A bill will make it almost impossible for NC to clean up water. Keep it vetoed | Opinion

North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill that would ensure the critical work of state boards and commissions to protect public health and other benefits will grind to a halt, buried under red tape.

House Bill 402, Limit Rules with Substantial Financial Costs, known as the REINS Act, calls for any new rules proposed by state boards and commissions that would cost more than $1 million to implement over 5 years to each be approved by a two-thirds legislative majority. The bar is set even higher for rules that would cost $10 million or more over five years. The proposed law is at best idealistic, and at worst wholly absurd.

Just from a practical standpoint, North Carolina has 340 boards and commissions that oversee wide-ranging issues — from the Agricultural Finance Authority to the Zoological Park Council and Environmental Management Commission that will be wholly hobbled by this proposal. These boards seeking separate approval for a variety of actions from a part-time legislature would be met with months of delays as they wait for the General Assembly to return to session to approve.

Then there is the impossible-to-meet approval threshold. The minimum requirement of two-thirds approval exceeds even the General Assembly’s own minimum of a three-fifths majority vote to override the Governor’s veto of a bill. For instance, if the Wake Tech Community College Board votes to fund building renovations, it is at the mercy of the General Assembly’s calendar and the political will of its members to approve it.

In recent years, new laws have been enacted that altered the appointment process and make-up of environmental boards like the Environmental Management Commission (EMC), giving appointment authorities to legislative leaders and injecting partisanship into the process. The change raised concerns that state government would face new barriers to the timely adoption of essential rules to protect human health and welfare.

These concerns were substantiated as we can see communities across the state living with decades of dangerously high levels of PFAS, chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases, in drinking water. The EMC has buckled under political pressure and delayed restricting PFAS and holding polluters accountable. The new proposed thresholds necessary to approve essential actions will further hamstring the state’s responsibility to fulfill its primary obligation to protect public health, safety, and environmental quality.

Even worse, HB 402 proposes weighing only the financial cost and not the human benefits of regulations and specifically excludes consideration of both — a common and more balanced regulatory assessment. This element of the proposed law bypasses any point of thoughtful and measured policy being proposed or considered by the boards in the first place. The bottom line that the bill lays out is the financial cost, not the human cost; and misses the purpose of having these boards in the first place.

The EMC meets in September to again consider and issue limits on PFAS pollution into the state’s drinking water. It already seems unlikely that the commission will finally act to protect North Carolinians from these dangerous “forever chemicals.” But the enactment of HB 402 would make it nearly impossible for the EMC to do the right thing and implement any regulations on behalf of public health without more needless bureaucratic red tape. Let’s not make its job any harder.

Governor Josh Stein wisely vetoed the bill, citing red tape and “an unworkable unanimity requirement.” The General Assembly should uphold the governor’s veto.