Latest news with #HouseBill171
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ban on diversity, equity and inclusion across North Carolina government passes House
North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell), huddles with Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne), right, during a House vote on Sept. 11, 2024. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline) Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts would be banned from North Carolina government under a bill passed by the House on Wednesday. House Bill 171 bans mandatory DEI training, consideration of diversity and equity in hiring, dedicated DEI offices or positions and the use of any taxpayer dollars on the efforts. It defines DEI as anything that 'promotes differential treatment' based on identity. The measure is part of a trio of Republican-led bills wiping DEI from all corners of the public sector — government, higher education and K-12 education. It passed the House on a 69-45 vote, as protesters and visiting members of the historically Black Divine Nine fraternities and sororities looked on from the gallery. State workers who violate the measure could be subject to removal, a fine of up to $5,000 and potential civil litigation. And the state auditor's office, currently held by Republican Dave Boliek, would conduct 'periodic' audits on agencies. Over the course of an extensive, wide-ranging and tense debate, Republican proponents described the bill as a long-overdue return to the idea of prioritizing merit in government. 'It restores the principle that should never have been lost: can you do the job?' said House Majority Leader Brenden Jones (R-Columbus). 'Did you earn it? Are you qualified?' Democrats warned that the bill would set the state further back as it struggles to fill vacancies within government, and that it could dissuade agencies from hiring workers who could be perceived as 'DEI hires.' 'Why would you want to be … somebody that sets off those alarms?' House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham) said. 'We know that's the effect. Don't pretend otherwise. This makes people say, 'it's not worth the trouble.'' The hours-long discussion featured lawmakers speaking on terms both broad and personal. Rep. John Blust (R-Guilford) read passages from books he described as 'seminal documents for DEI,' while remarking that the U.S. 'gets a bad rap' relative to the global history of slavery. (Reives later commented that he was 'happy to help with history lessons.') 'I don't think we're getting an honest assessment of what DEI is from the debate opponents,' Blust said. And Rep. Carolyn Logan (D-Mecklenburg) recalled being recruited as the only Black woman to serve on the NC Highway Patrol for more than a decade. And she asked who had taken issue with diversity and equity being used within the state workforce. 'Who was complaining about this? Who are the state agencies who say they were having a problem?' Logan said. 'Is it going to be cookie cutter? We're going back to all white males?' Republicans, who control the North Carolina legislature, have made a more concentrated push against DEI efforts this session in the wake of the White House's crackdown on those programs and practices nationally. The legislation now goes to the Senate. Bills banning DEI in both higher education and K-12 schools have already passed that chamber and are awaiting further action in the House.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill targeting DEI within state government passes in North Carolina House
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A bill that would eliminate DEI from state agencies passed in North Carolina House Wednesday. House Bill 171, entitled Equality in State Agencies/Prohibition on DEI, seeks to remove DEI from state and local governments. It says state agencies are prohibited from promoting, supporting, funding, implementing, or maintaining DEI, including using DEI in state government hirings and employment, maintaining dedicated DEI staff positions or offices, or offering or requiring DEI training. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: NC House lawmakers delay vote on bill that targets DEI within government Under the bill, state officers and employees who do not comply with the DEI ban are subject to removal from office or employment and a civil penalty not to exceed $5,000 for each violation. They may also be subject to civil action in county court. Republican sponsors of the bill described it as common sense fairness. One sponsor, Republican state Rep. Brenden Jones, told lawmakers he doesn't believe the bill is radical. 'This restores the principle that should have never been lost,' Jones said. 'Can you do the job? Did you earn it? Are you qualified?' Democrats said the bill is an attack on marginalized communities. They pointed to a 30% vacancy rate in state agency jobs, stating the bill will exclude more people from jobs they're qualified for. 'Bills like HB171 are being duplicated across the nation,' Democratic state Rep. Cecil Brockman told lawmakers. 'They are built on two false pretenses, that diverse means inferior and there are no more 'isms' in our society that need to be addressed.' The bill passed in the North Carolina House along party lines. It now heads to the North Carolina Senate. HB171 can be viewed below. House Bill 171Download Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
As New Hampshire looks to reshape its solid waste future, all eyes are on the state Senate
Under the bill, landfills would be required to always have at least one person on site. (Photo by) The New Hampshire Senate has often trashed landfill bills. But with growing political attention to solid waste issues, including from the governor, advocates hope this year will be different. An early test came Tuesday, when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard one bill to pause new landfills in the state for three years and another that seeks to rewrite recently updated regulations that some say are far too weak. The bills — House Bill 171 and House Bill 707, respectively — complement one another in ways. Advocates say the state should need only one new landfill in the next century. They argue taking a pause on new development will allow the state time to consider issues like the ones raised in HB 707 related to siting landfills, as well as others like managing the 'trash juice' several landfills have failed to handle properly, or addressing the fact that half the waste dumped in New Hampshire comes from out of state. Both bills proved uncontroversial in the House, passing on the consent calendar, where lawmakers approve a host of committee recommendations on legislation all at once and without debate. Solid waste issues in the state have garnered bipartisan support, with bills being led by both Republicans and Democrats. 