Publication of state electric cooperatives directs author to "steer clear" of "political topics" like climate change

Do you remember when October was chilly enough for a bonfire? When the streets of Wilmington didn’t flood on sunny days? And for the drought-stricken two-thirds of the state, do you remember when it used to rain?

DEQ approves expansion of wood pellet facility a week after declaring industry fails to advance state's clean energy goals In a strongly worded passage in its Clean Energy Plan, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has rejected the idea that burning trees for fuel qualifies as low-carbon...

This is a place where the Atlantic Ocean begins: A yawning storm pipe draped by kudzu about a half-mile south of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Little more than a murky ditch, the shallow stream winds south, beneath the American Tobacco Trail bridge, behind a strip mall, and past two gas stations, to Forest Hills Park.  To illustrate the connections between Durham’s lowly downtown ditch to the coast, if you floated a paper boat from the headwaters in Forest Hills, its 150-mile journey would run south through Third Fork Creek, which in turn merges with New Hope Creek, which flows into Jordan Lake, a drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people. The boat would skim over the dam and into the Cape Fear River, which travels through southeastern North Carolina and spills into the Atlantic south of Wilmington.

By 2050, when the youngest people in the crowd at Halifax Mall will begin the prime of their lives, the Earth’s climate could enter a new chapter, as well, one unprecedented in human history.

Duke Energy calls its new net-zero carbon emissions plan a "directional beacon," but for critics of the utility, the proposal is blind to the drivers of climate change. Tuesday's announcement from the energy titan offered no hard-and-fast numbers in which to hold the utility accountable, stating only that by 2050, Duke will have phased out coal.

Congressional testimony this week by DuPont, Chemours and 3M was damning Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, glared with the intensity of a welder’s torch at top officials from three chemical titans — DuPont, Chemours and 3M — seated at a table in a congressional hearing room.

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State environmental regulators will have the power to require most composting facilities to test for emerging contaminants, including perfluorinated compounds (PFAS) and 1,4-Dioxane, according to new rules approved today. The Environmental Management Commission this morning voted to amend and readopt state rules over the 50 composters regulated by the Division of Waste Management.

Energy Department to roll back rules on energy-efficient light bulbs Methane, coal ash, tailpipe emissions, toxic releases, pesticides, endangered species: Since President Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has rolled back...

Forty-eight hours before the arms of Hurricane Dorian locked on the coast, North Topsail Beach in Onslow County sounded like an untuned symphony. The roar of the ocean lay down a musical bed for the shrieks of seagulls, a concussion of hammers and the caterwauls of power saws.

Over the next two weeks, Policy Watch will publish a series of stories about a commonly used method of environmental protection for wetlands and streams called “compensatory mitigation.” The federal Clean Water Act requires developers of residential, commercial, transportation and energy projects to offset “unavoidable impacts” to streams or wetlands.