Plastic bags and EVs in the slow lane: What does NC's new budget mean for the environment?

More than two months after the start of the new fiscal year, North Carolina finally has a state budget.

The $30 billion budget, largely written behind closed doors by the GOP-dominated General Assembly, will become state law after Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he wouldn't veto the bill largely because of the "life-saving, monumental decision for our state" to expand Medicaid.

In a statement, Cooper said the budget was bad overall, but that 600,000 people had waited long enough for health insurance. The General Assembly approved the expansion of Medicaid in March, but connected the move to the passing of a state budget.

The 625-page budget document and companion 786-page money report impacts pretty much every aspect of state residents' lives, from providing $6 million over two years to help digitize birth records to raising the renewal time for drivers licenses for most people under 65 from eight to 16 years - although the DMV says the move might violate federal law - to increasing the cost for autopsies.

The budget, which covers the next two fiscal years, also includes pay raises for teachers − although Democrats claim not enough, doesn't included expanded gambling, lowers the state's income tax rate, expands school vouchers, and does away with COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

But what does it mean for the environment?

Banning bag bans

The budget bill includes language that restricts local governments from banning the use of plastic bags at grocery stores. It also prevents local officials from enacting a fee on plastic bags.

The language in the bill actually uses the term "auxiliary containers," which includes bags, cups, bottles and other packaging.

The move by Republicans, who have for years chaffed at the idea of bans over concerns they could increase costs for small businesses and limit consumer choice, comes as Buncombe County appears close to passing a waste-reduction ordinance that would ban many single-use packaging products and Durham was considering a 10-cent fee for plastic bags.

Reducing the use of plastic bags historically has had strong support along the N.C. coast due to concerns over the bags impacts on marine life, especially sea turtles who can mistake the bags for jellyfish. In 2009, the Outer Banks banned single-use plastic bags − a move that was later reversed by the GOP-controlled General Assembly in 2017. Wilmington and New Hanover County's beach towns have periodically talked about adopting initiatives to reduce the use of the bags, but have stopped short of banning them or implementing a fee.

PAPER OR PLASTIC? How hard will Wilmington fight plastic bags? It depends on what North Carolina will allow.

Rolling back emission reduction efforts

The bill also includes several measures that move to slow down Cooper's aggressive efforts to fast track North Carolina's efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and embrace a "greener" power grid.

The budget legislation stops state regulators from requiring utilities to offset their carbon emissions through cap-and-trade programs. It also blocks North Carolina from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative, market-based effort among a number of East Coast states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by offering cap-and-invest options.

GREEN POLITICAL POWER How Gov. Cooper's executive orders have driven a lot of NC's green agenda

The bill also increase fees paid by electric and hybrid vehicle owners, primarily to make up for what those drivers aren't paying in state gas taxes, and removes emission testing for most vehicles across the state. It also bans the state from adopting the Advanced Clean Truck Rule (ACT), which would have required vehicle manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks in the coming years.

Republicans have said the move to reduce North Carolina's carbon emissions, primarily by moving away from fossil fuels and promoting electric vehicles, needs to be scaled back so as not to hurt economic growth and place more financial burdens on residents and businesses.

But environmentalists and clean-energy advocates say the moves by Republicans to slow-boat the switch to greener energy is costing North Carolina economic opportunities and exposing residents to increased environmental and health dangers.

"This budget is a power play at the expense of the long-term well-being of our state and everyone who lives in it," said Cynthia Satterfield, director of the N.C. Chapter of the Sierra Club, in a statement.

Looking to improve coastal water quality

The budget, however, does include some financial sweeteners for the N.C. coast.

The N.C. Coastal Federation received several state appropriations for projects, including $2 million to develop more living shorelines, where natural elements like oyster reefs, wooden sills and marsh grasses are used instead of hardened structures to offer shoreline protection. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), benefits of living shorelines include purifying water, buffering floods, reducing erosion, storing carbon and creating habitat for a host of marine critters.

The budget also gives the federation $500,000 to continue efforts to remove marine debris, including abandoned boats and fishing fear, from coastal waters.

ADAPTING TO CHANGE Living shorelines: Along the N.C. coast, preparing for rising waters with natural remedies

The budget also includes $10 million to support grants to local governments to make coastal communities more resilient to flooding and other storm-related events − a major focus of federal and state officials after the widespread flooding seen in Eastern N.C. after Hurricanes Matthew and Florence − and $5 million for a federation-run pilot program to help repair and upgrade coastal stormwater systems. Declining water quality is one of the biggest factors leading to the degradation of coastal marine habitats.

Legislators also included more than $61 million in the budget to help local governments and utilities deal with toxic "forever chemicals," like GenX, that are increasingly being found in local water supplies − especially those south of Chemours' Fayetteville Works plant. Many of these manmade PFAS, an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were dumped into waterways and then entered public water systems and groundwater systems that serve private wells, but pollution from "forever chemicals" is also showing up at military bases and airports where they were used in firefighting foam.

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full  editorial control of the work.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: NC budget rolls back a lot of environmental actions in favor of economy