A Davie County Republican is urging fellow state lawmakers to stop wasting time and money on the state’s climate change commission and support energy policy he says will have a tangible impact on the state. Sen. Andrew Brock says the legislature should move to tap the massive natural gas reserve experts believe is sitting off the North Carolina coast.
“This whole thing was based on a false set of principles and false data,” says Brock, referencing e-mails leaked last year from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. Climate-change activists have relied on East Anglia data to justify massive government intervention, including caps on greenhouse gas emissions and limits on fossil fuel consumption. “There’s no credible evidence that supports that all the production by mankind is affecting the global climate.”
The four-term conservative is a longtime critic of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change, created in 2005. He’s also a longtime supporter of offshore drilling.
Last month, as North Carolinians endured a record-breaking deep freeze, Brock sent legislators an email calling for “the immediate dismissal” of the global warming commission.
“He’s made similar remarks before so it wasn’t entirely unexpected,” says commission co-chair Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford. She says she’s comfortable with the accuracy of the science despite the East Anglia disclosures. “We need to be concerned [about climate change], and I think the skepticism around the scientists is a little bit of a red herring.”
Harrison says the commission has considered the view of skeptics. She points to presentations by former University of Virginia professor of environmental sciences Pat Michaels, and a Beacon Hill Institute report detailing the negative economic impact of renewable energy mandates.
The Beacon Hill report was produced for the John Locke Foundation. “There’s been more from the side that we needed to act because that’s the predominant perspective being represented in the scientific community,” she says.
Brock says boosting the natural gas supply especially would be helpful to low-income North Carolinians. He’s reminded of the need for low-cost alternatives when he sees constituents filling kerosene tanks. He says people would be surprised at how many families rely on kerosene as their main heating source.
Two groups are studying the drilling issue — the General Assembly’s Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration and Gov. Perdue’s Scientific Advisory Panel on Offshore Energy.
Brock predicts General Assembly leadership will thwart drilling even though a 2009 Civitas Institute poll found seven of 10 North Carolinians support energy exploration somewhere off the coast. He’s also skeptical of claims that offshore drill rigs and other infrastructure would create coastal blight and hurt tourism.
“You don’t see [drilling equipment] when you’re at the Gulf [of Mexico], you don’t see it in other places,” he says. “And even [when] you do, it’s no different than seeing a telephone pole outside your house.”
Harrison is on the fence about drilling. “I’m mixed about the need for offshore natural gas exploration because I think there are plenty of supplies on the mainland and I don’t think that it’s the answer. It’s the interim step and it’s not the answer,” she says.
Brock also wants to look into building a refinery in eastern North Carolina to jumpstart economic development in distressed counties. He would support incentives for energy exploration and expansion. “Economic development follows energy. Period. That’s why the mills moved to North Carolina,” he says.
Eastern North Carolina is on Harrison’s mind as well. Potential sea level rise is her concern. She says a presentation from Stan Riggs, professor of geology at East Carolina University, showed a lot of the Outer Banks could be under water in the next 30 years. “That could do something to the economy of eastern North Carolina.”
The Senate’s changing political dynamic is likely to affect whether Brock’s recommendations gain traction when the General Assembly convenes in May. He says the election of Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, as Senate majority leader is a key change.
Brock says moderate, business-friendly Democrats have been replaced by more liberal members, naming Speaker Joe Hackney and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, in the House, and Nesbitt in the Senate. “It really shows there’s a huge shift in the Democrat philosophy in power in North Carolina,” he says. “I don’t know what will happen, but I’ll say that more of the legislation will be more left-leaning.”
Election-year politics may provide a check. Brock predicts Democrats will co-opt Republican ideas to show voters they’re listening to concerns about taxes and spending.
Last year, Civitas Action named Brock the most conservative member of the N.C. Senate, giving him a rating of 79 out of 100.
Donna Martinez is a contributor to Carolina Journal.