RALEIGH, N.C. — A bill to require North Carolina utilities to serve their customers with renewable fuel and energy efficiency headed back to the Senate for final approval as the General Assembly edged ahead with its final week of work for the year.
The House voted 107-9 to give final approval to the highly touted energy act, which requires the state's utilities to provide 12.5 percent of their retail electricity from renewable fuel and efficiency measures by 2017.
As in earlier hearings, debate hit on sections to help finance construction of traditional power plants and to dictate that a certain amount of renewable fuel come from hog and poultry waste.
But lawmakers resisted any late-day changes, including an amendment that would have obliged utilities to give first consideration to drawing power from animal waste systems that meet newly set environmental standards. That vote brought an emotional rebuke from Rep. Paul Luebke.
"That was an insulting vote to the people of North Carolina who have to live there with those hogs every day," Luebke, D-Durham, said. "I cannot believe what this body does to the poor people of eastern North Carolina who have to deal with this hog - mess every day."
The energy bill was one of numerous measures that saw action as the House and Senate both plowed into lengthy calendars in sessions that stretched late into the evening, in hopes of clearing as much legislation as possible before adjournment.
The brief amendment from Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield, D-Wilson, was keyed to legislation passed by the General Assembly last week that sets high environmental performance standards for new swine waste management systems in hopes of phasing out noxious, potentially leaky hog lagoons.
House members worried that the bill's Senate backers will balk at the change and may fail to pass the measure before this year's session adjourns.
"It's a little late on this to be doing this," said Rep. Drew Saunders, D-Mecklenburg.
The measure needs a final vote from the Senate and Gov. Mike Easley's assent to become law. Once enacted, it would make North Carolina the first Southeastern state with a requirement for renewables use, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
Another major bill relating to the environment hit the wall in the Senate - by design. House members had fast-tracked legislation to upgrade permit, construction and siting requirements for new landfills by gutting much of the measure's substance so it could skip some committee hearings.
"Whether you supported this bill or whether you opposed this bill when it was over in the Senate, I guarantee the House did something to it you don't like," Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, joked.
Action must be taken as soon as possible on the issue because a moratorium on new landfill permits in the state expires Wednesday. A conference committee was already working on a consensus measure before the Senate voted against concurrence.
The House was more amenable to Senate changes on a bill ordering the state treasurer to examine North Carolina's pension fund investments and sell those linked to Sudan's government or to the bloodshed in the African nation.
The chamber agreed unanimously to send to Easley's desk the bill that would have North Carolina join at least 17 other states that adopted Sudan investment policies, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force.
The Senate voted unanimously for a House bill to make many investigative hearings of ethics complaints against legislators and executive branch officials open to the public.
The measure, which now needs House agreement, would reverse strict ethics and lobbying changes approved last year that kept the hearings of the Legislative Ethics Committee and the State Ethics Commission closed.
A measure to allow judges to carry concealed weapons into court won Senate approval despite Sen. Ellie Kinnaird's insistence that it is an "unnecessary, dangerous and actually foolish bill."
Judges aren't trained in how to use a weapon in a crowded courtroom, Kinnaird, D-Orange, said, and would pose a danger to court personnel, citizens - and even themselves should they try to draw a gun from under their robes.
"How does he get it out without shooting something essential on himself?" she asked.
Senators who were not as gravely concerned approved the House bill 39-8, but a final vote on the measure was delayed to Wednesday.