GOP goes AOC; votes to advance socialism in HB951

Home

GOP goes AOC; votes to advance socialism in HB951

Published: Thursday, October 7th, 2021 @ 6:43 pm
By: John Steed ( More Entries )

Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez' former chief of staff famously admitted that the Green New Deal was not about the environment but was about building socialism. Shamefully, a phalanx of NC Republican legislators have just voted to advance socialism by passing a radical Green New Deal for North Carolina, HB951.

This bill is in line with the radical energy policies of the Biden administration and totally repudiates President Trump's America First policies. President Trump got us out of the straightjacket of the Paris Climate Accords, but HB951 is the Paris agreement on steroids. Senate President Phil Berger who negotiated this surrender with leftwing Governor Roy Cooper, giving Cooper 100% of what he demanded, should change his name to ThunBerger.

Under this bill, NC will have to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% by 2030, much more radical than the EU's legislation to reduce them by 50% by that year. That means replacement of cheap and reliable coal fired power with expensive and undependable wind and solar. That will mean skyrocketing electric bills and unreliable service. In Europe, electric rates have already risen an average of 15% in the few months since passage, and Italy just got socked with a 30% rate increase, which would have been 45% if the government had not subsidized part of it. Poland projects a 40% increase in the near future, and these are just the beginning. Germany, which has already been on this path for years, pays three times what NC residents pay now for residential electric service.

In the state Senate, the only Republican who stood up against the radical Green New Deal was Senator Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson). All others are Green New Deal Republicans who need to be removed in the primaries.

In the state House, only eight Republicans stood for the ratepayer and the Republican base, They were George Cleveland (R-Onslow), Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus), Mark Brody (R-Union), Mark Pless (R-Haywood), Mitchell Setzer (R-Catawba), John Torbett (R-Gaston), Steven Tyson (R-Craven) and Larry Yarborough (R-Person). Seven Republicans had excused absences, including Rep. Keith Kidwell, who, along with his wife, has continuing health problems which began with the bout of both of them with Covid, both being hospitalized.

We have a lot of changes we need to make in the primaries or we need to just give up on the Republican Party in this state. If they will sell out to the Green New Deal, they will sell out on anything.

Go Back

Login to Leave a Comment

Comment

Steven P. Rader said:

( October 8th, 2021 @ 12:02 pm )

Another huge problem with this bill is there are no statewide safeguards against the dangers inherent in wind and solar energy. Even leftist run Virginia has some of those by state statute. Equipment for both wind and solar are full of toxic chemicals, for example, and already the EPA has identified solar farms as a source of GenX and related chemicals in the environment. A chemical widely used on wind turbines has been shown even in minute amounts to decrease fertility in all organisms. The list goes on. Worn out wind and solar equipment are considered hazardous waste.

Unlike Virginia, North Carolina has no bond requirements for safe removal of wind and solar equipment. Most wind and solar facilities are organized as LLC's which own nothing but the equipment itself, making it easy for them to walk away and leave someone else stuck with the cleanup.

Then there are the human health threats, particularly from wind turbines, which have been identified in a number of European studies. Even the World Health Organization has warned of human health threats from audible sound and infrasound from wind turbines. There are no protections in NC law for our people. The German state of Bavaria, for example, has its "10H rule" that requires wind turbines to not be any closer to an occupied building than 10 times the height of the turbine. With current turbine sizes, this works out to about 2 kilometers.

Then, of course, there is the massive threat to wildlife posed by both wind and solar, with the killing of birds and bats by wind turbines at the top of the list.

Why in the world are those "Green New Deal Repubicans" foisting this on the people of North Carolina, and without even basic environmental and economic safeguards? In Ontario, Canada, four wind energy companies are currently under criminal indictment for multiple felonies of polluting the groundwater. In Ireland, construction of a wind farm led to a million euro environmental fine for a massive fish kill they caused. Courts in Germany have been regularly blocking wind farm construction based on environmental damage and human health threats.

I am appalled not only at Republicans in the Senate putting this economic and environment disaster together but their total failure to enact any safeguards to at least try to reduce the damage. Of course, they cannot do anything to reduce the economic damage that North Carolina families will suffer from passage of this asinine far left legislation.