Jabba the Putz

Dwane Powell, N&O, 22 May 2015

To appreciate fully this Dwane Powell cartoon, you must understand that Sen. Bob Rucho chairs the NC Senate Finance Committee and

...that last Wednesday Sen. Rucho abruptly cut off debate on whether North Carolina should continue encouraging solar energy projects through a provision in law that makes large energy corporations (Duke Energy, we're looking at you) buy a certain (tiny) percentage of their electricity from renewable sources and

...that the bill under debate in Rucho's Finance Committee would freeze North Carolina’s “Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard” (or “REPS”) – a law that requires a growing percentage of the state’s electricity load to be provided by renewable sources. Current law places the REPS requirement at 6%, but it is scheduled to grow to 10% in 2018 and 12.5% in 2021. And

...that the Republican senators on Rucho's committee are far from unified in wanting to scuttle renewable energy initiatives. In fact, observers say the majority in that committee last Wednesday wanted to vote negatively on that particular bill. And

...that Rucho, after cutting off debate, called for a voice vote on the bill and then declared it had passed even though it sounded like it had failed loudly, and

...that Sen. Josh Stein, a Democrat from Raleigh who is on the Finance Committee, told Under the Dome on Thursday he doesn’t mind losing, but if he wins and still loses, that’s not fair.

NC's New House Speaker: Dead-Ender or Dangerous Moderate

Trying to decipher what manner of creature Rep. Tim Moore of Kings Mountain may become as the new Speaker of the North Carolina House. He's replacing Thom Tillis, who's gone on to glory in the U.S. Senate. Our Magic 8 Ball is giving ambiguous answers on Mr. Moore.

On the one hand, there's Mr. Moore's long history of hostility toward gay rights:

Moore generated a firestorm while [in student government at] UNC-Chapel Hill ... when he attempted to prevent the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association from receiving student activity funds. Moore said he doesn't regret his actions at the time, which angered many on campus. [WNCN]

Furthermore, according to WNCN, Moore sez he'll be balls-to-the-walls in continuing to defend the indefensible Amendment One, which has already been struck down by not one but two NC Federal judges, not to mention the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. By all means, Mr. Moore, let's waste more taxpayer money on more lawyers to defend that particular piece of bigotry.

Magic 8 Ball sez, "You may rely on it."

On the other hand, Mr. Moore catches grief from a Tea Party screedster for selling out fellow Republicans in helping to scuttle a bill in 2013 that would have ended solar energy subsidies. Turns out that Mr. Moore may actually care more about jobs in his district than he does Civitas doctrine on alternative energy: "Tim Moore’s 'district is home to a $27 million plant that manufactures parts for solar farms.' ”

So is Mr. Moore "soft" on a progressive issue like "sustainability"? Magic 8 Ball sez, "Ask again later."

ASU Research Centers Under Threat of Extinction

A six-person committee of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors (BOG) is weighing the fate of three research centers at Appalachian State University as part of a much larger review of some 34 centers across the entire University of North Carolina system. Savvy observers have noticed that many of the targeted centers study groups and issues that are anathema to Art Pope and the Civitas Institute.

All 32 members of the UNC Board of Governors were appointed by the Republican pooh-bahs in the General Assembly. The six-member "hit squad," drawn from those 32, are all Republicans, save one who is unaffiliated. These six people will issue recommendations next month, at which time the full BOG "could choose to validate these centers, cut their funding, roll them into existing university departments or disband them entirely."

"We have no political agenda," said the chair of the hit squad. (Dearest Mr. Chairman: We may have fallen off the turnip truck yesterday, but we didn't fall on our head.)

Three research centers at Appalachian State University are on the list of 34 for intensive review. Two are housed in the ASU College of Business: Brantley Risk and Insurance Center and the Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis. The third is much more central to the disdain of the Civitas Institute: the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics, where there's a heavy emphasis on alternative energy and "sustainability," ancient bugbears to the market fundamentalists at the Civitas Institute.

We'll know in January just how free of "political agenda" the hit squad was.

Meanwhile, at other UNC institutions, research centers that focus on women, native Americans, poverty, economic equality, civil rights -- they're also awaiting their fates. As their missions seem "counter to the agenda of the Republican-controlled state legislature," as Sam DeGrave wrote, the personnel at those research centers might best be looking at job openings in other states that haven't yet turned backward.

More Bad Air Blowing from the NC Gen'l Assembly

Senate Bill 3, passed back in the General Assembly's salad days of 2007, established requirements for utility companies to acquire a growing percentage of their power from renewable sources (a "growing percentage" which is still a tiny fraction of the generated power). Senate Bill 3 made North Carolina the first state in the Southeast to adopt a Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard.