'Landfills should be the last resort, and we only really need one in the next 100 years,' Rep. Kelley Potenza, a Rochester Republican leading HB 707, told committee members. 'And let's do it in a perfect place that's got good soil, clay, and we can make it happen.' In the backdrop of the legislative debates is a proposal for a new landfill that many — including Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte — have criticized for its close proximity to a pristine lake and state park. Casella Waste Systems, the Vermont company that has fought for years for the landfill in the northern town of Dalton, is now fighting the Department of Environmental Services in court over the agency's recent denial of a solid waste permit application for the project. HB 707 seeks to address criticisms against the state's updated landfill regulations, which went into effect in December. The body that gave the final green light to those changes, the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, had approved them even as some members were concerned they weren't adequately protective. Lawmakers on the panel argued, though, that those issues were policy ones for the Legislature to decide. This bill aims to take up that mantle. For one, it would establish stricter setback standards for new landfills from 'any existing drinking water well, perennial river, lake, or coastal water of New Hampshire.' Landfills would have to be 1,500 feet from those waters or be set back far enough so that groundwater from the site would take more than five years to reach those waters in the event of a leak or failure. Whichever of those two setbacks is the greatest would be what is required of the site. Additionally, it would strengthen the state's requirements for the hydraulic conductivity of the soil at the site of a landfill, a metric that helps describe how quickly contaminated water would move through the soil in the event of a leak or failure. Some types of earth, like sand or gravel, are more permeable than others, like clay. This standard — which would require a hydraulic conductivity of 0.0001 centimeters per second or less — would apply to the natural soils 20 feet below the landfill and under leachate storage and transfer stations. The current standard is 0.001 centimeters per second or less for the natural soil of the landfill going down 5 feet in depth. (The lower the rate, the slower pollution would move through the soil.) Or, in what critics have called a 'loophole' in the current regulations, a landfill can import a 2-foot base of soil with a hydraulic conductivity of 0.0001 centimeters per second or less. The bill would eliminate that option, stating explicitly that 'no amount of imported soil can overcome such deficiency' in the hydraulic conductivity of a site's natural soil. The bill would also require that applicants for new landfills and expansions to investigate the sediments and bedrock beneath and adjacent to the proposed site, 'at least to the depth of any aquifers currently used to provide drinking water to residents.' Under the bill, landfills would be required to always have at least one person on site. It also directs the department to incorporate the Ford Act into its landfill permitting requirements, 'specifically the provision limiting the construction or establishment of municipal solid waste landfills within 6 miles of certain smaller public airports.' Current law says the department 'may' deny a permit if a person 'fails to demonstrate sufficient reliability, expertise, integrity, and competence to operate a solid waste facility.' It may also deny a permit if a person or a company's 'officers, directors, partners, key employees or persons or business entities holding 10 percent or more of its equity or debt liability' were convicted or pleaded guilty or no contest to a felony within the past five years in state or federal court. This bill would change that 'may' to a 'shall,' making it a requirement that the department reject permits under those conditions instead of an option. The legislation would also make what advocates say is a key change to the statute governing the department's rulemaking. Instead of simply saying the commissioner has the responsibility and authority to adopt rules, it adds that those rules 'are necessary to protect the public health and the environment with an ample margin of safety relative to this chapter.' Some lawmakers on the panel, as well as a representative of Waste Management, which intends to expand its Turnkey facility in Rochester, indicated they would like more clarity in the language of the bill about how broad its exemption for expanding landfills is. Henry Veilleux, a lobbyist for Waste Management, said the standard for the 20 feet of undisturbed soil beneath the landfill 'would be problematic' and could create issues for the landfill starting in 2028. If the bill was changed so the landfill was allowed to bring in other material to be compliant, 'then it would be OK,' he said. He also raised issues with part of the bill that would strengthen existing references to storm events in permitting requirements to apply to 100-year storms 'with a 50% margin of safety,' arguing the department's current model makes more sense for the region. Though he raised concerns about these provisions, Veilleux also told the committee members he had just spoken to Potenza, and that the bill did not intend to impact the Turnkey facility. Shaun Mulholland, Lebanon's city planner, said he was concerned that parts of the bill would affect the city's plans to excavate its unlined landfill 'that is leaking into the ground' into a lined one. He said Waste Management had identified a number of those concerns, but also added that he felt it would be challenging for the city to find staff for a guard onsite 24/7, considering it already has 'great difficulty in this labor market in hiring people just to work in the daytime at the landfill.' He suggested technology like sensors would be more appropriate and effective. Michael Wimsatt, director of DES' waste management division, defended the department's rules at the hearing. He said those rules include a site-specific setback requirement, but critics reject that characterization. Wimsatt pointed to language that says landfills and associated infrastructure 'shall be located only in areas where groundwater monitoring for release detection, characterization and remediation can be conducted prior to a release having an adverse impact on groundwater quality at the property line' and before it has 'an adverse impact on a water supply.' It also requires the landfills are located so that releases 'will be detected and assessed, and remediation initiated prior to contamination reaching any perennial water body.' Current regulations also require more general setbacks of 200 feet from certain streams and 500 feet from other water bodies. Wayne Morrison, president of the North Country Alliance for Balanced Change, a citizen group that has advocated for more protective waste policies, called the provision Wimsatt cited 'a motherhood statement.' 