Senate and House Adjourn for 2014 | Eastern North Carolina Now

For Immediate Release:

    Last week, the Senate passed three adjournment resolutions. Two of the resolutions called for the Senate and House to return in November‹either to address the construction, operation and funding of Medicaid (H182), or to address Medicaid and other matters in conference (H901). The third resolution provided for the Senate and House to adjourn sine die, which Webster¹s defines as indefinitely, or ³without any future date being designated as for resumption² (H1276). The House chose the last of the three, and at approximately 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 20, the House passed H1276 and adjourned sine die. A few hours later, the Senate ratified H1276 and followed suit.

    In one of its last actions for the 2014 legislative session, the House defeated a Senate proposal to restructure county sales taxes, with a number of House members voicing concerns and voting against the economic development components included in H1224. House members also voiced concerns about the 2.5% cap the bill would impose on county sales taxes.

    Despite House leadership supporting H1224 and its companion bills, and the Governor pursuing it for the economic development incentives package already funded through the state budget, the House voted against H1224 by a surprisingly wide margin, 54 to 47.

    As NCACC reported in Monday's legislative alert, H1224 would have enabled counties to choose among several options for additional sales tax revenues. Most counties could have considered an additional 1/2 cent sales tax for education, transit or general purpose. Several counties were particularly interested in the expansion to 1/2 cent of the existing 1/4 cent under Art.46, the sales tax authority granted all counties under the landmark 2007 Medicaid relief swap.

    To protect those counties with existing sale tax authority of 2.75%, a companion bill, H189, would have allowed those counties to retain that ceiling if they successfully pursued voter approval of Art. 46 1/4 through 2016. The Senate promised passage of H189 upon House ratification of H1224. The House had initially objected to H1224¹s Senate language that set a 2014 deadline.

    Complications arose on the House floor as complaints about the Senate linking the fate of another bill to the House¹s enactment of H1224 grew louder and more boisterous.

    H718, of interest to both the House and the Governor, would have provided a technical fix to the state¹s budget to ensure adequate state funding of teachers¹ assistants. When crafting H718, the Senate included language that would make H718 effective only upon ratification of H1224. This measure and H189 were set aside without House floor action, after the defeat of H1224.

    In its final action before sine die, the House voted to concur with the conference report on coal ash management, providing the first statewide framework nationally to force remediation and closure of coal ash ponds. S729, Coal Ash Management, sets clean-up, remediation and closure requirements for the state¹s 33 coal ash ponds by dates certain, based on DENR¹s evaluation of severity.

    High-risk ponds specifically required to have coal ash materials removed by August 1, 2019 include facilities in Rockingham, Gaston, Buncombe, and New Hanover counties. Other ponds deemed high-risk may be converted to industrial landfills on site but must be remediated by the end of 2019. Intermediate risk coal ash ponds are to be closed by the end of 2024 and low risk ponds by the end of 2029.

    S729 prohibits creation or expansion of ponds and requires their owner¹s to monitor groundwater contamination. S729 also pre-empts local regulation of coal ash management.

    The NCACC Government Relations team is currently drafting a complete end of session report, which will detail the status of our 2013-2014 Legislative Goals. This report will be made available to all members as soon as possible. As this session concludes the NCACC wishes to thank all our members for their strong support throughout the legislative sessions and we look forward to beginning our work to prepare for 2015.

    Contact: Christopher L. Baucom,

     (919) 715-7336  •  christopher.baucom@ncacc.org