Gov. Perdue Should Veto S 781

Intercepted e-mail ... Winston-Salem City Councilman Dan Besse, on the ineffable environmental badness of the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly:

Not satisfied with adopting the most anti-environmental budget in North Carolina history, this Republican-controlled legislature has sent a flurry of other anti-environmental bills to the governor.

One of the worst of the lot is Senate Bill 781, the so-called “Regulatory Reform Act of 2011.” As with most of the Republican mischief coming out of this nightmarish legislative session, the GOP idea of “reform” means to give their big polluter campaign contributors everything they want.

Here’s what SB 781 would really do: tie up what’s left of our state’s environmental enforcement staff in so much additional red tape that big polluters would have a free hand to hurt clean air, water, land, and public health across our state.