NC Senate passes bill to undo Duke Energy climate goal, change rules for raising rates

Duke Energy would be allowed to charge North Carolina customers for power plants that haven’t yet been built, as well as to avoid fast-approaching climate change goals, under the terms of a new bill that passed the state Senate on Thursday.

Supporters say the changes will stop electrical bills from becoming even more expensive. Critics say it will do the exact opposite, potentially leaving North Carolinians paying billions of dollars for power plants that never actually get built. With the debate fiercely divided and opponents disagreeing on key details of what the bill will do if it becomes law, it passed lagely along party lines with Republicans in favor and Democrats mostly opposed.

“We have an opportunity today to save the people of North Carolina a significant amount of money,” said Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, a former president of Duke Energy’s North Carolina operations, who helped write the bill and has led the charge for it inside the Senate.

Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Guilford, said she can’t see any scenario in which Duke Energy lowers its rates on its North Carolina customers, even if this bill does become law.

“We continue to pass costs on them that they can’t even afford,” she said. “So I have to vote against this.”

In 2021, state legislators negotiated with Duke Energy — the utility company that provides almost all electricity in North Carolina — to allow it to raise rates more easily, and avoid other government regulations, in exchange for promises to massively cut carbon emissions by 2030 in an effort to fight climate change.

The end result of that law was a rare bipartisan compromise on a major issue in state politics, heralded by Republican legislators as well as then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

But now, as 2030 approaches and Duke Energy isn’t close to hitting the goals laid out in that law, state Senate leader Phil Berger is criticizing that deadline as “arbitrary” and pushing for its elimination. His new bill, Senate Bill 261, would exempt Duke from needing to achieve any carbon-reduction goals until 2050, when it’s supposed to become carbon-neutral.

Democratic senators on Thursday said the 2021 bill was written following months of bipartisan negotiations that involved politicians, businesses, community leaders and others. This bill, by contrast, was only made public Monday night and was then sped through the Senate’s committee process before Thursday’s vote, with few opportunities for experts — or the general public — to weigh in.