Laura Leslie

A compromise bill to overhaul solar policy in North Carolina is on its way to the governor. But critics say wind energy paid too high a price for the deal. The deal was unveiled at around 12:30 a.m. Friday – the last day of the current legislative session – after days of tense negotiation between House and Senate leadership. House leaders, including Speaker Tim Moore, strongly backed the original solar overhaul bill, the product of a stakeholder negotiation process that took 10 months to reach agreement. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, refused to allow the bill to proceed...

A proposal to rewrite the state’s renewable energy laws breezed through the House Wednesday with strong support and little debate – an unusual development in a chamber more often known for attempts to limit the solar industry. In another unusual turn of events, House Speaker Tim Moore left the dais to speak from the floor in favor of the measure. House Bill 589 would, for the first time, allow third-party leasing of solar arrays for rooftops and community projects. It would reinstate the “green source rider” that allows large energy customers to tell utilities how much of their power...

As quickly as House Bill 2 was enacted 53 weeks ago, the controversial state law limiting LGBT rights and transgender bathroom access was knocked down on Thursday. About 12 hours after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican legislative leaders reached a compromise to repeal House Bill 2 late Wednesday, the measure was speeding through its lone committee hearing, and it had cleared the Senate and the House by mid-afternoon Thursday. Cooper then quickly signed the bill into law. “We are a welcoming state – our people are welcoming – but House Bill 2 was not,” Cooper said during an...

Solar industry members and advocates told a legislative panel Wednesday there’s little need to worry about the safe removal of solar panels in the state’s future. Solar skeptics, both at the legislature and at free-market think tanks, have expressed concern recently about how the panels will be disposed of when their working life of around 25 years is done. Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Secretary Tom Reeder echoed many of those concerns during his presentation on the issue to the Environmental Review Commission, noting that more environmental safeguards are required for large-screen televisions, composting operations and strip malls than...

Commerce Secretary John Skvarla told a legislative panel Thursday that North Carolina needs to help small businesses find investment capital so they can grow, and one way to do that is to legalize crowdfunding. “If we’re not going to help our small businesses, we can talk around these issues all day long,” Skvarla told members of an oversight committee that was examining the economic struggles of rural counties. Since the 2008 recession, business investment capital has been hard to come by, especially in rural areas. At least 29 other states have already approved crowd-funding as a way for start-up...

The solar industry has blossomed in North Carolina since lawmakers granted solar farms tax breaks nine years ago as part of renewable energy standards that require utilities to get a portion of their power from renewable sources. North Carolina ranks fourth nationally in solar energy capacity, and the industry employs about 5,600 people in the state, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Capitol Broadcasting Co., the parent company of WRAL, operates a solar farm near Garner. Now, critics of solar are trying to rein in the industry by rewriting state laws, and the head of the state Department...

​Opponents of renewable energy programs held an hour-long roundtable at the Legislative Building on Wednesday about their concerns. The event was sponsored by the American Energy Alliance, the political lobbying arm of the Institute for Energy Policy, a conservative think tank funded by Charles and David Koch. The event moderator was Tom Pyle, president of the AEA and the IEP, and a former Koch Industries lobbyist. Much of the money the Koch family has made has been through petrochemical fuels. According to a Pro-Publica investigation in 2014, the Kochs have used a trade group known as Freedom Partners Chamber...