Air Toxics Bill – More Than Removing Duplication

HB 952, State Air Toxics Program Reforms, was introduced by Rep. Ruth Samuelson. It has passed the House and it now in the Senate.

According to a post on Rep. Samuelson’s Facebook page, “We’re continuing to remove unnecessary regulations in Raleigh. A bill I’m sponsoring to remove duplications between federal and state air toxic programs passed the House & will be heard in Senate committee today.” (That was posted on June 7).

However, the bill goes further than simply avoiding duplication. It will also prevent the state from implementing rules regulating amounts of emissions when the federal government only requires monitoring of emissions.

This is part of the effort of the current General Assembly leadership to prevent or limit regulations that may affect certain businesses. Rep. Samuelson was once considered an environmental hero, one of the few Republicans to stand for real environmental progress. In 2009 the NC League of Conservation Voters (then known as the Conservation Council of NC) awarded Samuelson the “Rising Star” award for her environmental work in the legislature. However, her score on NCLCV’s scorecard has dropped. For the 2009-2010 "long" and "short" sessions, she scored 75%, well above the Republican average of 51%. In the  2011 “long", she scored 17%, slightly below the Republican average of 18%.

See more about the NCLCV scorecard here.