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 Tarr. The email came to...
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 hired. The workers were involved in the pipeline permitting...
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 process and the creation of...
Ken Eudy, Gov. Roy Cooper’s policy adviser, was the governor’s key negotiator with Duke Energy in developing a $57.8 discretionary Atlantic Coast Pipeline fund Duke and its utility partners would pay to Cooper. Duke Energy also was a client of Capstrat, the marketing, advertising, lobbying and public relations firm Eudy co-founded in 1994. Documents released...
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.
If Gov. Roy Cooper felt so strongly he had legal authority to create the unusual $57.8 million Atlantic Coast Pipeline mitigation fund, then why didn’t he sue to prevent the General Assembly from commandeering the money? “That’s a good question. I don’t know,” said Pat Ryan, spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. “Maybe [the...
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, R-Union, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, Dec. 17 hand-delivered...
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 returned to the Forest Service for further...
A team of former federal special agents with a rich background investigating public corruption and fraud will dig through documents and interview members of Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration to determine whether his $57.8 million Atlantic Coast Pipeline discretionary fund was a political pay-to-play scheme. “This matter is not a criminal matter so far as we...
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 a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting...
A legislative panel is hiring a special outside investigator to get answers from Gov. Roy Cooper about his creation of a $57.8 million discretionary fund tied to payments from Atlantic Coast Pipeline partners. A Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations subcommittee voted Wednesday, Nov. 14, to probe whether Cooper’s conduct was legal. The special investigator...
