New laws passed by lawmakers jeopardize North Carolinians’ health and wallets in favor of polluters

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.–The North Carolina General Assembly’s vote yesterday to override Governor Stein’s veto of House Bill 402, Limit Rules with Substantial Financial Costs, and Senate Bill 266, the Power Bill Reduction Act jeopardizes North Carolinians’ health and wallets in favor of polluters.

Now law, HB 402 effectively halts environmental rulemaking—such as limits on toxic PFAS and cancer-causing 1,4-dioxane pollution of North Carolina’s drinking water sources. It prohibits decisionmakers from considering benefits to North Carolina’s families and communities when calculating the impact of potential rules, and requires unanimous approval of rulemaking bodies for rules that cost more than $10 million over a five-year period, with a two-thirds threshold for bills costing more than $1 million over five years.

For example, last year’s proposed limits on toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking water sources would have provided $276.68 million annually in benefits including avoided health harms to North Carolinians while it would have cost industrial polluters and government $263.31 million annually. Blocking rules without regard to whether they also create substantial benefits puts North Carolinians in harm’s way to protect the bottom line of industry.

“Lawmakers who passed this bill did not have the best interests of North Carolinians at heart,” said Mary Maclean Asbill, director of the North Carolina Offices at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This new law marks an awful turning point for families and communities across North Carolina when elected officials in the state legislature ignore serious illnesses and deaths in favor of polluters profits.”

The law also applies to rules going through period review and adoption, which could mean that safeguards that have been on the books for decades could go away, including rules that keep our drinking water safe. This law will create chaos and unpredictability for the regulated community and put our communities at risk.

As North Carolinians struggle with dangerous heat and increased flooding, lawmakers repealed a 2030 climate pollution reduction target that was established in state law just a few years ago with broad bipartisan support. Now law, SB266, includes harmful language allowing monopoly Duke Energy to charge customers for the construction cost of large, costly power plants long before those plants are completed – if they ever are built.

“This law will likely increase customer bills that North Carolinians pay monopoly Duke Energy, costing North Carolina $23 billion in additional electricity bill payments over the next few decades, and all but guaranteeing a more polluted and riskier future,” said Asbill.

It shifts 19% more of the fuel cost burden onto residential customers (from commercial and industrial customers), according to an analysis by EQ Research, and burdens residential North Carolinians with $23 billion in additional power bill payments through 2050, according to a recent study by North Carolina State University analysts.