Legislation that would provide additional state disaster aid for Ocracoke Islanders and other communities damaged by Hurricane Dorian as well as replenish the pool of state money used to match hundreds of millions of dollars in federal disaster relief stalled this week in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session. The state House and […]
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Published in partnership with Carolina Public Press Gov. Roy Cooper and members of the state’s congressional delegation say they will continue to press the case for assistance for individual victims of Hurricane Dorian after the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s recent decision to deny the state’s request. State officials received a letter Tuesday saying the damage […]
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Two weeks out from storms and high water, the Ocracoke air is thick with mosquitoes and the sound of heavy trucks hauling the insides of homes to a collection point on National Park Service land just outside the village. Tom Pahl, the Hyde County commissioner who represents Ocracoke, said there’s a mix of feelings on […]
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“We need to not let up, we need to continue and we need to get stronger somehow,” said Mayor Bobby Owens as he tried to drive home a point about the difference between today and the first time he fought offshore drilling off the North Carolina coast. Owens was chair of the Dare County Board […]
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Gov. Roy Cooper late Friday signed a bill making long-sought changes to North Carolina’s shellfish leasing program that was unanimously approved in the General Assembly. The House passed Senate Bill 648, Support Shellfish Aquaculture, on June 12 in a 116-0 vote. In early May, the Senate approved the bill in a 47-0 vote. In a […]
Fishing | Full Article
Long-term efforts to expand shellfish leasing in North Carolina waters cleared another legislative hurdle this week, an indication that, unlike last year’s bill, this one is on its way to becoming law. The new bill, hammered out in a yearlong stakeholder process after the failure of last year’s legislation, is drawn in part from a […]
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Bills to establish a new shellfish leasing program and extensive changes to the state’s marine fisheries oversight began moving through the Senate this week. Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, introduced both measures Wednesday morning in a review-only session of the Senate’s Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources Committee. Sanderson said Senate Bill 554, Marine Fisheries Reforms, […]
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Legislators at the helm of key House and Senate committees said they will try again to reach a broad agreement on the path forward for the state’s mariculture industry. A bill that would have established a new leasing program and new rules to encourage mariculture in state waters failed in the final days of last […]
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Environmental advocates are warning that a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall will dramatically shift implementation of environmental policies, allowing for greater direct control by the legislature. Last week, in the closing days of this year’s short session, legislators approved six constitutional amendments for the November ballot, among them a revision to the constitution’s […]
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By KIRK ROSS COASTAL REVIEW ONLINE Dozens of coastal provisions were approved last week as the North Carolina General Assembly pushed through more than a hundred bills in an attempt to wrap up its 2018 short session by month’s end. The week began with a House override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state […]
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