The New Republican Radicals hate renewable energy and are busy repealing Senate Bill 3. Yesterday, in a NC House Commerce subcommittee, the repeal was approved on a 11-10 vote which was not -- surprise! -- totally party-line. Rep. Ruth Samuelson of Mecklenburg and Rep. Tom Murry of Wake County broke with their Republican brethren and voted against the repeal.

This came after two hours of testimony from a coalition of environmentalists and hog farmers (hog farmers!) and solar developers and small farmers who have experienced economic development opportunities because of Senate Bill 3.

Renewable energy -- and the 2007 initiative that mandates that the big power companies buy it from producers -- has meant real economic benefits for particularly rural counties in North Carolina. But that means jobs, and this General Assembly is much more interested in privatizing education, declaring a state religion, and preventing college students from voting.

When You Want to Send the Worst, Send a Conspiracy Theorist

Buddy Collins

Shades of Dianna Lightfoot, the woman who hated childhood education but was nominated to head up the McCrory administration's department of childhood education.

Gov. Pat McCrory has nominated one A.L. "Buddy" Collins for a seat on the state Board of Education. Buddy Collins is an attorney, a member of the Forsyth County Board of Education, and also an accomplished conspiracy theorist whose recent exertions on behalf of school kids socialists-in-the-schools paranoia have received full press coverage here and here and here. (Collins comes fully into play in the 2nd and 3rd of those souces, but you'll have to read the 1st to understand the context for the other two.)

Collins appears to be swimming in that thick, cholesterol-laden fantasy that the United Nations is trying to snatch all our children for reeducation into their "Agenda 21." Did you know, for example, that anyone who uses the word "sustainable" (or any of its derivations) is giving the secret code for the World Wide Socialist Plot to seize your guns and make you bow down to multiculturalism?

Agenda 21 has become something of a drumbeat among our local Watauga County conspiracy theorists. It showed up among the resolutions headed to the floor of the Republicans' County Convention last week and was either shunted aside by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (who now passes for a dangerous moderate among some) or was passed by unanimous voice vote. I forget which.

And there is now a regular at County Commission meetings who takes her three minutes of "public comment" at the end of each meeting to lecture the commissioners on the dangers of sustainability. Did you know, incidentally, that bicycle lanes are a plot by the United Nations to take over county governments?

Here's a conspiracy for you (to tide you over 'til supper): Gov. McCrory and the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly have embarked on a thorough dismantling of public education in this state.

NC GOP: "Energy Efficiency, Bad!"

House Bill 201 is being heard in the Regulatory Reform Committee today. It would roll back energy efficiency standards in North Carolina building codes.

That's the intellectual playing field we're on in Raleigh these days.

One of the primary sponsors of this piece of brilliance is Cabarrus County rep Larry Pittman, who early in 2012 was advocating public hangings. Plus he wanted all the doctors who have given abortions to be first in line for the noose. I believe he may have offered to hold the coats of the executioners. The other primary sponsor, John Torbett, made money as a house "rehabilitator," so he would naturally know every cheapskate shortcut and have plenty of experience resenting those pesky energy efficiency rules.

The real beneficiary of lowering energy efficiency standards, though, would have to be Duke Energy, which is already well on its way to purging members of the Utilities Commission (Senate Bill 10) so that their former employee, Governor Whatisname, can appoint the people who'll vote on Duke Energy's requested rate hike.

Yup, the NC GOP is transforming government, though we have to observe that a bunch of kerosene (or fracked gas) and a single match would do the job faster.

The Big Wind

An amazing sight this morning: we were suddenly aware of dozens of 300-foot tall, huge wind generators, ringing the horizon to our south off I-40 in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Then they were also marching in on us from the north as well, 98 total generators, capable of producing enough power for 44,000 homes. It was curious that all the generators to our south were turning at precisely the same rotational speed -- on an absolutely breathless high plains morning -- while none of the generators on the northern side of the Interstate turned at all. That's an operational mystery.

But what a beautiful panorama.

The New Wind Generator at ASU

Went up on Friday. To get a sense of the scale, that's a man standing at the top of the tower.

Starting in 2004, the students at Appalachian State University have voted overwhelmingly to "tax" themselves $5 per student per semester to fund the Renewable Energy Initiative (REI), its mission "to reduce the environmental impact of Appalachian State University by replacing the university's existing sources of energy with cleaner forms of renewable energy...." Some 82% of students voting in 2004 supported the initiative. Last year 93% of students voted "yes!"

This wind generator is the latest installation on campus funded by that $5 assessment. Previous projects have included biodiesel/solar/photovoltaic projects, with more to come. This generator will produce an estimated 150,000 - 200,000 kilowatt hours annually, enough to power 10-15 homes. (Lots of technical background info at this REI page, including some very cool simulated movies of how the generator will look to a person driving up Rivers Street and a 360-degree fly-around of the site behind the Broyhill Inn.)

Largest-in-World Solar Heating Project in Western NC

In Fletcher. So says the Asheville Citizen-Times.