At energy conference, Cooper calls on businesses to rally against GOP policies

Even as he hailed North Carolina’s clean energy economy, Gov. Roy Cooper warned Thursday that legislation limiting access to abortion and slashing funding to public schools could frustrate the state’s future business recruitment efforts.

“Grossly underfunding our public schools, our early childhood education and child care will hurt the amazing workforce that has been the centerpiece of the reason why we are the number one state for business and why we are leading the race on the clean energy economy,” Cooper said during a speech at the N.C. Sustainable Energy Conference’s Making Energy Work conference.

“Businesses need to step up to help to change that,” he said.

North Carolina has 105,000 clean energy jobs, according to an annual report from E2, a nonpartisan environmental business group. American Clean Power reported earlier this year that $14 billion has been invested in utility-scale solar, storage and wind projects in the state with an additional $15 billion likely by 2030.

Cooper’s remarks came the same week Toyota announced that it is increasing its investment in a Triad battery manufacturing plant to $13.9 billion and hiring about 5,000 workers for the facility. But the governor said that growth could be threatened not only by education policy, but also by social policies making it harder to get an abortion and energy policies that stymie efforts to update the state’s energy efficiency codes in new houses.

“Our state is being looked at as a whole by these businesses who want to come here and to succeed and we have to make sure that we are sending the right signals to them in order to make sure that families and communities get these great paying jobs,” Cooper said.

In response to Cooper’s remarks, Senate leader Phil Berger’s office pointed to an April poll the N.C. Chamber commissioned from the East Carolina Center for Survey Research. The poll found that 57% of respondents said their employers should remain neutral on social issues while 26% said employers should take a stand.

“Instead of trying to bully businesses into ill-advised activism, Gov. Cooper should acknowledge that North Carolina is the best state in the nation for business because of the General Assembly’s work to pull the state out of the economic sinkhole the Democrats created. By slashing taxes, cutting bureaucratic red tape, and developing a well-educated workforce Republicans have turned North Carolina into an economic powerhouse,” Lauren Horsch, a Berger spokeswoman, wrote in a statement.

Cooper: More solar, wind

Cooper also doubled down on his calls for Duke Energy and the N.C. Utilities Commission to ramp up solar and offshore wind energy instead of moving forward with planned natural gas plants. Meeting the goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector set out in 2021 legislation is crucial, Cooper said, including the interim goal of a 70% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030.

“How do we make it? Greater reliance on solar, wind and storage. More than utilities like Duke Energy have proposed, and more than the Utilities Commission has approved,” Cooper said.

Thursday’s event marked the second time in recent weeks that Cooper has publicly criticized Duke’s proposal to reduce carbon dioxide.

Filed this summer, Duke’s proposal to reduce carbon emissions would significantly increase the amount of new natural gas generation, with the company’s preferred portfolio adding 6.2 gigawatts of new gas facilities by 2035. That portfolio would add 11.9 gigawatts of solar and 4.3 gigawatts of battery storage over the same period.

To reach net zero by 2050 as required by law, Duke Energy will ultimately need to either retire its gas plants or convert them to burn hydrogen.

“We can’t use natural gas as the solution to these challenges. In fact, the sunken cost in these natural gas plants along with fuel price swings and lack of availability can cause significantly higher rates in the future,” Cooper said during his remarks.

Scientists have criticized natural gas because while it slashes carbon dioxide emissions, the methane leaked during the transport and emitted during the combustion of natural gas is a more potent, albeit shorter-lived, greenhouse gas.

In response to Thursday’s remarks, Duke spokesman Bill Norton wrote, “We agree, natural gas is not the solution by itself — it will take a diverse, ‘all of the above’ approach to serve North Carolina’s exponential growth and deliver reliable, affordable power that’s available 24/7 for our customers.”

Energy legislation

Earlier Thursday, Peter Ledford, Cooper’s clean energy director, sounded a different warning about the state’s transition away from coal and, eventually, natural gas. Legislative efforts to shift the state’s balance of power could, Ledford said, make the state look unstable to companies who consider greenhouse gas emissions when picking a location.

Ledford pointed to legislation the General Assembly passed this year shifting the makeup of the Utilities Commission from seven members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly to three gubernatorial and two General Assembly appointments.

“The biggest challenge is that people are going to look at North Carolina’s political environment (and) they’re not going to see (House Bill) 951 and this clean pathway to achieving all of our climate goals. They’re going to see these little partisan fights and power grabs that are going to undermine what we as a state should be trying to accomplish,” Ledford said.

Ledford also referenced Senate Bill 678, legislation that removed some limitations on permitting for nuclear powerplants.

When the bill entered a conference committee made up of House and Senate members, Ledford noted, it included an increase on rooftop solar leasing limits that many advocates said could establish a market in North Carolina. While in that conference committee, the provision was removed and the final bill ultimately was designed to help build new nuclear power plants.

That solar provision was championed by Rep. Kyle Hall, a King Republican who co-chairs the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee. The bill containing expanded solar leasing limits sailed through the House, Hall noted.

“The Death Star over there called the Senate struck that down, but it’s still alive. It’s on life support right now. We’ll come back into the short session in April and hopefully be able to get that accomplished,” Hall said.

The bill became law despite Cooper’s veto, with a handful of House Democrats joining Republican supermajorities in both the House and Senate to override.

Hall also discussed a budget provision that prevents North Carolina from enacting a rule that would make the sellers of medium- and heavy-duty trucks in the state steadily increase their percentage of electric and other zero-emission vehicle sales until 2035. Those vehicles account for 32% of the particulate matter from North Carolina’s transportation sector despite only making up 3.2% of the registered vehicles, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

When the budget went to conference committee, Hall said he tried to shift the provision to at least allow the rule to be written and then receive legislative approval rather than barring it outright.

“I was hoping to come up with a good middle ground to please those crazies over there in the governor’s office and my crazies in the legislature. ... Unfortunately, I lost,” Hall said.

How voters think about clean energy

Democratic and Republican voters think differently about clean energy, Republican consultant Paul Shumaker said Thursday. And unaffiliated voters, who make up the largest bloc in the state, think differently than either.

Republicans primarily view clean energy as an economic development tool and somewhat as a way to attain energy independence, Shumaker said during a Thursday panel, while Democrats view it as a way to combat climate change. Unaffiliated voters, who account for about 2.6 million North Carolinians, don’t fully trust either argument.

Those critical voters, Shumaker said, are focused on issues like saving for their kids’ educations rather than broader issues like climate change or economic development. Reaching that voting bloc will become increasingly important throughout the 2020s, he noted.

“The way you position this issue is being a solution that makes your life better and oh, by the way, it’s good for the planet ... It’s not, hey, we need to do this to save the planet and then it’s going to make your life better. It’s about putting their choices first and then having that be the byproduct of it,” Shumaker said.

Sen. DeAndrea Salvador, a Charlotte Democrat, pushed back against the idea that Democrats solely care about the environment when discussing clean energy. Climate is important, Salvador said, but so are jobs and affordability.

If someone’s electric bill keeps them from being able to feed their family or forces them to ration medication, Salvador said, they are unlikely to consider the climate impacts of their energy.

“As they start to hear we’re going to transition to alternatives, they need to have the confidence that this will also impact and build upon the things that they need in their lives such that energy is not a pillar that is stopping it, it really can be a compounding effect,” Salvador said.

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.