Fewer environmental regulators under Senate plan

While Gov. Roy Cooper proposed in his budget to speed up the permit process by hiring more people in the Department of Environmental Quality, the state Senate wants to reduce the agency’s workforce and defund some programs.

DEQ would lose 45 ½ full-time positions under Senate Republicans’ budget proposal.

Among the currently filled positions that would be eliminated: the chief deputy in the administrative services division, a senior adviser for policy and innovation, a legislative affairs program manager and a communications specialist.

Other environmental proposals in the plan include:

▪ Imposing a three-year moratorium on wind energy projects so that safety risks to military installations can be studied.

▪ Giving the legislature control over how the administration will spend an anticipated $92 million as the state’s share of the Volkswagen settlement meant to reduce diesel nitrogen oxide emissions. The Sierra Club says the legislature is improperly trying to constrain how that money will be used.

▪ Adding $1 million to a fund that allows the state to buy agricultural conservation easements to protect farmland.

▪ Setting aside $1 million in recurring funds that could be tapped if the state gets involved in litigation against the federal Environmental Protection Agency over a water quality directive.

▪ Taking $1 million from the agency’s energy office.

▪ Eliminating $1 million for energy research at N.C. State University, N.C. A&T University and Appalachian State.

▪ Cutting 32.5 full time positions and nearly $3 million from programs including waste reduction and increased recycling efforts. Requiring two positions be eliminated in each of the seven regional offices, for another reduction of 14 jobs.

▪ Creating a new fund to pay for roadside beautification efforts, such as mowing, picking up litter and trimming trees and bushes, and rest area improvements at a cost of $104 million in each of the next two years.

▪ Increasing the Clean Water Management Trust Fund by $3.5 million to a total of $17 million.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 7:28 PM with the headline "Fewer environmental regulators under Senate plan."