominee Braxton Winston and Republican nominee Luke Farley.Oct. 8, the state treasurer debate at Greensboro College will feature Democratic nominee Wesley Harris and Republican nominee Brad Briner.A previously scheduled lieutenant governor debate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has been canceled.
“I think debates are an important part of our civic process, and certainly they require more out of a candidate than you might see out of a one-on-one interview,” Young said. Each hourlong debate will take place Tuesday at 7 p.m. It will air on Spectrum the following Sunday.
Treasurer Candidate
David Mildenberg, Business NC, 9/12/24
Wesley Harris is running for state treasurer in the November election, a post that will give him authority to oversee investments of more than $120 billion in state pension funds. It’s among the 10 largest U.S. public pension funds. But the Mecklenburg County state representative doesn’t hold shares in any public or private companies or any North Carolina real estate that exceeds $10,000, according to his Statement of Economic Interest filed with the state.
The January filing notes that he receives income as a legislator and from “Beacon Consulting.” It adds that he received more than $10,000 from “Economic Consulting Broadband Analysis for California.” State legislators are paid about $14,000 a year, plus per diem of $104 during legislative sessions. As for debt, Harris’ report cites separate debts exceeding $5,000 to a bank and a credit union.
His financial situation hasn’t changed since the January filing, he said earlier this week. Harris declined to discuss his personal finances, including his income sources and how he is saving for retirement. Instead, his campaign manager said in a statement, “Wesley was an economic consultant for one of the world’s largest accounting firms, providing his clients with complex asset and company valuations. He is also a three-term member of the North Carolina House of Representatives; and the only PhD Economist in the legislature.”
The state requires elected officials and board appointees to file an annual report listing their investments and debts in a general way, using $10,000 as a benchmark. (It doesn’t distinguish if the filer holds $10,001 or $10 million.) It also does not require filers to include their holdings in widely-held investment funds such as mutual funds, pensions or deferred compensation plans.
North Carolina’s state treasurer has unusual power because it is one of three remaining states that use a sole fiduciary model of pension fund management. That means the treasurer has the sole power to make investment decisions on behalf of the fund. In most states, that authority is delegated to either boards or investment teams.
Harris, who turns 38 this month, has served in the state legislature since 2019. He has previously reported income from accounting firms Ernst & Young and Dixon Hughes Goodman and as an adjunct professor at UNC Charlotte.
Harris is a Democrat facing Republican Brad Briner in the Nov. 5 election. Briner, who lives in Chapel Hill, retired in the past year from Willett Advisors, which manages the personal fortune of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor. Briner worked at Willett for 12 years after previous stops at Morgan Creek Capital, UNC Management and Goldman Sachs. He was appointed to the UNC Chapel Hill board of trustees last year.
Briner’s State of Economic Interest in January shows holdings of a home and other real estate in Chapel Hill; more than $10,000 in 10 publicly owned companies; and more than $10,000 in 12 “private interests” such as Florida Real Estate Value Fund II and two funds affiliated with Atlanta-based private equity firm Battle Investment Group.
Harris has been endorsed by several public employee groups, including the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
Both candidates have criticized Folwell’s management of state pension funds, saying an overly conservative investment strategy has cost billions of dollars in potential gains because of the strong stock and bond markets over the past decade. Folwell has emphasized the need to limit risk and cut investment fees as the best way to protect the pension funds. [Source]
PFAS Standards
Trista Talton, Coastal Review, 9/12/24
A proposed draft rule outlining health standards for PFAS in groundwater, which supports about 50% of drinking water in North Carolina, is heading for public comment.
The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission on Thursday morning unanimously waived a 30-day public notice, a move that expedites the rulemaking process for three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS: PFOA, PFOS and GenX. Hearing locations and dates will be published in the state Register. A public comment period will begin once that information is published.
The commission is expected to vote on the draft rule next year. If approved, the rule is anticipated to be effective by mid-2025. The proposed rule was revised from an earlier version the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality drafted that included five other manmade chemical compounds.
