Cooper vetoes NC legislators’ efforts on pipeline, hog farms and nuclear energy

Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday vetoed a pair of bills that would make it easier for a controversial pipeline project to obtain key permits and boost nuclear energy in the state.

Cooper vetoed House Bill 600, the Regulatory Reform Act, which includes provisions that would help MVP Southgate attain water quality certifications that N.C. Department of Environmental Quality regulators previously denied, as well as a law that may limit how DEQ reviews hog farm permits.

In his veto message for House Bill 600, Cooper wrote, “This bill is a hodgepodge of bad provisions that will result in dirtier water, discriminatory permitting and threats to North Carolina’s environment. It also undoes a significant policy to promote fairness in state contracting for historically underutilized businesses as it blocks efforts to encourage diverse suppliers for state purchases, rules that would save taxpayer dollars and help businesses grow.”

Monday’s actions bring the total number of bills Cooper has vetoed this legislative session to 19. So far, the General Assembly has overridden 14 of those.

Republicans hold supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, allowing them to override vetoes without any cooperation from Democrats. It has not been uncommon, however, to see a handful of Democrats joining with Republicans on veto overrides, particularly on environmental issues.

Earlier this year, legislators overrode Cooper’s veto of a bill that delays updates to the building code that oversees energy conservation efforts in new North Carolina homes. The General Assembly also overrode a Cooper veto of this year’s Farm Act, which requires North Carolina’s wetlands rules to be in line with significantly weakened federal rules, potentially allowing as many as half of the state’s wetlands to be developed, according to an N.C. Department of Environmental Quality estimate.

Environmental groups celebrated Cooper’s veto of the regulatory reform act Monday afternoon.

In a statement, Grady McCallie, the N.C. Conservation Network’s policy director, said, ““The governor’s veto of HB 600 is welcome, and we urge every lawmaker to uphold it. This bill is a grab bag full of gifts for special interests that will degrade the environment and threaten public health in our state.”

MVP Southgate pipeline

The Sierra Club focused on provisions intended to boost MVP Southgate’s efforts to obtain water quality certifications for the pipeline’s 73-mile route through Rockingham and Alamance counties.

The regulatory reform bill introduced changes to water quality permitting that only apply to dredging and energy projects. If the bill becomes law, DEQ would have 30 days to decide if a water quality certification application for either kind of project is complete and then either 60 or 90 days to approve or deny it, depending on whether there is a public hearing..

Legislators introduced large swaths of those provisions in a conference report, which was made public hours before the bill went to the House floor.

DEQ previously denied MVP Southgate’s efforts to obtain so-called 401 permits, in part because the project’s “mainline” from West Virginia to Southern Virginia remained shrouded in uncertainty. The federal government moved earlier this year to require that the pipeline go ahead, and MVP has since asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to give it until 2026 to complete the route from southern Virginia into North Carolina.

“We thank Governor Cooper for taking a stand against this legislation which protects industry over people. By vetoing this bill, Governor Cooper demonstrates his continued commitment to a healthy environment and a clean energy economy that will bring jobs while protecting our state’s most vulnerable citizens,” Cynthia Satterfield, the Sierra Club’s North Carolina chapter director, wrote in a statement.

Hog farms

Another provision causing concern among environmental groups relates to the permitting of hog farms. The bill would change the language of North Carolina’s law relating to the permitting of hog farms to say that regulators should only consider the contents of one particular state law.

Some, like attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center, have argued the legislation is an effort to skirt federal civil rights law by requiring that regulators limit the scope of their permitting review to the pertinent state law. The N.C. Pork Council previously told The News & Observer the legislation is intended to clear up some confusion about which of two sections of state law regulators should consider when writing permits.

DEQ is in the midst of reviewing the general permits for the waste management systems found on hog farms, cattle farms and poultry operations that have wet chicken litter. The agency is also reviewing the permits for digesters that capture the methane from waste generated by animals on the three kinds of operations.

Nuclear energy legislation

Monday’s vetoes included Senate Bill 678, legislation that defines nuclear energy as a source of “clean energy” and allows utilities to use nuclear power to meet their goals for carbon-free energy. The legislation that originally created the state’s renewable energy portfolio standard — which would become a “clean energy portfolio standard” — explicitly barred nuclear power from being used to meet it.

“North Carolina is on a bipartisan path to removing carbon from our electric power sector in the most cost-effective way. This bill attempts to diverge from that path by trying to put construction of traditional power plants, and higher profits for the utility companies, over lower-cost solutions like energy efficiency,” Cooper wrote in his veto message.

Duke Energy is interested in building several small modular nuclear reactors in North Carolina over the coming decades as part of its transition away from coal and eventually natural gas. Under a resource plan filed earlier this year, Duke would submit an early site permit application allowing it to replace a coal plant with a small modular nuclear reactor at its Belews Creek site in Stokes County.

The resource plan also says that by 2026, Duke wants to submit an early site permit for another small modular nuclear reactor at the site of an existing coal plant. Those sites are viewed as good fits for the reactors because they have existing transmission capacity for the energy that’s created, saving the company and ratepayers money as the power generation switches.

Sen. Paul Newton, a former Duke Energy North Carolina state president who was the bill’s primary sponsor, previously told The N&O that he believes removing barriers to nuclear energy is important because power sources that can be called upon at a moment’s notice will gain importance as solar and wind make up larger portions of the state’s energy mix.

In a statement Monday, Newton wrote, “Gov. Cooper’s hardline opposition to nuclear power is a slap in the face to North Carolina’s energy industry. He would rather glorify the Green New Deal than strengthen energy production in our state. I look forward to overriding his veto and ensuring that North Carolina can have a reliable electrical grid.”

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.