The NC Ash Spill Was....

[Laxman]

the result of Governor McCrory getting his wish! Those pesky regulators harassing the noble Duke Energy just had to be stopped! The NC DENR was once considered among the most aggressive in the Southeast. Governor McCrory has transformed it into a weak pro-business agency that plays down science and has abandoned its important regulatory role in favor of politicized decision-making. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Ash Spill Shows How Watchdog Was Defanged

Last June, state employees in charge of stopping water pollution were given updated marching orders on behalf of North Carolina’s new Republican governor and conservative lawmakers.

“The General Assembly doesn’t like you,” an official in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources told supervisors called to a drab meeting room here. “They cut your budget, but you didn’t get the message. And they cut your budget again, and you still didn’t get the message.”

From now on, regulators were told, they must focus on customer service, meaning issuing environmental permits for businesses as quickly as possible. Big changes are coming, the official said, according to three people in the meeting, two of whom took notes. “If you don’t like change, you’ll be gone.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/us/coal-ash-spill-reveals-transformation-of-north-carolina-agency.html?ref=us&_r=0

[n2doc]

1. Why isn't anyone asking where all the new jobs are?

After all, isn't "government regulation" the chief cause of unemployment?

[Laxman]

3. Surely This Has Created Some Jobs....

cleaning this mess up, hasn't it? What a brilliant plan! You see, that's the problem with us liberals, we don't see the strategic thinking behind every move the right-wing makes. Probably because we've gone to public schools.

Think about this, McCrory has just created a generation's worth of damage in his short tenure with this incident alone. We don't do a good job of measuring the costs of such programs or policies as eliminating environmental protections. You can measure jobs and profits but we don't appropriately value environmental damage.

[ReRe]

10. Public schools haven't got anything to do with it....

... our minds are just different than theirs. And I wouldn't necessarily call their thinking "strategic." We cannot wrap our minds around the evil that guides their thinking... that's the difference between us and them. They don't have a conscience. They don't give a shite about damaging the environment and eventually peoples health and lives. What but an evil mind would think of causing environmental damage in order to create jobs to clean it up?

[Laxman]

13. I Was Just Being Snarky...

but you're absolutely right about seeing the world differently.

[Beach Rat]

2. How about this from one of the links in that article?

Soul-crushing takeover of NC DENR brings resignation

But this year’s historic and hostile takeover of DENR by politically and ideologically motivated lawmakers in the General Assembly was soul-crushing. I could no longer clock in in good conscience and believe I could uphold my commitment to protect the environment.

Environmental regulators play an important role and have a huge responsibility.

They must issue permits for industrial activities in a way that protects natural resources. They must ensure the state meets a variety of federal requirements.

And at all times, they must balance assisting individual residents, protecting the public resource and holding polluters accountable.

These are not just empty bureaucratic exercises.

What’s at stake is nothing less than having clean water to drink, healthy streams in which to fish and swim, pure air to breathe and green space where wildlife can thrive and where our children can play.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/15/3457917/soul-crushing-takeover-of-nc-denr.html

I think that qualifies for some kind of prediction award. This is the kind of crap that ALEC brings us.

[KoKo]

4. Exactly...thanks for adding that!

[roody]

5. Knr

[Demeter]

6. Regulators don't have to be liked--they have to be heeded, feared, and obeyed

Also, they have to be incorruptible and transparent. And treat all fairly and equally.

[G_j]

7. “The state has been a barrier at every turn.”

“They did a behind-closed-doors settlement with the lawbreaker, and it requires no cleanup of one ounce of pollution or movement of one ounce of ash,” said Frank Holleman, a senior lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which sued on behalf of environmental groups. “The state has been a barrier at every turn.”

[onethatcares]

8. jeez, this is almost a duplicate of

what has been going on in Floriduh.

Wherever Duke Energy goes, it shits a pile for the rate payers to clean up while they walk away

with a pocket full of dollars.

[12ZTR]

9. How long will it take..

before the Republicans are harmed enough by environmental issues for them to say: "Doh! Think we might ought to be a'doing something about this here problem?"

[hatrack]

11. ... not a bug, but a feature

nt

[Cha]

12. K!