The commission’s groundwater and waste management committee earlier this summer voted to omit those compounds from the proposed rule, focusing on PFOS and PFOA, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified as likely carcinogens, and GenX, a compound specific to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility on the banks of the Cape Fear River.
In a brief presentation to the commission, Bridget Shelton, DEQ’s groundwater standards coordinator, explained that when there is no established health standard for a manmade compound, regulatory agencies refer to practical quantitation limits, or PQLs.
PQLs are considered the baseline in testing laboratories. PQL values can change over time and vary across different laboratories, Shelton said.
“With us bringing forward the three compounds, the PFOS and the PFOA, we all know they’re legacy compounds,” Commissioner Joseph Reardon said. “There’s no dispute about where EPA is in the context of this being potential carcinogens. We know the struggles that the citizens of North Carolina have had with GenX and so we’re comfortable with these three chemicals, taking the levels of which have been identified in the body of the request here. On the other five remaining compounds, had the committee chose to include those, it would have allowed more of the chemical in the water, but by the department regulating at the PQL level for those other five, lessens the amount of these compounds in the water.”
Commission members are continuing to hash out DEQ’s proposal to establish surface water rules for all eight PFAS.
Following heated exchanges Wednesday afternoon, the commission’s water quality committee unanimously voted to instruct DEQ to develop a draft rule and regulatory impact analysis, or RIA, that would establish monitoring requirements for every industrial and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit and require every industrial and significant industrial user to include PFAS source-reduction plans in their municipal pretreatment plans. [Source]
EV Chargers
Richard Stradling, The News & Observer, 9/12/24
The state has chosen the first places that will receive government grants to install electric vehicle chargers under a federal program that aims to fill in gaps in North Carolina’s charging network. They include travel centers, shopping plazas and a sub shop along highways in mostly small towns and rural areas where the private sector hasn’t installed chargers on its own.
The goal of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure or NEVI program is to help ensure all communities have access to EV chargers and to ease concerns people have about running out of power on long trips.
The N.C. Department of Transportation received $109 million under NEVI, which Congress created through the big infrastructure bill in late 2021. NCDOT identified corridors where EV chargers were needed and then sought proposals from businesses that would install and operate them with government help.
The first round of awards, announced Wednesday, total $5.92 million and will help businesses to install fast-chargers in nine places along Interstates 40, 77 and 485 and U.S. highways 17, 70, 74 and 64. They include Pilot Travel Centers in Candor and Warsaw, a Firehouse Subs shop in Elizabeth City and a Piggly Wiggly in a shopping center in Leland. There’s also one urban location: Northlake Mall, near where I-77 and I-485 cross north of Charlotte.
Each station will include DC fast chargers with four ports capable of charging a car or SUV in about 20 minutes.
A second phase of NCDOT’s NEVI program will help install charging stations in communities not yet served by the private sector. Those will be a combination of fast chargers and so-called Level 2 chargers that take four to eight hours to fully charge a vehicle. [Source]
Violence Intervention
David Ford, WFDD Radio, 9/12/24
Two Triad cities have been awarded federal Victim of Crime Act (VOCA) grants for violence intervention programs. But the funding falls far short of years past while the need in some communities has grown. Last week the Governor’s Crime Commission signed off on $3.5 million for North Carolina, with roughly $400,000 earmarked for the Triad. Two domestic violence intervention programs in Winston-Salem will receive $50,000 apiece. And in Greensboro, the city’s Behavioral Health Program gets a quarter of a million dollars to train staff and standardize resource sharing among all four of its violence intervention organizations. Governor’s Crime Commission Executive Director Caroline Farmer calls the statewide VOCA funding a drop in the bucket and a steady decline from its peak of some $100 million just a few years ago. “It is funding that comes from the U.S. attorneys, from lawsuits, and the funding for this year has been held up in a lawsuit,” she says. “So, because of that, we do not have the full amount of funding that we would have had for next year’s VOCA.”
Farmer says local law enforcement figures and the Department of Health and Human Services’ database of firearm-related injuries at hospitals shows that the violent crime rate in many of North Carolina’s rural areas is on the rise. She says it takes years for violence in those communities to get where it is, and it will take years for it to go down. [Source] |
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