It started with a simple request on Saturday morning, Jan. 13, 2018. Duke Energy lobbyist Kathy Hawkins asked Ken Eudy, Gov. Roy Cooper’s senior adviser, to help expedite a state official’s signature on an agreement tied to Duke’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. Hawkins told Eudy the state needed to sign…
Meredith Cooper, Gov. Roy Cooper’s sister-in-law, has been listed since April as manager of the company that owns the Cooper family’s Nash County solar farm property. That’s when Meredith filed an annual report with the N.C. Secretary of State. Meredith Cooper’s husband is Pell Cooper, a District Court judge. Pell…
Two executive orders President Donald Trump signed Wednesday, April 10, could expedite completion of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and other interstate energy transmission projects that have been delayed by state regulators. Pipeline permit-delaying tactics by officials in Washington, D.C., and New York influenced Trump’s decision…
As the Cooper administration engaged in negotiations involving the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a national governors’ group warned a Cooper adviser against a state agency taking action comparable to extortion. The warning came in a Dec. 8, 2017, email from a National Governors Association staffer to Cooper energy policy adviser Jeremy…
Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration could risk violating a state law protecting whistleblowers if it has threatened retribution against employees who want to cooperate with a legislative probe of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline deal. Cooper has told state employees not to speak with investigators the ACP subcommittee…
Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration told legislative leaders investigating the Atlantic Coast Pipeline last week it won’t allow private investigators hired by the General Assembly to interview state employees. The investigators are former federal agents who were hired in December by a special ACP subcommittee to look into the ACP permit…
While it may be impossible to wall off fully the exercise of a governor’s power from attempted influence, the executive branch should at the very least be transparent and forthright.
In North Carolina, the legislative branch oversees the operations of the executive branch. Not the other way around. That’s the message delivered by the Republican leaders of a legislative subcommittee probing Gov. Roy Cooper’s controversial $57.8-million Atlantic Coast Pipeline discretionary fund. Rep. Dean Arp,…
Quoting a Dr. Seuss character, a panel of 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges vacated a vital U.S. Forest Service permit developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline need to continue work on the 604-mile natural gas transmission line from West Virginia to North Carolina. The matter was…
Who is Doug Heyl? Members of a special legislative committee looking into the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would like to know. Heyl is a top communications official in the state Department of Environmental Quality. But what role did Heyl play in the pipeline permitting process? Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, flashed…
