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What Democracy? "NC Lawmakers Quietly Pass Ban on Anti-Fracking Ordinances"
Monday, October 05, 2015
Common Dreams
Drillers Welcome: NC Lawmakers Quietly Pass Ban on Anti-Fracking Ordinances
New law makes new county moratoriums on fracking 'invalidated and unenforceable'
Lauren McCauley, staff writer
After a a number of local governments enacted temporary moratoriums on oil and natural gas development, including fracking, the Republican-led North Carolina government issued a resounding response: Drillers welcome!
A last-minute markup passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory last week "renders 'invalidated and unenforceable' local ordinances that place conditions on fracking that go beyond those restrictions drafted by state oil-and-gas regulations," the Winston-Salem Journal reported on Monday.
The vote occurred just days after a local body in Stokes County, N.C. passed a three-year fracking moratorium, following the lead of a number of other municipalities that are hoping to stave off exploration into their oil and gas reserves.
Brooks Rainey Pearson, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the provision was "passed in the dead of night, having never received a committee hearing or vetting of any kind."...
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/05/drillers-welcome-nc-lawmakers-quietly-pass-ban-anti-fracking-ordinances
Texas, Ohio, CO, & now NC. What citizens want & vote for by majority means nothing when going against the companies that pay off lawmakers.
Money in politics is wrecking our planet. Other than voting for Democrats, the most important thing any of us can do is concentrate on Getting $ Out of Politics.
More on the NC sneak attack...
....Opponents say the provision is an overreach by the Republican-led General Assembly into the ability of local governments to regulate development in their own communities.
The provision in Senate Bill 119 was disclosed to the full House and Senate — and the public — well past midnight Wednesday.
“It’s sad to see the legislature enact, and the governor sign, language intended to strip local elected officials of the power to protect their citizens’ health and property,” said Grady McCallie, policy director at the N.C. Conservation Network.
“Making it worse, the provision wasn’t in earlier House or Senate versions of the bill — it was added for the first time in conference, literally in the dead of night, on the last night of (the) session. The first time it saw the light of day was when copies of the conference report were distributed, between 3 and 4 a.m., shortly before the final vote,” he said.
The conference report was approved at 4:06 a.m. in the Senate by a vote of 28-15 and at 4:12 a.m. in the House by a vote of 61-22. Sen. Shirley Randleman, R-Wilkesboro, and Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-King, voted for the bill. Their districts include Stokes.
Holloway said Monday that he is “upset” and “angry” about the way the bill went through. He had gotten word from House leaders that the bill covered merely technical changes, Holloway said: “Had I known the provision was in there, I wouldn’t have voted for it.”
Mary Kerley, a Pine Hall resident who helped start the grassroots group No Fracking in Stokes, said the bill’s last-minute passage was a “sneaky” act by lawmakers who are “owned” by “out-of-state interests,” and said she was deeply disappointed in Randleman and Holloway.
“Representative Holloway has previously stood with the people of Stokes County against fracking. We hope that his vote on SB119 was a misunderstanding. As for state Senator Randleman, she has always favored oil-and-gas interests against the clear wishes of her constituents.”
Efforts to contact Randleman were unsuccessful.
In addition to the possible negating effect that the bill may have on land-use ordinances passed by local governments, the way the bill was passed presents problems of its own, according to Ryke Longest, a professor at Duke University School of Law and Nicholas School of the Environment. Senate Bill 119 was supposed to carry technical corrections, but the changes are substantive, he said.
“It is true that someone used the S119 conference committee to sneak in a substantive provision in a technical corrections bill which changed language regarding pre-emption of local ordinances....
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/n-c-lawmakers-counter-local-fracking-bans-with-last-minute/article_1a3d60a8-5876-577e-8a21-93ccf15bcc34.html
The provision in Senate Bill 119 was disclosed to the full House and Senate — and the public — well past midnight Wednesday.
“It’s sad to see the legislature enact, and the governor sign, language intended to strip local elected officials of the power to protect their citizens’ health and property,” said Grady McCallie, policy director at the N.C. Conservation Network.
“Making it worse, the provision wasn’t in earlier House or Senate versions of the bill — it was added for the first time in conference, literally in the dead of night, on the last night of (the) session. The first time it saw the light of day was when copies of the conference report were distributed, between 3 and 4 a.m., shortly before the final vote,” he said.
The conference report was approved at 4:06 a.m. in the Senate by a vote of 28-15 and at 4:12 a.m. in the House by a vote of 61-22. Sen. Shirley Randleman, R-Wilkesboro, and Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-King, voted for the bill. Their districts include Stokes.
Holloway said Monday that he is “upset” and “angry” about the way the bill went through. He had gotten word from House leaders that the bill covered merely technical changes, Holloway said: “Had I known the provision was in there, I wouldn’t have voted for it.”
Mary Kerley, a Pine Hall resident who helped start the grassroots group No Fracking in Stokes, said the bill’s last-minute passage was a “sneaky” act by lawmakers who are “owned” by “out-of-state interests,” and said she was deeply disappointed in Randleman and Holloway.
“Representative Holloway has previously stood with the people of Stokes County against fracking. We hope that his vote on SB119 was a misunderstanding. As for state Senator Randleman, she has always favored oil-and-gas interests against the clear wishes of her constituents.”
Efforts to contact Randleman were unsuccessful.
In addition to the possible negating effect that the bill may have on land-use ordinances passed by local governments, the way the bill was passed presents problems of its own, according to Ryke Longest, a professor at Duke University School of Law and Nicholas School of the Environment. Senate Bill 119 was supposed to carry technical corrections, but the changes are substantive, he said.
“It is true that someone used the S119 conference committee to sneak in a substantive provision in a technical corrections bill which changed language regarding pre-emption of local ordinances....
http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/n-c-lawmakers-counter-local-fracking-bans-with-last-minute/article_1a3d60a8-5876-577e-8a21-93ccf15bcc34.html
Are we just kidding ourselves that we live in a free country where the people's will determines governance?
2 replies
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Integrity doesn't exist any more and everything's for sale. Most folks asleep? They should be in the streets with pitchforks.
& could be made to look like the bad guys here. Just seems to be the way it goes now.
The people of Detroit took to the streets recently to protest. Does anyone but a few of us even know that?
Hundreds rally for justice in Detroit
Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press 4:56 a.m. EDT October 5, 2015
Or this?
'Not Protesters — Protectors': Fracktivists Descend on Colorado Governor's Mansion
Published on
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
by
Common Dreams
And people wonder why Bernie is so popular.
We really do need a radical left turn. But this isn't the forum for that, so I'll stop now. 