Tracing the ownership of the land hosting a Nash County solar farm built on a former cow pasture is complicated business. [Editor’s note: The headline of this story was changed to reflect new information from Judge Pell Cooper. See correction below.] On his Statement of Economic Interest covering 2014, then-Attorney General Roy Cooper, in November...
The last week of March could be a busy one for the Cooper administration. In a press release issued Wednesday, March 7, Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, called on legislative leaders to open a formal investigation of the controversial side deal Gov. Roy Cooper worked out with operators of the...
State Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union, said Gov. Roy Cooper created a slush fund 10 times larger than actual mitigation costs by preying on vulnerable energy utilities seeking approval of a state permit to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The secret $57.8 million escrow account Cooper negotiated has poisoned the process, and the companies should not...
Peter Vincent Pry — executive director of the task force on National and Homeland Security — is on a mission to educate people about the dangers of an electromagnetic pulse attack. Pry’s recent stop on his educational tour was the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee where, on Feb. 15, he warned lawmakers about the...
Editor’s note: See update below. House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, says an ethics complaint filed against him by a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization is tainted by election-season politics. Campaign for Accountability filed the complaint Monday, March 5. It alleges Moore might have improperly used the power of his office to skirt state Department of...
Gov. Roy Cooper committed an unforced error by circumventing the General Assembly and creating a constitutionally questionable $57.8 million Atlantic Coast Pipeline fund, political observers and legislators say. Cooper could have been tone deaf to the sour notes his action was sure to sound, they say, and may lack inner circle advisers influential enough to...
Little fanfare surrounded the state Department of Environmental Quality’s most recent decision to issue an air quality permit connected with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. The permit, issued Tuesday, Feb. 27, is for the Northampton Compressor Station. It isn’t the last permit necessary for the 600-mile pipeline that would transmit fracked natural gas from West...
The length of a fishing pier separated opposing groups making waves over oil and gas drilling off the North Carolina coast Monday evening inside the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown. But their messages were an ocean apart. In a third area, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held an open house to gather public comments, distribute...
From Carolina Journal Radio Program No. 770: Gov. Roy Cooper has generated controversy by announcing a special $58 million fund connected with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. The fund is slated to pay for mitigation work connected with the pipeline, along with other economic development and renewable energy projects. Cooper considers the fund a “voluntary...
Gov. Roy Cooper has generated controversy by announcing a special $58 million fund connected with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. The fund is slated to pay for mitigation work connected with the pipeline, along with other economic development and renewable energy projects. Cooper considers the fund a “voluntary contribution” to the state. Critics say Cooper...
Gov. Roy Cooper in 2012, while serving as state attorney general, agreed to lease a Nash County property he and his brother Pell owned to Chapel Hill-based Strata Solar for the construction and operation of a 4.9-megawatt solar facility. The lease agreement may be worth more than $1 million, based on industry standards. The Coopers’...
