Gov. McCrory's actions on coal ash will tell us what we need to know

Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, August 17, 2014.

Gov. Pat McCrory says it was an honest mistake. His lawyer, a man he trusted to be his general counsel on matters of state law, misunderstood some financial disclosure forms required annually of elected and appointed state officials.

The forms in question, filed April 15 for the year 2013, omitted two of the governor's holdings as of Dec. 31, 2013: stock in Spectra Energy and Duke Energy, the latter his former employer. The Statement of Economic Interest was later amended twice – once in May to add Spectra, and again on Wednesday to include Duke Energy.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported on the omission Wednesday. McCrory, who never denied that he owned Duke Energy stock and who had included it on previous listings, sold the stock sometime after the Dan River coal-ash spill and before April 15, when economic statements were filed for 2013.

His spokesman wouldn't say when, but at the time of the spill McCrory still owned about $10,000 in Duke Energy stock as part of his 401(k) plan. As investments in a $50 billion company go, it's not an eyebrow-raising amount. But McCrory is not just any investor. He is the governor of a state grappling with a major environmental problem, namely, coal ash stored at power plants owned by Duke Energy.

His former employment relationship with the company was under scrutiny from day one. Yes, anyone can make a mistake, and too often oversights in the complex world of campaign and financial disclosure rules are blown up into major conspiracies when they are, in fact, easily correctable screw-ups. But there is a reason the laws exist, and this case illustrates perfectly the need for elected and appointed officials to be thorough in listing all their possible conflicts of interest.

For his part, McCrory acknowledged ownership of "some" Duke Energy stock in a news conference following the spill, although he wouldn't say how much. His spokesman says the governor sold his stocks sometime between Feb. 14 and April.

Questions remain about just how tough McCrory and his administration will be with the multibillion-dollar utility that has pushed back against efforts to force immediate cleanup and removal of all its coal-ash ponds. So far, the company and the state have agreed that coal-ash ponds at four plants, including the shuttered Sutton Steam Plant off U.S. 421 north of Wilmington, will be cleaned out. Environmental groups are calling for ponds at all 14 plants to be cleaned up because of the potential environmental and health hazards.

His ultimate response to that crisis will carry much more weight with the public than what he calls a misunderstanding by his lawyer – who, according to the governor, thought it was OK to exclude stock held at the end of 2013 because it was sold before the April 15, 2014, filing deadline.

The mistake has now been corrected. No harm, no foul? That's one way to look at it. But consider how charitable the IRS might be if you said you thought it wasn't necessary to report some of your 2013 income because you lost money during the first quarter of 2014.

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