Faith in Action

While our senses and science tell us that we are witnessing the consequences of rapidly accelerating climate change across the globe, politicians here and internationally are unwilling to face this reality with meaningful policy changes. All will be challenged to adapt to a hotter, less productive, less diverse and less ecologically stable earth. No one will be immune or exempt from this predicament.

Our work therefore becomes more urgent and meaningful. The need for the faith community to engage and lead is more important than ever. Our job, as committed people of faith, is to work within our congregations and wider community to encourage and support pastoral leaders and others to engage in the political arena.

NC IPL will be working closely with national IPL to develop priorities, but it is clear from all analyses that we need a larger and stronger base of individuals to work against the culturally established dominance of our fossil fuel- based consumer culture. The values of the faith community are an important foundation of the change we need to become.

In the 112th Congress and our state Legislature we are seeing frontal attacks on environmental regulations. We at NC Interfaith Power & Light want to remain hopeful that the faith community can help lead humanity towards a more loving relationship with Creation, but hope requires the faithful to be active by showing up in political discourse with our elected officials.

Please stay tuned to our website in general to learn more about our programs and to this Faith in Action section for our policy alerts and agenda. Our plates will be full of important opportunities.

"We need a movement to combat climate change, we need it fast, and we need it to involve as many congregations as possible... But why should church people be at the forefront of this movement?... If you care about social justice, this is the biggest battle we've ever faced... If you care about the rest of God's creation, then get to work. God made (in whatever way) the creatures of the earth and of the sea; we're now engaged in a massive, rapid act of decreation... If you care about the future - about 10,000 generations yet unborn - then this is your cause... If you care about the selfish individualism that has come to define too much of our culture, then this is the chance to act." 

Bill McKibben, a Methodist Sunday School teacher, is the author of The End of Nature and Eaarth and is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. These excerpts are from “Meltdown”, an article in The Christian Century, February 20, 2007.

 

North Carolina State Priorities

The NC Legislature has a Republican majority in both chambers for the first time in over 100 years. NC IPL and its allies will be playing policy defense for the next two years. The top priorities for the 2011 Legislative session were:

Construction Work in Progress (CWIP):  North Carolina’s Renewable Energy Standard (SB3) allowed for utilities to apply to the NC Utilities Commission for rate increases to pay for planning of new base load (coal, nuclear, and natural gas) power plants. There is a good chance that the electric utilities will try to expand their authority under Construction Work in Progress to get the ability to charge citizens for planning and preconstruction costs of new base load power plants, such as nuclear plants, without going to the Utilities Commission for pre-approval. This will give them authority to raise utility rates without regulatory oversight. NCIPL opposes such legislation and will be involved in a grassroots and legislative campaign to defeat such a proposal. You can read an Op-Ed from the Raleigh News Observer that explains why NC IPL is opposed to this legislation.

 

Take Action on Unregulated Automatic Annual Electric Rate Hikes

The General Assembly’s short session has just begun. Duke and Progress are working to change the rules about how power plants are financed. Currently all new power plants need approval from the NC Utilities Commission before any costs for planning and pre-construction can begin. Duke and Progress desire to change the rules by raising rates without pre-approval by the Commission.  With that power, they plan to build new nuclear power plants that are unnecessary, and so risky from both financial and safety perspectives that conventional lenders will not finance them. 

NCIPL asserts that a much more responsible use of our limited financial resources is the immediate and widespread dissemination of energy efficiency, the cheapest and most job creating form of energy, followed by intensive development of clean renewable energy such as wind and solar. Such practical policy solutions are undergirded by our call to care for and protect creation as well as the poor and marginalized from financial and safety risks associated with building large nuclear power plants.

NCIPL's letter to Governor Perdue and the NC Council of Churches Resolution opposing this legislation provide good background material, as does our coalition, Consumers Against Rate Hikes (CARH) website. You can read our letter here, and the Council's Resolution here.

Please sign this petition organized by our allies at CARH by clicking here.

Also, a call to your Representatives and Senators in the General Assembly would be the best way to stop this potential legislation from ever coming to a vote in the General Assembly.

Your Representatives contact info can be found here, or you can call the operator at the General Assembly (919 713-7928) and ask to be connected if you know who represents you.

Currently no bill has been introduced, but we believe that Duke and Progress Energy will introduce the bill when they have the votes.

