WFAE
The Voting Rights Act had a roller-coaster year in the courts in 2023, and legal challenges to the landmark law are set to continue this year.
In ongoing redistricting lawsuits mainly across the South, Republican state officials have been raising novel arguments that threaten to erode a key set of protections against racial discrimination in the election process.
While critics have been challenging what the Justice Department has called "the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever adopted by the United States Congress" since shortly after it was first enacted in 1965, many voting rights experts say the Supreme Court's current conservative supermajority has inspired new legal strategies.
"Conservative legal activist groups are trying out a variety of pretty radical claims that would have been beyond the pale 10, 15, 20 years ago," says Jesse Rhodes, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who wrote Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act. "But now that there's this very conservative majority, they think, 'Why not? Let's give it a shot.' And they're hoping that some of these sets of claims will stick."
One legal tack by Alabama Republicans, however, was rebuffed at the country's highest court in 2023.
News&Observer
An influential conservative super PAC announced Thursday who it supports to replace Rep. Patrick McHenry in North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District. Pat Harrigan, a Green Beret and firearms manufacturer, received the endorsement of Americans for Prosperity Action. Americans for Prosperity is a conservative advocacy group founded by Charles and David Koch.
“Representative McHenry is leaving big shoes to fill with his retirement,” said Tyler Voigt, a senior advisor to AFP Action, in a written statement. “Fortunately, Pat Harrigan is ready and willing to take on the job of representing the people of North Carolina’s 10th Congressional district. As a veteran and a self-made businessman, he has the right perspective to take on Washington’s problems. He knows that heavy-handed government has made it harder to start and grow businesses, made life more expensive and completely neglected veterans who deserve the care they were promised.”
McHenry, 48, surprised many North Carolinians in December when he announced, during the state’s candidate filing period, that he would not run for reelection after 20 years. His decision came just weeks after he led Congress through a contentious battle of trying to elect a new speaker, after eight Republicans worked with Democrats to oust former Rep. Kevin McCarthy from that role.
NC Newsline
You can read the full EPA draft risk assessment report that address more than just structural fill (82 pages) or excerpts that are specific to that use (10 pages). We’ve annotated the second document to help readers understand what it means.
The black dirt on the steep slope of an overgrown knoll of trash overlooking the Bolin Creek greenway in Chapel Hill is, in fact, not dirt.
It’s coal ash, fully exposed to the elements. On this windy winter morning, it’s hard to know if ash particles are hitchhiking on the breeze, but to stand downwind elicits a sense of unease.
Coal ash could increase a person’s cancer risk significantly more than previously estimated, according to a recent EPA report, raising questions about the safety of places where ash has been used as structural fill. This is especially true where the ash is visible, like the mound along the Bolin Creek greenway. Like in Mooresville, where ash has escaped a sinkhole in a commercial parking lot, and protruded through crumbling asphalt at Lake Norman High School. Like in Weldon, where state inspectors found swaths of exposed ash at an abandoned sawmill.
At least 8.85 million tons of coal ash have been legally used as fill at a minimum of 72 locations in North Carolina, state records show. However, because the state did not require documentation of structural fill sites until 1994, the number is likely far higher.
WFAE OPINION- Bob Keefe
To protect our environment and North Carolina we must do more than just expand clean energy. We must also reduce pollution from dirty energy sources - namely power plants and cars. That's why it's so important that the EPA, led by N.C. native Michael Regan, adopt strong standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants and vehicles.
When I was growing up in Garner, the state was on the cusp of a banking and biotech boom. Today, North Carolina is at the forefront of the next economic transition: The clean energy boom.
Since Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year, companies have announced 16 major new clean energy projects worth $19 billion in North Carolina, making it a leader in the clean economy transition.
These projects span the state – and the gamut of technologies. In Durham, electric vehicle charger company Kempower Inc is building a $41 million, 600-employee factory. In Chatham County, Wolfspeed Inc. is creating 1,800 jobs at a $5 billion plant making silicon carbide materials used in super-efficient semiconductors. Toyota and VinFast are creating thousands more jobs at electric vehicle plants.
Thanks for reading, wishing you a safe week.