
{"id":26910,"date":"2012-07-12T09:45:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T13:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=26910"},"modified":"2012-07-12T09:45:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T13:45:46","slug":"local-legislators-paint-dark-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/07\/12\/local-legislators-paint-dark-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Local legislators paint dark picture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>CHAPEL HILL \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0Reflecting on the 2011-12 General Assembly session that wrapped up last week, Orange County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elected delegation painted a pretty bleak picture at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual State Legislative Briefing, held Tuesday morning at Chapel Hill Country Club. <\/p>\n<p>The 100 percent Democratic delegation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the norm in our left-leaning county \u00e2\u20ac\u201c talked about everything from university funding to health care to fracking. The N.C. General Assembly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2011-12 session \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one of the legislature\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s short sessions, following the longer 2010-11 session \u00e2\u20ac\u201c adjourned on July 2.   <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The trends for UNC are not good for this two years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rep. Joe Hackney said, noting that the funding cut from the university system in 2010-11 was not restored in 2011-12 as hoped and that financial aid money was also reduced sharply. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The trend is more toward higher tuition and more reliance on tuition,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is much less reliance on keeping us on top. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 That translates into more emphasis on cost cutting.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is much less emphasis on everyone having the opportunity to attend,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hackney added. <\/p>\n<p>Rep. Bill Faison focused his words to the business crowd on hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a controversial procedure for extracting natural gas \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which he said he heard many concerns about while traveling the state campaigning for governor. <\/p>\n<p>In a late-night vote at the close of the session last week, the legislature overrode Gov. Beverly Perdue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s veto of a bill that would allow fracking. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is, in my view, not a good idea to have fracking in this state at this time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Faison said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whatever benefit there could be \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is overwhelmed by the detriment to our environment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Faison said he introduced several amendments to the fracking bill that would have limited the power of corporations with regard to fracking in the state, including one that would prevent the modification of trespass laws. <\/p>\n<p>Because of the nature of fracking \u00e2\u20ac\u201c drilling straight down and then horizontally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Faison said the rights of property owners need to be protected such that companies can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go underneath their property. <\/p>\n<p>In states where fracking has already been legalized, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it was very clear that trespass laws were eroded very quickly by the oil and gas industries in those states,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he added. <\/p>\n<p>Sen. Ellie Kinnaird spoke in support of B Corporations, which failed to receive approval in the past two sessions of the General Assembly. B Corps are a new type of corporation that blends social and environmental responsibility with fiscal sustainability. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is something that is sweeping the nation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>Kinnaird said that when the matter was presented to the House, having passed in the Senate, presenters used the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sustainability\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153social benefit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which, she said, were the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wrong words\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the eyes of far right-leaning legislators, who called such corporations a threat to American free enterprise. <\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Kinnaird said she hopes to bring the matter back in next year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s session, and hopes the debate will stay more on topic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orange County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elected delegation painted a bleak picture at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual State Legislative Briefing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26910"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26912,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26910\/revisions\/26912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}