Martin calls for coal ash compromise
Published August 19, 2014
by Laura Leslie, WRAL, August 18, 2014.
As the state legislature continues to idle over a stalemate among House and Senate Republicans, a Wake County lawmaker is calling for action on a stalled coal ash clean-up plan.
After the Dan River coal ash spill in February, House and Senate leaders agreed that legislation to address the state’s 33 coal ash ponds was one of the session’s top priorities. But negotiations over the differences in the two chambers’ proposals broke down at the end of July.
Senate Leader Phil Berger has said he’d like lawmakers to come back November 17th, after the fall elections, to address both the coal ash plan and Medicaid reform. But House Speaker Thom Tillis said Friday the House prefers to adjourn sine die this week and skip the November session, pushing the bill to 2015 instead.
Governor Pat McCrory has issued an executive order calling for clean-up assessments to begin at the state’s four most-hazardous ash ponds. Duke Energy, which owns all 33 ponds, has already announced plans to clean out those four and begin the process of closing others. But environmental advocates say neither option carries much weight or accountability, and neither will protect Duke customers from bearing the cost of the clean-up.
Rep. Grier Martin, who received an award Monday from the League of Conservation Voters, insisted there is still time in the waning days of the session for House and Senate negotiators to bridge their differences.
“There is no debate that there has been a failure to fix the coal ash problem,” he said.
Martin, a Democrat, insisted the problem is not partisan.
“There are some great Republicans who are working hard to fix the coal ash problem,” he said, naming Reps. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, and Ruth Samuelson, R-Mecklenburg. “Their dedication to this cause and their true passion for it cannot be questioned at all.”
“In the end, it is not a partisan failure. It is a leadership failure. It is a failure by Speaker Tillis, it is a failure by Senator Berger, and it is a failure by Governor McCrory,” Martin said. “If we leave town without a fix for the coal ash problem, I sincerely hope that the voters will understand that and hold those responsible at the voting booth in November. “
Martin also spoke against waiting until a November special session to finish work on a deal.
“The voters expected us to fix the problem, and fix the problem promptly,” he said. “The leadership knows that the fix that’s likely to pass is not going to satisfy the voters that it adequately protects them, and so they want to implement that legislation after the elections in November, when they can no longer be held accountable for it.”
Senate leaders have said delaying the measure until a November special session would allow greater focus on the issue, while providing time to work out remaining differences over timelines, definitions, and oversight.
But Tillis said Friday that if lawmakers were going to wait until November, there would be little difference in waiting till January instead, when the new session – and new lawmakers – could take up the issue.
Meantime, Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Frank Holleman agreed legislators should pass a plan promptly to "require Duke Energy to clean up its coal ash pollution in all 14 communities across North Carolina," but cautioned that the two proposals to date would weaken state water protections.
"To date, the bills passed by the House and the Senate are not clean up bills," Holleman said. "The Legislature should pass a bill that truly cleans up Duke Energy’s coal ash pollution and not a bill that weakens North Carolina’s clean water laws. We want a clean up bill, but not a step backwards with the label 'Coal Ash' on it."
http://www.wral.com/martin-calls-for-coal-ash-compromise-/13903157/
August 19, 2014 at 11:52 am
Norm Kelly says:
Rep. Grier Martin is a Democrat.
the League of Conservation Voters is a liberal organization.
Isn't Southern Environmental Law Center a liberal organization? I seem to recall they are more interested in 'protecting' the environment even in cases where it doesn't make sense rather than ANY other item. They seem to be liberal to me.
So, the bottom line question is simple. The coal ash pond debacle has existed for DECADES! The N&D has occasionally let it slip into some of their stories berating Republicans generally and Pat specifically for the coal ash problem that the issue has actually existed for decades. So, since the N&D is such a trusted, truthful 'news' paper, I'll use them as the source for the problem existing for DECADES. DENR has said that the ponds were known to be leaking for years. I haven't seen this repeated often, so it seems they are trying to keep this hushed up!
Suddenly, when the Republicans took over Raleigh, by choice of the majority of voters (legal & otherwise), DENR claims that they felt pressured NOT to do anything about the coal ash ponds. Does this make sense to ANYONE who has graduated from elementary school? Even a NC public elementary school? Of course it makes sense to libs. But I'm talking about thinking people. People who can look at the facts and draw logical conclusions. I exempt libs from this because they do their absolute best to NEVER recognize a fact, so most of the truth about this story escapes virtually every lib, and for some reason that does NOT include bias (sure!) it seems media types don't recognize it either.
Where was Martin when the coal ash pond issue was known about decades ago? Or even 1 decade ago?
Where was Southern Environmental Law Center when the coal ash pond issue was created and allowed to exist for DECADES?
Where was League of Conservation voters, not to be confused with Conservative voters? The problem existed for DECADES. Can ANYONE show where the League demonstrated ANY outrage about it before now?
For that matter, can ANYONE show documentation from DENR documenting the problem, what they did to make sure it didn't cause a disaster, and that they knew about the leaks for YEARS? If the ponds have existed for decades and they were known to be leaking for years, shouldn't someone at DENR have documented this? And shouldn't those documents reveal what was decided to be done about it and WHO made the decision? So, why has NO ONE in the media asked to see those documents? FOIA exists just for this purpose. Or what's the chances all the documentation existed in emails that have been lost, due to something normal like a hard drive crash!
I know. Since the Republicans are in charge of Raleigh, and everyone just KNOWS without doubt that Republicans HATE the environment and WANT to poison the air & water, it's suddenly a problem because now libs can demonstrate that Republicans really do hate the environment. There's not a single doubt amongst libs, media types, N&D editorials, etc. that the Republicans allowed this to happen ON PURPOSE and MUST be held accountable. Except the same people, like Martin, who want voters to hold THOSE RESPONSIBLE accountable at the ballot box. Does Martin therefore believe, since the FACTS show that the demon party is fully RESPONSIBLE for this fiasco, that we voters should hold the hypocritical demons in Raleigh responsible for the disaster? Should we hold members of the demon party responsible and vote them out of office because they allowed the problem to be created in the first place, allowed the ponds to leak for DECADES, and have DONE NOTHING to hold Duke or Progress Energy responsible nor forced either entity to PAY for the cleanup? I seem to recall that demons controlled Raleigh, just like the Republicans control Raleigh now. So why didn't THEY do something about it when it was being created and could more easily and cheaply been resolved from the get-go? Why do demons expect that they have ZERO responsibility for this? And why do never-biased media types not hold the demon party's feet to the fire? Has ANY 'news' media type yet asked any demon why they knew about the coal ash ponds FOR DECADES and yet did NOTHING about it, even when it appears they KNEW that the ponds were leaking? And when the demon party controlled Raleigh and could have gotten just about ANY legislative plan passed?
