“RALEIGH — State lawmakers’ disagreements on how – or whether – to spend more money now or in the future fighting pollution were apparently too tough to deal with for now.
So they decided Tuesday to leave the issue alone for at least another three months. Gov. Roy Cooper was not pleased, calling the legislature’s delay ‘unconscionable.’
In January, the North Carolina House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that would give extra money to the state’s environmental regulators to address a chemical called GenX. But Senate leadership didn’t allow an immediate vote on it. The Senate then made several major changes, passed the bill over Democratic objections, and sent it back to the House. But on Tuesday the House adjourned without voting on the new version.
That means that now, the earliest that legislators might get back to trying to address GenX will be when they return to Raleigh on May 16 for the “short session” held in election years…
Environmentalists weren’t overly excited about either version of the bill, but many said the House version was the better starting place.
‘The Senate version is so restrictive to DEQ that it wouldn’t really be effective in addressing these concerns,’ N.C. Sierra Club lobbyist Cassie Gavin said Tuesday.”
Read the full article by Will Doran.