Duke Energy, a major corporation with near-monopoly control over North Carolina’s electric grid, has outsized influence over the state’s decarbonization plan, which is now under review. The state legislature ordered the utility commission to make a 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Duke Energy has submitted a plan to the commission to meet those goals, but the plan fails to take affordability and equity into full account. What’s worse: Low-wealth people aren’t required — or, in many cases, even able — to participate in the planning process. They’re shut out.
For too many low-wealth North Carolina residents, energy bills are already too high. These communities have contributed little to climate change, but they face steep increases in electricity rates as the planet heats up and storms become more frequent and severe. There is a better way forward. Helping North Carolinians buy and maintain renewable energy equipment to generate their own energy (customer-owned generation) will lower carbon emissions, reduce energy cost burdens, improve resilience, and ensure energy security for ratepayers.
That’s why we and our partners are taking action. On July 11, North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, a faith-based environmental advocacy group in the state, filed a petition to intervene in the fight for energy justice in North Carolina. The Center for Progressive Reform supports this important step toward ensuring that low-wealth North Carolinians have reliable access to affordable electricity as the state transitions to a carbon-free economy.
Energy Costs Burdening Low-Wealth North Carolinians
Nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians are overburdened by energy costs, and some even pay more for energy than for housing. (Energy burden is the percentage of household income spent on energy costs. A household that is spending more than 6 percent of its income on energy bills is considered to have a high energy burden.) Households with higher energy burdens are disproportionately headed by low-wealth people, older adults, renters, and multigenerational families.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, low-wealth ratepayers in North Carolina, on average, spend between 8 to 10 percent of their income on energy costs. This means that North Carolina sits in the top half of states with the highest energy burden for low-wealth ratepayers.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem. In 2020, 1 million North Carolina families were behind on electric, water, and sewage bills. Since pandemic utility shutoff relief has ended, these families have been forced to choose between “keeping the lights on” and food, water, and medicine. Data from the North Carolina Utilities Commission shows that, in the first quarter of 2021, utility companies shut off power for 20,000 North Carolinians a month who were unable to pay their energy bills.
Shutting Out Those at Risk of Being Shut Off
While the North Carolina legislature acknowledged the need for consultation with ratepayers, it did not require or provide any procedures for the participation of frontline communities. Fossil Free NC gave the Carbon Plan an “F” in leading to fair and affordable rates because there is “nothing specific in the carbon plan to address affordability.”
In January, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper sought to address the racial and economic inequities of the proposed energy transition through Executive Order 246, which outlines procedural steps and public consultations state agencies must take in their attempts to incorporate environmental justice concerns. Yet, the Duke Energy Carbon Plan proceedings have been inaccessible for utility customers, particularly for low-wealth people and Spanish-speaking communities that face additional barriers to participation.
North Carolina Must Support Low-Wealth Ratepayers
That’s why the Campaign for Energy Justice in North Carolina is pressing Duke Energy and the North Carolina Utilities Commission to:
Join our campaign to promote the participation of underserved and overburdened low-wealth communities in the Duke Energy Carbon Plan. Attend a public hearing this month on the Duke Energy Carbon Plan. Submit a comment to the North Carolina Utilities Commission. And subscribe to our newsletter and follow the Center on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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Hannah Klaus | July 13, 2022
Duke Energy, a major corporation with near-monopoly control over North Carolina’s electric grid, has outsized influence over the state’s decarbonization plan, which is now under review. The state legislature ordered the utility commission to make a 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Duke Energy has submitted a plan to the commission to meet those goals, but the plan fails to take affordability and equity into full account. What’s worse: Low-wealth people aren’t required -- or, in many cases, even able -- to participate in the planning process. They’re shut out.
Alice Kaswan | July 7, 2022
The Center for Progressive Reform has joined close to 1,000 organizations and individuals in providing comments on California's long-awaited plan for achieving carbon neutrality, the Draft 2022 Scoping Plan Update (Draft Plan). Gov. Gavin Newsom gave the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state agency tasked with coordinating the plan, a daunting challenge: achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 at the latest. Our comments conclude that the state should (1) be more ambitious, (2) more explicitly achieve multiple objectives, including environmental justice, and (3) develop a supplemental plan that more specifically outlines the policy tools the state will employ to achieve its objectives.
Alexandra Rogan | July 7, 2022
An article co-written by Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar David Adelman and Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) Jori Reilly-Diakun was selected for inclusion in this year’s Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). ELPAR is a student-edited volume published annually in the August issue of the Environmental Law Reporter. It features abridged versions of selected articles with commentary from environmental experts.
Grace DuBois | July 5, 2022
Throughout the first half of 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced several actions in pursuit of the goals it laid out in its PFAS Strategic Roadmap -- the blueprint it released last October outlining plans for addressing widespread PFAS contamination in the United States. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a group of more than 9,000 synthetic chemicals that pose serious risks to human health, including increased blood pressure and cholesterol levels, abnormal liver function, decreased birth weights, and certain cancers. Exposure to even extremely low levels of certain PFAS are unsafe for humans.
Robert Fischman | June 30, 2022
In West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court slayed a phantom, a regulation that does not exist. Why? The justices in the majority could not contain their zeal to hollow out the EPA’s ability to lessen suffering from climate change in ways that impinge the profits of entrenched fossil fuel interests.
James Goodwin, Shelley Welton | June 29, 2022
These days, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can no longer be described as a technocratic, under-the-radar agency that sets policies on energy infrastructure and market rules, rates, and standards. As energy policy has become front-page news, FERC has begun updating its regulations to meet new exigencies. The agency has taken big steps to support affordability and a transition to cleaner energy, including proposing updates to the way it permits natural gas pipelines and beginning to overhaul how regions plan and pay for the expansion of electricity transmission infrastructure. These moves have provoked controversy because their stakes are high: Billions of dollars of infrastructure expenditures are on the table. What gets built, who pays, who hosts this infrastructure, and who makes those decisions also have major implications for equity and racial justice.
Katrina Fischer Kuh, Rebecca Bratspies | June 28, 2022
In November 2021, over 70% of New Yorkers voted to amend the state's constitution to explicitly protect New Yorkers' fundamental right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment. New York thus joins Montana and Pennsylvania in enshrining robust constitutional environmental rights in the state constitution. Unsurprisingly, corporate defendants argue that the new right doesn't change anything.
Daniel Farber | June 27, 2022
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been called the most important environmental agency that no one has heard of. Recently, the D.C. Circuit decided two undramatic FERC cases that illustrate the agency's environmental significance. One involved a bailout to coal and nuclear plants, the other involved water quality.
Michael C. Duff | June 23, 2022
The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously struck down a Washington state law that was aimed at helping federal contract employees get workers' compensation for diseases arising from cleaning up nuclear waste. The case, United States v. Washington, concerned the federally controlled Hanford nuclear reservation, a decommissioned facility that spans 586 square miles near the Columbia River. The reservation, formerly used by the federal government in the production of nuclear weapons, presents unique hazards to cleanup workers.