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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 010818CFE Meeting Notes Jan 8th, 2018: Richard Whitted Building, 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough 7:30 I. Call to Order 7:32 II. Additions or Changes to Agenda 7:35 III. Approval of Draft Minutes – December 11th, 2017 Parry moved to accept the minutes as written. Ward seconded. Minutes approved unanimously. 7:40 IV. Orange County Roadside Wildflower Conservation Johnny Randall updated his presentation from the summer of 2017 on the roadside conservation of wildflowers. Initial actions taken by NCBG volunteers were stopped short due to their finding that so many roadsides were important that it was beyond their capacity. Randall gave a presentation on the ecological history and importance of the area. The mowing along roadsides has replaced the presence of wildfire in the region’s ecology in maintaining the open non-wooded space necessary for the rare herbaceous plants to live. The Board of Orange County Commissioners recognized the value of roadside habitats in a resolution in 2012 and encouraged the CFE to work to preserve them. After that, the NCBG and others created surveys listing all of the rare plants that can be found in Orange County. NCDOT already does mostly mowing on roadsides, but the power companies mostly spray herbicides. Gray asked what success looks like. Randall proposed list of possible next steps and his primary request is that the CFE recommend to the BOCC to limit spraying to areas inaccessible to mowing. The County may be better received by NCDOT and the utilities than the NCBG would. Unnecessary to collect additional data, but NCBG would welcome the opportunity to work with the CFE to raise awareness of this issue and potentially to create a “Guide to roadside wildflowers”. The CFE agreed to digest the information presented and will direct any questions concerning this back to Randall through staff. 8:00 V. Citizen’s Climate Lobby Colin Maxwell from the local chapter of The Citizen’s Climate Lobby (CCL) presented information on the Carbon Fee and Dividend as a federal climate action strategy. CCL is proposing to levy a fee at the location where carbon-based fuels enter the country or economy. CCL is looking for a show of local support for this initiative across the country. The proposed initial fee would be $15/ton of carbon. This would raise the price of gasoline 8% in the first year and then it would go up from there. The costs of fossil fuel intensive goods would rise as well. This cost increase would create a burden, but this would be offset by a transfer of funds back to households in the form of a monthly dividend (minus administrative costs). Based on their models, CCL expects the stimulus to the economy of the dividend should add 2 million jobs. In the bottom quintile of US residents, most people will be getting more than enough money back in their dividend checks to cover the increased cost of goods. This fee would be easy for businesses to predict and prepare for, making it easier to accept. A border adjustment tax would keep businesses from moving oversees and may encourage other countries to levy their own fees. This is a market-based solution that places a minimal regulatory burden on businesses, and is revenue neutral in that it gives all the collected money back to the people, minus administrative costs. This initiative would not grow the size of government which would be a non-starter for some political groups. This approach has allowed this strategy to collect initial bipartisan support from groups such as the Climate Solutions Caucus of the US House of Representatives. Carrboro has officially supported this strategy and Chapel Hill is either looking at this or has already passed it. Pittsburgh and Chicago have also signed on. Piracci asked what percent of the money collected is expected to go to administrative costs. Maxwell replied that they expect it will be approximately 8% in the first few years moving down to 2% once the program is established. Piracci then asked if this proposal would encourage natural gas usage and as a result, increase fracking. Maxwell responded saying that even if natural gas was a cheaper energy source than coal, it would still get more expensive over time so there will be a strong disincentive from using it instead of renewable energy sources. Ward asked if CCL was pushing to remove the tax incentives given to the petroleum industry. Maxwell did not know if that was a focus. Staff will scan materials distributed at the meeting and send them to the CFE members. 8:30 VI. Committee Meetings Committee’s met briefly and reconvened to discuss the ideas they’d generated. Staff volunteered to collect and track these ideas and to get guidance from Orange County Community Relations department staff about the type and amount of material that would be most useful to them for publication in the Orange County newsletter or elsewhere. 9:00 VII. Revised 2018 CFE Activities and Concerns Several of the newest CFE members expressed concerns that the CFE’s planned activities and focus areas lacked the detail needed for implementation. Staff indicated that they would distribute the CFE’s 2018 workplan to the members and suggested that this workplan implementation and tracking discussion be continued as an agenda item at the next meeting. 9:10 VIII. Updates and Information Items Staff and/or CFE members will provide updates on the following items:  Continuing Action Items from previous CFE meetings:  Article about, and US Army Corps of Engineers response to DWR about, proposed Jordan Lake demonstration project (Attachment 4)  SELC 2015 comments on Draft EIS for Durham Orange Light Rail Project (Attachment 5)  2018 CFE Meeting Calendar (Attachment 6) o Locations were revised by staff to match available rooms. There were no objections to this change in location. New 2018 meeting calendars were distributed.  Any other new information from CFE members and staff: o The CFE discussed the article on the DOLRT written by Jeremy Marzuola. Crook made a motion to post the article on the CFE Facebook page as written. Second by Parry. The motion carried unanimously. 9:15 IX. Adjournment  Next Meeting: February 12th, 2018 - Richard Whitted Building, 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough (Location revised). Crook made a motion to adjourn and Gray seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 9:20pm.