'We think it lacks the heat behind it,' he said. On DES' argument that its current regulations are site specific, Potenza was blunt: 'They aren't.' 'That doesn't give anyone any instruction,' Potenza said of the provisions, 'and to be honest … it puts the state in a very precarious position, I believe, for lawsuits and everything like that, because it doesn't have anything, literally, specific.' Under the state's regulations, 'you can put a landfill anywhere in the state of New Hampshire right now, as long as you bring in some soil,' Potenza said. 'Doesn't matter what that … site is, as long as you're 500 feet back.' She called the state's rules the weakest in the world; when asked by a lawmaker if that was the case, Wimsatt said, 'I don't believe that for a moment.' The conversation on landfill siting underscored the push for a pause on new landfills in the state. And it's not just the direct neighbors of landfills who are affected, Morrison said. 'What I have found is it's in everybody's backyard,' he said. 'New Hampshire's a small state. If you mess up a water table, it doesn't just affect Dalton, it affects all the surrounding towns.' He said the state has ample landfill capacity to buy it time to carefully consider how it wants to move forward with its solid waste management. 'We have the time, and … I think we have the obligation to future generations of people in New Hampshire to step back, do the investigations, find best practices, think differently about what we're doing,' Morrison said. 'We have to live with these decisions for the next 100 years, and we have the time to fix them. Let's try and get it right.'
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Legislation requiring details on handling of ‘trash juice' approved by NH House
Harmful chemicals from trash seep into leachate, meaning its mismanagement can pose serious environmental and public health risks. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) The House approved a bill Thursday fueled by issues at landfills in the state managing leachate, or the 'trash juice' created when rain mixes with waste. The state already requires landfill applicants to create plans for managing leachate, but House Bill 566 would require more details about the treatment of that liquid pollution and transportation for those that treat it off site. This legislation would put the existing requirement for leachate management plans into statute, in addition to setting more detailed standards. It would include language that requires DES, before issuing a permit, to make a positive determination that the permit application includes a detailed leachate management plan. Harmful chemicals from trash seep into leachate, meaning its mismanagement can pose serious environmental and public health risks. Those risks were put on display last year when the Department of Environmental Services found several landfills in the state failing to manage leachate as required. That included hundreds of violations in Bethlehem at the landfill run by Vermont-based Casella Waste Systems. The House approved the bill on a voice vote of the consent calendar, meaning the committee recommendation to pass the legislation was OK'd without debate, among a host of other bills. The House Finance Committee, as well as the House Environment and Agriculture Committee, recommended the bill unanimously. The state currently requires landfills to: have at least two locations for leachate disposal; estimate how much leachate they will generate; and describe how leachate will be handled at the landfill before being shipped somewhere else for disposal, according to DES. They must also have procedures in place to bring down leachate levels to a foot or lower within a week of a 100-year storm event. Regulations also include details about on-site leachate management systems. The bill is one of several this year aimed at waste issues. Two of those bills — House Bill 171, to establish a three-year moratorium on new landfills, and House Bill 707, which aims to strengthen the state's siting standards for landfills — will appear before a Senate committee on Tuesday. The chamber has traditionally been a hurdle to waste legislation.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NC House lawmakers delay vote on bill that targets DEI within government
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – For the second day in a row, North Carolina state Republican representatives pulled a bill that would eliminate DEI from state agencies from their voting calendar. Democrats organized dozens of people to be at the General Assembly building to specifically protest this bill. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Republicans move forward bill to remove DEI practices from higher education in NC House lawmakers were scheduled to vote Wednesday on House Bill 171, which removes DEI requirements and practices from state government and agencies. Without warning, the bill was pulled from the calendar. Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said this occurred because the bill sponsor, state Rep. Brenden Jones, wasn't able to attend. Democrats said Republicans don't want to face their own constituents over the bill. 'I think it's cowardly not to face the people you represent in the state being able to actually say, 'This is why we're trying to pass this bill right now' and giving Democrats in the General Assembly an opportunity to stand up against it,' North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said. 'But I also think this shows disunity in the Republican caucus right now for the fact they've had to delay this vote now twice when you have a majority in the state and you could do anything you want to with it right now.' Said Hall, 'I'm not aware of any member of our caucus that's even remotely considering voting no on that bill. I think it's overwhelmingly supported by our caucus and the people of our state.' It's unclear when the House will take up the bill next. The North Carolina Senate is also voting on a bill to remove DEI from public higher education on Wednesday afternoon. Democrats are urging protestors to be at the General Assembly for that vote as well. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