We hope that citizen input will halt any legislator from considering such risky business at a time of economic uncertainty, especially for the poor and marginalized in our society.

 

NC SAVE$ ENERGY (NC$E): NC$E is a bill that a broad alliance of justice, consumer, faith and environmental organizations are going to attempt tp have introduced into the 2011 Session of the NC Legislature. The bill would provide funding for an independent third party to administer energy efficiency upgrades to residential buildings, starting with low and moderate- income households. The NC SAVE$ ENERGY website has all the relevant information on the program, how to contact your legislator, or how to join our volunteers for this project.                                                                       

Building Code Legislation: In December, the NC Building Code Council passed a 15% improved standard for energy efficiency in residential buildings. The Home Owners association has written letters of objection to the state Legislature, and therefore the Legislature will write a Bill delineating the residential building code rules. NC IPL will advocate for a 15% or greater standard for new construction.

Renewable Energy Standard (SB3):  There is a possibility that the Legislature will attempt to repeal SB3. NCIPL will advocate for retaining and improving SB3.

Duke Energy and Progress Energy Merger: NCIPL will oppose the merger of Duke and Progress Energy if the intent of the merger is to increase capacity of their nuclear fleet in North and South Carolina.

Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracking -  A recent independent report concluded that North Carolina regulations and regulators are unprepared to deal effectively with fracking. The larger questions as to whether we should be relying on natural gas a “bridge fuel” before a renewable energy economy is fully realized or whether fracking under any circumstances should be allowed are being discussed on a regular basis us and our allies.

 

 

Federal Priorities

Protecting EPA's Authority

The number one priority for the 112th Congress is to preserve the EPA's authority to regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. You can read a letter from over 2500 scientists from all 50 states asking our Legislators to preserve this authority. As the Congress failed to pass any comprehensive climate legislation in the last session, the EPA remains our best and last hope to reduce greenhouse gases in the next few years.

 Coal Ash

NCIPL is part of a environmental coalition whose goal is to educate the public about dangers of unlined coal ash ponds in North Carolina. There are 14 coal ash ponds in NC that have been classified as high hazard by the EPA.

Coal ash is a toxic mix of substances including heavy metals such as arsenic that cause cancer and other neurologic and immune disorders.
 
In 2008 and 2009, N.C. electric utilities dumped over 3.8 million tons of coal ash into open-air ponds. North Carolina currently has 13 coal ash disposal sites, more than any other state, and 12 of these are currently rated as high-hazard by the EPA. All thirteen coal ash ponds are leaking contaminants into groundwater.

As was reported in the Charlotte Observer, Charlotte-Mecklenburg officials have expressed concerns over arsenic and zinc entering the main water supply from one of Duke Energy's ash ponds. You may also remember the Kingston, Tennessee coal ash disaster on December 22, 2008. It was called the Exxon Valdez of the fossil fuel industry, the worst environmental disaster in the U.S. prior to the BP Gulf Oil disaster.

Coal ash is also being reused and recycled, finding its way into building materials, publicly-used land, and even farmland. This is happening in many of the poorest communities in North Carolina.

You can learn more by reading these articles, including the press release about EPA's blind spot, referencing Physicians for Social Responsibility, Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity's  damaging report on hexavalent chromium found recently in groundwater leaking from at least 3 coal ash ponds in North Carolina. This is the cancer causing form of chromium that Erin Brockovich found in a California town's drinking water:

For people of faith, this is an important environmental health and justice issue!
 

Mountaintop Removal

Nationwide, North Carolina is second only to Georgia in its use of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal, with thirteen power plants that purchase and burn coal from mountaintop removal mine sites.  Mountaintop removal coal mining is an extremely destructive form of strip mining found throughout Appalachia, with some mines as big as the island of Manhattan.  Coalfield residents say that it tears apart communities, poisons water supplies, pollutes the air and water, destroys our nation’s natural heritage—all while aggravating and perpetuating the climate crisis.

On December 1, 2009, the North Carolina Council of Churches adopted a Resolution asking Governor Perdue and the N.C. General Assembly to work to pass legislation prohibiting our state's electric utilities from using coal sourced from MTR mining. You can read about the destructive effects of MTR mining on the earth and human communities and the Resolution here.


To read an article about NC IPL's Interfaith Tour of Mountaintop Removal, click here.