Part 4 (#1-5) of the top 20 bills in the NC general assembly
This is it.. the final part. Check out part 1, part 2 and part 3 if you haven't yet.
And on we go.
5. Senate Bill 1493/House Bill 1232 - Fund State Water Infrastructure Commission
The State Water Infrastructure Commission would of course identify the state's water needs and develop plans to meet them. Then monitor the implementation of the plans.
4. House Bill 1179 - Clean Cars Program/Funds
This would establish a low emissions vehicle program in North Carolina. This would basically adopt the low-emissions vehicle program that they have in California for the state of North Carolina, effective for cars sold after 2009 model year. There is a lot of info included in this bill, so if you are interested I recommend reading up. Needless to say, any bill that will require the phase out of vehicle emissions is a good thing.
3. Senate Bill 927/House Bill 1073 - Green School Construction Loan Fund/Program
This basically allows for schools to get no interest loans for the purpose of green constructions or renovations. With the number of schools going up in the state every year (especially Wake County) there is no reason why they shouldn't be building as green as they can, and this would help them cover a lot of those costs.
2. Senate Bill 1522/House Bill 990 - Land and Water Conservation Bond Act of 2007
This one looks to have been sat on a bit, but there is no reason to think we couldn't get it moved back up and pushed through. It would authorize the issuance of bonds, provided passing of vote to address the statewide needs of land conservation, Water Quality protection and Historic preservation. We are talking about a lot of money here (up to $1 Billion), that is needed in a bad way for conservation around the state. I can only hope that this one gets revisited.
1. Senate Bill 634/House Bill 557 - North Carolina GREEEN Act
This act is to grow a renewable and energy-efficient economy in North Carolina by establishing a Green Business Fund to be administered by the state energy office to provide seed grants to develop North Carolina's green economy. This version of the bill allows for $15 Million a year to be divided between Bio-fuels, Green Building and general Green Entrepreneurship. This one is important to me for clear reasons, but not only because I am trying to start a green business. I think becoming a leader in this industry can pay huge dividends for this state in the future.
With elections coming up, etc. it is on all of us to make sure the folks running know what we think is important and the type of things we want them to work on for us. All of these bills may not work out in these particular iterations, but we can at least draw some attention to them. Check out the state board of elections for info on all the candidates. E-mail them, call them, whatever. but let them know what you want. Maybe something can eventually get done.
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