Tag: environment
June 26, 2012 at 1:37 pmCategory:Uncategorized
Environmental protection advocates have released a pair of letters signed, respectively, by 44 business owners and 33 elected officials from areas with shale gas deposits calling on Governor Perdue to veto the controversial fracking legalization bill.
According to a statement issued by the NC Sierra Club and Clean Water for North Carolina: Read More…
June 15, 2012 at 11:38 amCategory:Uncategorized
Regardless of what one thinks about the legislation to fast-track the legalization of fracking in North Carolina, you would think that since the bill calls for the state to embark upon an enormously ambitious regulatory/rule-making process over the next several months, lawmakers would want to actually have state employees in place to make it happen.
You would think.
But, of course, we’re not talking about a rational situation here; we’re talking about the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the 2012 General Assembly. Read More…
June 7, 2012 at 1:03 pmCategory:Uncategorized
Earlier this week I wrote a column about the downright mean and nasty way that conservatives in the General Assembly are governing our state these days. Over and over during the last 18 months, the people in power have displayed an utter contempt for process and the right of people who differ with them to be heard.
Today, another sad chapter in this story of aggressive know-nothingism was written in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources. It occurred during a discussion of the embarrassing bill advanced by global warming deniers that would attempt to tell scientists which data they can and cannot use to make projections about sea-level rise — an issue that could well impact the very survival of our species.
After spending all of about 10 minutes on the bill, Read More…
June 7, 2012 at 7:24 amCategory:Uncategorized
If they really care about protecting personal property rights vis a vis big powerful institutions, then by God let’s hope they read this article in this morning’s edition of Raleigh’s News & Observer about the threats to them posed by the fracking industry.
As Michelle Nowlin of Duke points out:
“Many citizens will be surprised to learn that North Carolina law authorizes private, for-profit corporations to take the property of private landowners for certain purposes. Relevant to the fracking debate is the authority of for-profit entities that build pipelines and mains to transport petroleum products, coal, gas, limestone or minerals to condemn private land. This means that Read More…
