Legislature needs to get serious about environmental regulation

As so-called "business-friendly" legislators weaken state environmental protections, North Carolinians should remember one word: Bhopal.

Twenty-eight years ago, release of methyl isocyanate gas killed thousands in that Indian city. The Bhopal disaster led to new environmental laws in the U.S., one of which annually informs Americans on the toxic chemicals being released into the air near their homes.

The latest news from the Toxics Release Inventory maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency is not good. After four consecutive years in which the release of toxic chemicals fell in the U.S., the nation saw a 16 percent increase in 2010. North Carolina saw an almost 4 percent jump.

The 600 chemicals on the list are seriously dangerous, many are known carcinogens, and over the years their emissions have been reduced steadily. EPA authorities are ascribing the increase nationally to an increase in metals mining and chemical manufacturing.

But in North Carolina, emissions from electric utilities dropped by 12 percent, even in an otherwise bad year. This is a direct result, we're certain, of efforts made by both the utilities and state government in the past decade to reduce smokestack emissions.

In North Carolina, the legislature and utilities agreed to require that growing percentages of state electricity be generated through clean, alternative production. Last year, when legislators proposed weakening that law, the utilities opposed the effort.

Environmental protection is about saving lives, reducing illness and protecting our beautiful state, concepts lost on a legislature that, in 2011, earned historically low scores from the N.C. League of Conservation Voters.

They need to get back on track and find ways to protect us from these toxic emissions.

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