THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 4, 1995 TAG: 9508040460
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
The 1995 session of the General Assembly produced a mixed bag for the environment, particularly along the coast.
The legislators' last-minute funding of environmental programs designed to reduce pollution from hog operations, step up land-use planning, improve fisheries enforcement and boost state park funds drew praise from state environment officials and environmental lobbyists.
``People are coming back from the legislature with smiles on their faces,'' said Debbie Crane, spokesman for the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources. ``This was not true earlier in the session.''
For the past nine months, Division of Coastal Management Director Roger Schecter and other state environmental regulators had wondered what effect a new Republican-dominated, reform-minded legislature would have on coastal management and other environmental programs.
The new House speaker, Harold J. Brubaker, a Randolph County Republican, signaled a major shift in environmental policy when he appointed a Craven County mortgage banker and hog farmer, Rep. John M. Nichols, to head the House Health and Environment Committee.
As the legislature prepared to convene in late January, Schecter said the state's coastal environment was in more danger than any time in the recent past.
But as the House passed a flurry of measures changing environmental rules and regulations, opponents of these measures relied increasingly on the Senate, particularly Senate leader Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat, to preserve key environmental programs and funding for state environmental agencies.
``The coastal legislators, particularly Marc Basnight and Beverly Perdue, have just gone the extra mile to help us,'' said Marine Fisheries Commission Chairman Robert V. Lucas.
Fisheries law enforcement was one of the big winners in the state's environmental budget, receiving more than $1.7 million in expansion and capital funds.
Lobbyist Bill Holman, who represents the state Sierra Club chapter and the Conservation Council of North Carolina, agreed.
``Sen. Marc Basnight has been the key figure in protecting the environment,'' Holman said from Raleigh. ``Sen. Basnight has basically held some bills back and has directed the business community and the regulatory agencies to sit at the table with the environmental community and negotiate on some of these bills.''
But Holman said that despite the last-minute budget windfall and help from Basnight in turning back particularly onerous legislation, he and members of the Conservation Council of North Carolina believe the 1995 General Assembly session has been the worst for the environment in 25 years.
Holman said the environmental community measures the 1995 legislative session in terms of programs and funding it was able to protect - not in terms of new regulations and programs as in most years.
``There has never been a session when so many laws and so many programs have been under full-scale attack,'' he said from the legislative building in Raleigh.
``The environmental community has worked as hard this session as we have ever worked and the most we have to show for it is only minimal damage being done to environmental programs and laws.''
But while some say that during the recently completed session, business clearly held the upper hand over the environment, lobbyists for business and industry say the 1995 session represents a ``return to reasonableness'' on the part of rule-makers.
``Regulations were coming so thick and fast at one time that they overlapped each other,'' said Keith Hundley, government affairs director for Weyerhaeuser Co., a pulp and paper manufacturer, who played a key role in negotiations over submerged lands and wetlands legislation. ``It was time for a pause.
``I believe that reasonableness will be the watchword no matter who's in charge in Raleigh from now on,'' he said. by CNB