Little fanfare surrounded the state Department of Environmental Quality’s most recent decision to issue an air quality permit connected with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. The permit, issued Tuesday, Feb. 27, is for the Northampton Compressor Station. It isn’t the last permit necessary for the 600-mile pipeline that would transmit fracked natural gas from West...
With the nation split down the middle on myriad issues, political parties are operating — or not — in a toxic atmosphere. “Congress needs to return to regular order,” Meredith College political science professor David McLennan said. “It would be nice for the General Assembly to return to some sense of normalcy, too.” He believes...
The most recent response from Gov. Roy Cooper to legislative leaders about a questionable $57.8 million funding arrangement with the operators of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline might lead to formal demands for information from the Cooper administration. A release issued Tuesday, Feb. 20, from Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, and Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, who lead...
Gov. Roy Cooper in 2012, while serving as state attorney general, agreed to lease a Nash County property he and his brother Pell owned to Chapel Hill-based Strata Solar for the construction and operation of a 4.9-megawatt solar facility. The lease agreement may be worth more than $1 million, based on industry standards. The Coopers’...
The exchange of letters between legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline continued Friday as lawmakers expressed exasperation with a response provided a day earlier by the governor’s chief of staff. Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, and Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, chairmen of the House and Senate rules committees, respectively, resubmitted questions...
Constitutional questions persist about the murky $57.8 million deal between Atlantic Coast Pipeline operators and Gov. Roy Cooper. “Laws are presumed to be constitutional,” Gerry Cohen, former general counsel for the General Assembly, told Carolina Journal on Thursday, Feb. 15. “So this law the legislature’s passed … is on its face constitutional. But it doesn’t...
The $57.8 million discretionary fund the Atlantic Coast Pipeline operators planned to pay to an escrow Gov. Roy Cooper would control was in fact negotiated between the pipeline’s operators and a series of private parties. It remains unclear whether Cooper’s involvement was legal. In his weekly syndicated column (link to text here), Tom Campbell, host...
Gov. Roy Cooper insisted $57.8 million from energy companies building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was a voluntary contribution, but said at a news conference he doesn’t know whose idea it was originally to seek the money he planned to distribute. During a 20-minute meeting with reporters Wednesday, Feb. 14, Cooper accused the General Assembly of...
The Civitas Institute has filed a state ethics complaint against Gov. Roy Cooper, seeking a ruling and possible investigation into questions of his handling of $57.8 million from a utility coalition building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. “Not only is there a question that these funds could be considered an illegal gift under the State Government...
The House passed House Bill 90 on Tuesday, Feb. 13, commandeering a controversial $58 million discretionary fund Gov. Roy Cooper created with developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and redirecting the money to education. Republicans praised the legislation because it incorporates several key education provisions the House has backed with strong bipartisan support. Democrats complained...
Former Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, urged the General Assembly not to spend any money from a fund negotiated by his Democratic successor, Roy Cooper, and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline operators, saying the process for securing the money was tainted. In a phone interview the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 13, on WPTF-AM radio in Raleigh,...
