NCenvtl's blog

It looks like the Dems finally got it together on the FISA bill today. Daily Kos. What happened to Shuler? Here is the roll call.

I just wanted to make a quick response to the JLF’s recent “report” on the danger of offshore wind energy in North Carolina. As I said in my initial response, this dishonesty and misinformation contained in their piece is enough to leave anyone speechless. While wind energy is the fastest growing form of renewable energy, this exact type of misinformation has prevented the type of growth that this industry has the potential for (and deserves).

More after the fold.....

There is a big breaking story on Sen. McCain's relationship (improper?) with a female lobbyist. I don't have time to write out more details but here is a link to the NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=1...

This is going to be big. MSNBC actually interrupted Hardball with a special report by Keith Olberman. Hope everyone has some popcorn handy. This is going to be fun to sit back and watch.

Earlier today, the North Carolina Division of Air Quality awarded Duke Energy its final air quality permit needed to expand its Cliffside coal-fired plant. This strongly contested permit allows Duke Energy to install a new 800 megawatt boiler. The energy company is, however, required to do several things:

(1) Shut down Units 1-4 at the Cliffside location.

(2) By 2018, it must shut down an additional 800 megawatts of older coal-fired units in North Carolina.

(3) It must make the project carbon neutral by 2018 (mainly by using carbon offsets).

This in an unfortunate result but the local community and environmental organizations are to be commended for fighting a good fight. I am sure this is not the last we will hear of this.

The N.C. Division of Air Quality's press release can be found here.

Frontpaged by A.

The Senate Democrats (minus Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Mark Pryor) defeated the Republicans' attempt to bring the debate on the FISA amendments to cloture. The Democrats were able to pull out this victory by a vote of 48 ayes to 45 nayes.

They are now proceeding to vote on a second cloture vote on whether to vote on a 30-day extension of the recent amendments to FISA.