While most legislators weren’t at the General Assembly this week, most of us working in the environmental advocacy space were busy figuring out how to fix
Senate Bill 730 - The Ratepayer Protection Act so that it will actually protect ratepayers.
This is the bill we talked about last week.
The bill’s not all bad; in fact, it takes some important first steps on data centers, limiting government tax incentives and limiting water usage in their cooling systems and taking steps to protect everyday Duke Energy customers from paying for new infrastructure needed to power big data centers. We’re suggesting some improvements - in particular, we’d like to see mandatory assessment of environmental impacts, as well as a large-load tariff to relieve the market pressures that AI data centers put on the cost of electricity. Still, what’s there now is a solid start.
However, the 12-page bill also includes a lot of energy policy, and two sections of the energy policy provisions are particularly troubling.
Section 10 of this bill says Duke Energy can’t retire any of its coal plants until the NC Utilities Commission, which regulates Duke Energy, approves construction of a new nuclear facility. It’s not clear how long that would take, but we shouldn’t delay closure of Duke’s aging, expensive and dirty coal-fired plants. Plus, with nuclear being the MOST expensive form of energy currently out there, we would undoubtedly see rates rise yet again if we force Duke to invest heavily in a nuclear future.
These coal plants are expensive to operate, even before you calculate the extensive environmental and health consequences of burning coal to generate electricity. Solar and batteries are cheaper, and NC Sierra Club favors policies that move us toward a cleaner energy future.
Section 8 of Senate Bill 730 requires a new study of state energy policies, including the 2050 carbon neutrality goal the General Assembly approved in 2021. The bill directs the General Assembly Legislative Services Officer to pick the group that does this study, which is an unusual choice given the scope of that role normally being limited to managing the Legislative Building complex and non-partisan staff.
If we’re going to do this study, it should be done by an organization with expertise, such as the North Carolina Collaboratory, which was created for precisely this purpose.
We’re asking General Assembly members to drop Section 10 of this bill entirely, and at a minimum alter Section 8. The 2050 goal is an important one, and it had bipartisan support in the legislature just 5 years ago.
We’ll be working hard to fix this bill - can you help by sending a quick note to your representative in the NC House asking them to drop Section 10?
