The optics, as they say, are terrible. But in a state whose motto is “To Be Rather Than to Seem,” it’s even more important to look at the substance. And the substance is worse. Think about it: In a Southern state where the legacy of race discrimination and its attendant social ills remains starkly visible, our leading public law school is on the verge of being forced to abandon the courtrooms where the struggles for civil rights have so often played out. Conservative ideologues now clustering among the leaders of…
Gov. Cooper Speaks Up for Protecting NC’s Coast
Governor Roy Cooper has announced his strong opposition to offshore drilling and seismic blasting along North Carolina’s coast. “Our coast is part of our identity,” he said, speaking to the press at Fort Macon State Park near Atlantic Beach Penny Hooper, NCIPL Leadership Council Chair, was in the room for the Governor’s press conference. She was among representatives of faith communities, businesses, fishing families, beachgoers, and conservationists that have all joined together to protect our coast from drilling operations even as some political leaders push to let oil companies drill…
Wood Pellet Plant Would Be Environmental Injustice
More than 10,000 individuals and 50 organizations have signed a petition asking Governor Cooper to revoke the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer’s flawed air quality permit in Richmond County. At a Raleigh press conference on July 18, speakers represented prominent NC organizations such as Dogwood Alliance, Concerned Citizens of Richmond County, and Clean Air Carolina. Susannah Tuttle of NC Interfaith Power& Light was among the speakers. She said: We are called to be stewards, but are giving away our resources. Our faith calls upon us to stand with the people…
Great to Meet You at Wild Goose!
We were delighted to meet many of you at the Wild Goose Festival last week. Council staff members enjoyed spending time with friends from across the country, hearing your stories, and discussing ways to work together for a more just society. Although Wild Goose 2017 may be over, opportunities for progressive people of faith to gather are not. We hope you will join us for a variety of Council events in the works across the state for fall.
More Wind Energy, Not Less
It is becoming a national trend for politicians to “divide and conquer” by attacking the wind industry while supporting other forms of clean energy. This is fracturing the renewable energy community as folks are being forced to take positions that do not support one another. As Director of NCIPL, I pray that we do not take sides and instead continue to support all sources of renewable energy without pitting one against another. NCIPL is a member of the NC Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA). Below is their statement on HB 589 and a summary…
Rising Up with Richmond County
“Biomass” may sound like a clean idea, but it actually means cutting down and turning trees into fuel pellets to be burned for energy — creating more carbon pollution than coal, accelerating global warming, and driving climate chaos. North Carolina’s former governor opened the floodgates to the wood pellet export industry. It tears down the very trees that capture carbon pollution and protect people’s health and quality of life, making wood pellets for export where they are burned in power stations to generate electricity. Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet…
GA’s Budget Proposals — Harmful not Helpful
The General Assembly leaders meeting to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget are working with two deeply flawed proposals. As our friend Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy Watch explains, the plans range from spiteful to dishonest. He writes in part: Senate leaders included breathtakingly bad policy decisions in their budget including one provision taking food benefits fully funded by the federal government away from 133,000 people and another that bans wind farms in the state. The already bad Senate plan was made even worse in…
Now what? Staying Engaged and Grow the Interfaith Climate Movement
We were already living in a time of profound consequence. President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement means that while the needs of our endangered climate are increasing, the response to global warming is diminishing at the national level. Our actions now, as climate conscious people of faith, matter more than ever. There are a few things you can do right now to help maximize our collective impact as North Carolina’s statewide multi-faith network committed to addressing climate change as a moral issue: Engage your interfaith climate conscious…
2018 Budget Proposal is the Antithesis of our Call
Plenty of analysis is already happening around the 2018 budget proposal out of the White House. The Washington Post provides two helpful graphics here and here. More is being written than most of us can fully absorb, but Politico offers a key observation: On close reading, the budget is less a credible attempt to eliminate, or even pay down, the U.S. debt and more an ideological policy agenda disguised as a program of fiscal responsibility. If the proposal is, as such plans are often described, a place to begin discussion…
Raleigh Report — May 10, 2017
By George Reed, Retired Executive Director [For more information on bills, including committee referrals and re-referrals, texts of bills, procedural histories, and recorded votes, go to the General Assembly website www.ncleg.net.] Newly Introduced Bills EDUCATION Three companion bills would impact food served in schools. H 891, Free Breakfast and Lunch in K-12 Public Schools, would provide funds ($200 million per year) to make free breakfast and free lunch available to all public school students who request it. It would also create a fund to which taxpayers could contribute through a…
The People’s Climate March — Called to Respond
Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road unified to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March last month on the National Mall. The event, which came as a crescendo in a week of climate action, drew 200,000 people from every state, with broad support from more than 400 sister marches in the U.S. and around the world. Interfaith Power & Light was represented by more than 40 state affiliate groups. NCIPL led North Carolinians as part of the “Keepers of Faith” contingent. We expressed our deep concern from our…
Shepherds of Creation
Sermon preached on May 7, 2017 at Church of the Nativity, Raleigh. When I was in kindergarten, we memorized the 23rd Psalm. Of course, it was the King James Version, so different from what we read here today since we’ve all moved on to the modern translations that change so often we can’t keep up our memorization habits. Still, after all these years since kindergarten, I think if I had to do it, I could recite the 23rd Psalm for you in the King James Version. I also still recall…
Raleigh Report — April 26, 2017
By George Reed, Retired Executive Director [The deadlines for the introduction of most new bills have now passed, and we are in Crossover Week. By the end of the week, most non-money bills (i.e., not taxes, fees, or appropriations) must have passed one house in order to remain alive for this session. There are exceptions, and those exceptions can sometimes be used creatively by legislative leaders to keep bills alive. For more information on bills, including committee referrals and re-referrals, texts of bills, procedural histories, and recorded votes, go to…
Science Must Matter to People of Faith
Crowds are gathered on this Earth Day in Washington, D.C. and in cities across the country to march for science and protect the deeply held value of truth and facts. They are marching to defend the vital role science plays in our communities and our world. They are marching because science is not partisan; it is not liberal or conservative. And they are marching to demonstrate that our nation values the scientists and the scientific agencies working to make our world safer, cleaner, and healthier. Why should a science march…
Tax-Cut Fever Threatens Services
How many times do we have to say it? Well, it’s worth repeating – especially in the aftermath of recent income tax filing deadlines, when the subject becomes a sore point for many: None of us should have to pay more in taxes than our fair share in financing the necessary and desirable tasks of government. But what sounds like a clear-cut standard is of course complicated by a tangle of conflicting opinions and ideologies. What’s “fair,” “necessary” and “desirable”? Depends whom you ask. From the Council of Churches’ perspective,…