After successfully defending their seats against challengers during the 2014 election, Rep. Rick Catlin, R-District 20, and Sen. Michael Lee, R-District 9, discuss how they might approach coal ash management, offshore oil and gas exploration, and updated sea level rise predictions during their two-year terms in the N.C. General Assembly.
Coal ash law revisited
The General Assembly debated coal ash management bills from the first day of the 2014 legislative session to the last, when a final bill was passed to Gov. Pat McCrory for approval. The law required removal of ash from ponds at four high-priority Duke Energy sites, including at Wilmington’s Sutton Plant, by 2019, and requires new ash management strategies in place at Duke’s remaining 10 facilities by 2029.
Lee recalled the quick consensus reached at the end of the session to get a law in place and begin the cleanup process, but said legislators need to revisit the law because it was hurried to the governor.
“It’s not perfect, but we wanted to get what we thought was a good, strong statute in place by which we could have regulation established. But whenever you do something like that, you need to take a step back and look at it again,” Lee said.
Catlin said he expects a second coal ash law as details about deadlines, schedules and ash management requirements emerge.
“I’d be surprised if we don’t have a coal ash bill No. 2,” Catlin said. He said he is already working on a closure strategy for Duke’s Cape Fear plant, upriver from New Hanover County drinking water intakes, with the newly seated Coal Ash Management Commission, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Duke Energy officials.
Offshore oil and gas exploration
Oil and natural gas extraction in federal waters is dictated by leasing plans released by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management every five years. A draft of the next plan, effective in 2017, will likely be released for public comment in 2015. The federal waters off North Carolina could be included in the plan. McCrory, who chairs the pro-offshore exploration Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, supports seismic testing and extraction of offshore oil and natural gas reserves, if found in large enough quantities.
Seismic testing to determine what oil and natural gas resources lay beneath the sea floor could begin as soon as 2015. Applications to conduct the testing are currently awaiting approval by the U.S. Department of Interior.
Catlin said he has a lot of unanswered questions about the impact of seismic testing on marine life. He also cited concerns about safety, if the seismic testing identifies significant resources and drilling begins.
“This is not the Gulf of Mexico. We have a lot more storms, a lot more current, and we may have a lot more depth. We have to look at the safety technologies to make sure we do it properly,” Catlin said.
Lee supports seismic testing, and if resources are identified, he is particularly concerned with how resources will be handled after they are brought onshore for processing.
“That’s where we really need to be careful, from an environmental perspective . . . and a lot of folks aren’t really talking about it,” Lee said.
Both Lee and Catlin said they support McCrory’s pledge to share offshore royalties with coastal communities to fund beach management and infrastructure projects like renourishment and dredging.
“It benefits the United States to be energy independent, but it also benefits North Carolina from a royalty revenue perspective,” Lee said.
New sea level rise predictions
Following a controversial 2010 prediction that waters off the coast of North Carolina could raise as much as 39 inches by 2100, the N.C. General Assembly halted implementation of any rules or policies addressing sea level rise until the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel prepares a new, official state prediction.
The updated prediction will offer a range of sea level rise estimates, reaching only 30 years into the future, with updates every five years to ensure predictions remain reliable.
A draft prediction will be sent for peer review by the end of 2014, with a public comment period beginning March 31, 2015. A final copy will be sent to the General Assembly in 2016.
Calling on his experience as an engineer and scientist, Catlin said he hopes to see either a more modest rate of growth in the updated predictions, or justification of the rapid rate of acceleration in the 2010 prediction.
“Sea levels rise and fall throughout the history of the Earth. As a geologist, I see the impacts of that,” Catlin said. “It’s always changing, but it’s changed in a steady fashion.”
Catlin and Lee both said state leaders need accurate predictions to help coastal communities plan and prepare to assume risk.
“What we in state government need to do is adequately predict what the regulatory environment would look like in the event the report proves to be accurate,” Lee said. “I think we can better assess this on a relatively short-term basis, so we can look at the next 30 years, and then five years from now, we can look out 30 years from that point.”
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