NC - Budget strips certain powers from local governments
Despite the last-ditch efforts of environmental groups and local governments, the North Carolina General Assembly approved a long-awaited state budget that includes provisions that strip counties and municipalities of certain governing powers.
The Republican-controlled legislature last Friday passed a $30 billion budget, one that boosts Medicaid, bans local governments from regulating the use of plastics, grants millions in funding for living shorelines projects, and creates an animal-waste-to-fertilizer conversion cost-share program.
Shortly after legislature’s vote Friday morning, Gov. Roy Cooper announced that he will not sign the 2023 Appropriations Bill, but will allow it to become law.
“Make no mistake, overall, this is a bad budget that seriously shortchanges our schools, prioritizes power grabs, keeps shady backroom deals secret and blatantly violates the constitution, and many of its provisions will face legal action,” Cooper said.
In the hours leading up to the General Assembly’s vote, environmental groups and local governments scrambled to get the word out about provisions in the then-proposed budget that takes away some rule-making authority from counties and municipalities.
Cape Fear River Watch circulated an email citing a section in the bill that prohibits counties and cities from adopting rules, regulations, ordinances, or resolutions that restrict, tax, or charge fees on so-called “auxiliary containers.” This includes single-use plastic bags, cups, bottles and other types of food packaging.
DEQ is allocated $20 million for the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund, which provides grants to local governments, and $16.1 million for the Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investments Fund to provide grants to improve or create infrastructure for controlling stormwater quantity and quality.
DEQ’s Division of Coastal Management will receive $10 million for the Resilient Coastal Communities Program to provide funding for the implementation or construction of planned, prioritized, and engineered resilience projects in the 20 coastal counties.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has been provisioned $7.5 million to provide grants for the North Carolina Coastal Federation for stormwater management, living shorelines and marine debris removal.
Asheville officials have been debating banning single-use plastic bags and, in Durham, environmentalists were pushing for that city to require retailers tack on a 10-cent fee for each thin, plastic bag given out to customers in restaurants, grocery stores and shops.
Rob Clark, Cape Fear River Watch’s water quality programs manager, told Coastal Review in a telephone interview Monday that the organization is “obviously unhappy” with the legislature’s decision.
“If local governments want to pass sustainability policies, it’s unfortunate that the state is coming in and stepping over them and saying, ‘No, you can’t do this in your own county,’” he said. “They should have the ability to pass policies that they think are going to be beneficial to their community’s health and their community’s environment.”
Plastics make up a significant amount of the litter collected through various cleanup efforts the organization hosts in Wilmington and New Hanover County.
The bill does specify that counties may regulate the use of auxiliary containers on county-owned and county-maintained property.
