The Rachel Maddow show has recently been covering an interesting case in North Carolina, in which environmental groups charged Governor McCrory's administration with protecting and covering up Duke Energy's coal ash disposal procedures. These groups claim that in each of a series of lawsuits brought against Duke Energy, the state took over as plaintiff and then settled the case out of court for a pittance. The Associated Press covered the issue in early February, but it didn't receive federal attention until the occurrence of a massive coal ash spill from one of Duke Energy's coal ash ponds on the Dan River. Then, a federal grand jury opened a criminal probe into the relations between state water quality regulators and the energy company.
Complicating the issue is the fact that McCrory, prior to his election, worked for Duke Energy for nearly thirty years. He once worked in the industry, and now oversees that industry's regulators. He even replaced all the members of the Environmental Management Board with his own allies. This sort of collusion brings to mind the 2008 scandal that shook the Minerals Management Service, a federal regulator found guilty of (literally) sleeping with the industry they were meant to oversee.
There are two major issues at work in these stories. The first, and most obvious, is the loosening of environmental restrictions and regulations. Environmental safeguards were cut back during the Bush administration, and have yet to be restored to their previous levels. Furthermore, Bush-era budget cuts and the current sequestration crisis mean that even those regulators who retain their authority cannot exercise it in any preventative manner; they only have the resources to address the most pressing concerns. In a healthy regulatory atmosphere with a robust set of laws aimed at protecting the environment, Duke Energy would never have been allowed to create its coal ash ponds in the first place, much less let them overflow into local rivers with little consequence. Clearly, necessary steps to prevent future disasters such as the Dan River spill would include tightening environmental regulations and raising the budgets of both state and federal environmental agencies.
The second, more insidious issue is that of collusion between the regulators and the regulated. One often hears of a 'revolving door' between Washington politicians and the lobbyists who work with them. This issue is a bipartisan one that seems to affect all levels of government. In the case of the North Carolina situation, a more applicable term might be borrowed from the Japanese: amakudari, or the 'descent from heaven', in which government officials would often leave office and step directly into a position in industry.
The solution might be borrowed from the Japanese as well. An early attempt at prohibiting the practice implemented a two year ban on outgoing government officials taking any job with a company with whom they had worked within the last five years. A 2007 law prohibited any cooperation between government agencies and industries regarding hiring and employment of retiring officials. This example may well be one for the federal government to follow. Preventing former industry employees from holding regulatory power over their former employers for some amount of time would certainly have prevented the North Carolina situation, and could well avert future scandals such as that with the Minerals Management Service.
To recap, the Duke Energy coal ash situation is the outcome of a number of factors. Correcting these factors would not only prevent future environmental disasters, but would create a healthier democracy. First, environmental regulations should be restored to pre-Bush levels of exactitude, and all loopholes closed. Second, environmental protection agencies need budgets sufficient for them to engage in preventative monitoring rather than simple crisis management. Third, steps must be taken to prevent the revolving door between government and industry, possibly following the Japanese example. These three issues are clear failings. Luckily, they also have clear solutions, and those solutions would benefit us all.