And you will never guess what the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission did.
No, really, you will never guess.
Give up?
They appealed the judge’s ruling.
Told you that you wouldn’t believe it.
D.J. Gerken, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the state is giving away its authority to force Duke to act by appealing Ridgeway’s ruling. “If the state is serious about enforcing the law, why in the world would the state ask the (N.C.) Court of Appeals to limit that authority?” he said.
In other words, the state’s environmental management board is going to court essentially on behalf of Duke Energy. I wonder how that possibly could have happened.
North Carolina’s base appropriations budget, ratified Thursday, fires all current members of the state’s environmental rule-making board effective next Wednesday. The move gives Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led legislature, which has targeted environmental regulation as a drag on business, a clean slate to remake the powerful Environmental Management Commission. The commission is charged with adopting rules protecting air and water resources.