Today, attorneys for NC WARN and The Climate Times again urged the NC Court of Appeals to take charge of a convoluted case involving an unneeded $1 billion power plant, and to not allow state regulators to block our access to the court. Most recently in this nine-month legal fight, the NC Utilities Commission ruled that we cannot appeal its approval of Duke Energy’s Asheville plant because we didn’t post the $98 million bond the commissioners said we must file in order to go to court.
Duke Energy Gas Expansion
Duke Energy is planning a massive increase in its burning of natural gas to produce electricity. This would be a climate disaster because of the large amounts of super-potent methane that leak unburned from gas operations, particularly fracking. Recent science from the United Nations and others show that new gas infrastructure is incompatible with the goal of preventing catastrophic climate change. Read more here and in the news items below about NC WARN’s work to block Duke’s fracking gas future.
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N.C. regulators approve $4.9B Duke Energy-Piedmont Natural Gas deal — Charlotte Business Journal
Three-year Heat Wave Continues Unabated — Note to Journalists from NC WARN
Hottest Year: Duke Energy’s Role — Commentary by NC WARN
Cornell experts and others say that reducing methane leakage and venting throughout the US natural gas industry is the quickest – and only – way to slow global warming in time. As Dr. Robert Howarth emphasizes, “The climate responds very quickly to methane”, a super-potent heat-trapping gas. So curbing methane is all-important.
Yo-Yo Duke Energy Gas Case Goes Back to Appeals Court — News Release from NC WARN and The Climate Times
How to fight the power company — Scalawag
In 2015, Duke Energy’s state-sanctioned monopoly in North Carolina faced a pair of very different challenges from two vastly different communities. In western North Carolina, thousands of people – mostly White, middle-class, with little organizing experience–turned out in droves to attack Duke Energy’s plans for their beloved mountains. Two hundred miles away in Greensboro, a Piedmont church – serving a mostly Black, low-income community with a history of activism and advocacy stretching back decades – simply put solar panels on its roof.
Duke Asheville Plant Foe Says Plan Would be Disaster for the Climate — WCQS
Appeal denied, NC WARN tries again — News & Observer
The N.C. Utilities Commission said two advocacy groups missed a filing deadline and therefore blew their chance to appeal a state permit issued to Duke Energy to build a power plant in Asheville. But the two nonprofits – including NC WARN in Durham – say they plan to appeal the Utilities Commission ruling.
Courtroom access just got very expensive — Asheville Citizen-Times
In general the higher up the societal food chain you go – cases that delve into the world of powerful interest groups, the uber-wealthy and well-heeled corporations – the higher your legal fees…but there’s always the assumption you can have your day in court. That assumption has received a jarring wakeup call in North Carolina in a case revolving around Duke Energy’s plans to rebuild its Lake Julian power plant.
Duke Energy, PNG Waiting on Approval for Merger — TWC News, Charlotte
Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas will have to wait until September to find out if their $4.9 billion merger will go through…a coalition of consumer and environmental groups led by NC WARN is asking the commission to not approve the deal. Read more and see video here.