Critics say Senate Bill 261 will relieve pressure on Duke Energy to move rapidly away from generating electricity from fossil fuels as is done in this Indiana coal-fired facility. (Photo: Robert Zullo for States Newsroom)
Caring and thinking Americans are rightfully alarmed and angered right now at the unabashed lurch toward authoritarianism that they’re witnessing in the nation’s capital. Among the most troubling signs: Recent news reports that the Trump administration ignored a federal court order to immediately halt the unlawful deportation of a group of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
When a presidential administration begins — even subtly and incrementally — to move in this direction, the very foundations of our constitutional government and the rights it exists to secure are in profound jeopardy.
And yet, as frightening as this is, there is another urgent matter of public policy on the front burner right now in which the damage being inflicted will quite arguably be even more difficult to repair. What’s more, in this case, the North Carolina legislature is an active contributor to the problem.
At issue is the challenge posed by carbon emissions that drive climate change. As deserts expand, polar icecaps melt, sea levels rise, oceans become increasingly toxic, dangerous storms grow bigger, more frequent and more severe, and millions upon millions of humans become climate migrants and refugees, it is, by any fair estimation, one of the most important issues facing humanity.
Indeed, if ever a matter required everyone’s urgent and best efforts and collaboration — elected officials, regulators, energy providers, scientists, consumers, environmental advocates — this is it. Even with aggressive and unprecedented global action, humanity’s best hope lies in, at best, minimizing the massive and irreparable damage that climate change will cause to the global biosphere.
Unfortunately, not only has the Trump administration pulled the rug out from under numerous important public actions to combat the crisis, so too now are North Carolina state legislators.
As NC Newsline reported, the state Senate approved a measure last week sponsored by a former-Duke-Energy-executive-turned-state-senator that would eliminate an interim carbon emissions reduction goal for the electricity giant.
Senate Bill 261 would remove the 2030 target for a 70% reduction in carbon emissions that was established in a painstakingly negotiated law that passed with bipartisan support in 2021. That law also included a 2050 goal for “carbon neutrality,” which would remain unchanged.
As usual, the excuse for the bill is cost. Proponents, including some big industrial consumers, say the 2030 goal was unrealistic (the state Utilities Commission has already granted Duke a reprieve from meeting it) and that complete repeal will save ratepayers as much as $13 billion dollars.
Consumer and environmental advocates, however, strongly disagree. As Will Scott of the Environmental Defense Fund detailed in a powerful recent essay, it’s Duke’s stubborn reliance upon natural gas to fire power plants — not the move to sustainability — that’s costing ratepayers billions. As he notes, natural gas prices are notoriously volatile and current rate structures pass all such costs directly to consumers. The faster we make the switch to lower cost renewable energy sources like solar and wind, Scott says, the better.
Who’s correct? In a logical world — one in which state lawmakers addressed an issue of such massive societal importance by conducting lengthy public hearings, listening carefully to numerous experts with different interests and points of view, and openly weighing competing claims — it might be possible to reach a consensus.
Unfortunately, that’s not how Republican lawmakers roll these days. Senate Bill 261 was heard in, and approved by, two committees less than 24 hours after it was introduced and given a final Senate okay just two days later. And the fact that requests by Democratic lawmakers to be fully briefed on the details of modeling performed by the Utilities Commission Public Staff were denied raises serious questions about the cost-savings claim.
But, of course, even if bill sponsors were correct that keeping the interim carbon reduction goal will raise electric bills, they ignore the mountainous costs of climate change — expenses that will make higher electric bills look paltry.
The price tag for Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone is already well north of $50 billion. One shudders to imagine what similar additional costs lurk in the years ahead from future climate-change-fed disasters.
Sure, it’s true — as bill defenders argue — that the damage resulting from climate change cannot be attributed to any single region or polluter, and that limiting emissions here does nothing directly to curb them in places like China and India.
But, of course, by such “logic,” there would be no reason to adhere to any domestic pollution control regulation that impacted a global environmental issue — be it protecting the oceans from microplastics or the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons.
What’s next? Abandoning all sex trafficking laws until every other nation gets on board?
The senators behind SB 261 may be right. Their bill may be just what all interested parties would agree to if they had all of the facts. But especially when dealing with a topic of such huge — even existential — importance, making those facts public and giving everyone a chance to thoroughly weigh them and be heard, is the only truly just way to proceed. Anything less gives the distinct impression that a corrupt fix is in the works.