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North Carolina League of Conservation Voters NCLCV Weekly News — October 26, 2015 McCrory Signs Polluter Protection Act Gov. Pat McCrory on Friday left no doubt where he stands. By signing HB 765, the 2015 "rules reform" bill now widely known as the Polluter Protection Act, McCrory acted to protect polluters at the cost of greatly increased danger to the health, clean water, and clean air of all North Carolinians. "We are greatly disappointed with Governor McCrory's actions today. We had shared our concerns with the Governor, emphasizing that nothing in this bill was essential but much was harmful. We're saddened to see our leadership give a green light to such egregious, anti - environmental actions," said Carrie Clark, Executive Director of NCLCV. McCrory acted in spite of receiving more than 8,600 emails and hundreds of phone calls from concerned citizens urging him to veto the bill. A joint letter to McCrory from 15 citizen conservation organizations (including NCLCV) explained the bill's dangers and urged a veto. Major newspapers around the state joined in editorializing against the bill. "This bill undoes so much of the progress our state has made in the last decade to clean up our air and water, build healthier communities, and create a stronger workforce. Now, using false claims that these regulations were holding back business, our Governor and legislative leaders have allowed polluters to have their way with our natural resources and the future prosperity of our state," remarked Dan Crawford, NCLCV Director of Governmental Relations. "Governor McCrory has simply reaffirmed his position of siding with corporate polluters over the interests of North Carolinians and the future of our state." As previously outlined in CIB, here are three of the worst problems created by this bill: • The bill's "polluter protection" provision (known euphemistically as the "environmental self - audit") excuses permit - holders who violate environmental limits from civil penalties for their offenses, if they self - report the violations. This encourages carelessness by air and water pollution dischargers. And it lets the polluters keep evidence of the audit discovering the pollution secret from civil suits and the public. • The bill cuts back state protections for isolated wetlands and eliminates state protections for intermittent streams (streams which flow in an established channel but only for part of the year). These waters are critical to wildlife and to protecting clean water in other streams and rivers across the state throughout the year. • The bill will require the state's air quality protection agency to shut down about half of its air quality monitors, creating willful blind spots in our monitoring network and making effective regulation of air pollution much more difficult. HB 765 helps to ensure that environmental protection will be a major concern in the 2016 election cycle getting underway now.