A important round in the battle over the state’s energy future comes today in the House Commerce Committee. Lawmakers will be debating the absurdly named Affordable and Reliable Energy Act which would repeal the state’s modest renewable energy standard for utility companies that was passed in 2007.

Americans for the Prosperous and the Lockers are leading the charge in North Carolina to repeal the common sense requirement that the companies buy a small percentage of their power from wind or solar or other renewable resources.  Quite a radical notion indeed.

Nationally the repeal push is part of the ALEC agenda and lately Grover “shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” Norquist has weighed in to support the North Carolina repeal efforts.

What Norquist and the rest of Right Wing Avenue don’t tell you that is that there are more than 1,100 clean energy companies in North Carolina and the renewable energy industry created more than 21,000 jobs in the last five years. The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association has that compelling story.  Read More…

One of the speakers at Tuesday’s pro-gun rally at the General Assembly was Rep. Larry Pittman, perhaps best known for sending an email last year calling for the execution of abortion providers.

Pittman explained to the pro-gun crowd that the reason people need semi-automatic assault weapons is not for hunting or personal protection. It is to fight the government. Watch his remarks below.

Here’s a headline for you from the Triangle Business Journal.

Art Pope: I am not a controversial figure

Let’s see, you have given more than $40 million to right-wing groups and conservative politicians in North Carolina in the last ten years, you literally helped draw the redistricting maps that increased the Republican legislative majorities, you were one of three national board members of the tea party group Americans for Prosperity, you sit on the board of groups that run attack ads against political candidates you disagree with…and that’s just for starters.

No matter what people think of you, almost everyone has to agree that you are at the very least a controversial figure.

Give me a break.

Mark Binker at WRAL-TV reports that House Republican leaders are setting up their own nonprofit advocacy group to get their message out.  If there’s one thing that’s desperately needed in North Carolina, it’s another right-wing propaganda outfit funded by anonymous donors. We have so few of them.

The plan makes a mockery of the prohibition of lobbyists giving money to lawmakers’ campaigns. As Binker points out, it would allow House leaders to raise money from lobbyists—or the new state budget director—any time they want in unlimited amounts and it would all be anonymous.  Wealthy individuals would have yet another secret way to buy access to legislative leaders.

Lovely.

When first-term Republican Senator Chad Barefoot took his seat in the General Assembly for the first time Wednesday, it surely must have marked a milestone. Barefoot’s latest campaign finance report  filed this week shows he spent 999,110.64 cents to get elected.

That does not include any outside money spent on his behalf. And this was not a race in which Barefoot was merely raising money to pass it on to other candidates. He actually spent a million dollars to win a seat in the North Carolina Senate.

The big money arms race has never been more out of control.