WRAL: Fact Check: McCrory says Cooper ‘fought cleanup’ of coal ash
This one was so egregious that even WRAL called it out but cannot call out the McCrory campaign as outright liars, hiding behind “our lowest category” euphemism.
The short story. Duke Energy has been improperly storing coal ash by its power plants. Duke Energy thinks that the State of North Carolina should pay for this instead of it being the cost of electric production.
Duke Energy got caught with a huge spill of coal ash into the Dan River. Pat McCrory, Duke’s employee in the governor’s mansion, made sure that his employer did not have to pay more than it would agree to to make the story go away.
The Easley and Perdue administrations (Democratic) both were shown in court to have been involved in corruption or using public power and connections for private gain. McCrory is trading on the haziness in people’s memory about this. Can I say once again that the Blue Dog business faction of North Carolina’s Democratic Party have done immense damage to a once progressive-leaning state. Here is a concrete example that is being used to keep an actual corrupt governor in office.
If McCrory craters, GOP legislators down-ticket also are under pressure — where the Democrats have bothered to offer a challenger.
Nonetheless, notice the swiftboating style of the poo-throwing. Cooper comes into the race with a strong reputation for fairness and honesty.
And notice how the media, even in fact-checking it, enables it.
Okay — WRAL didn’t use the L word, but it was closer to it than I’m seeing around here wrt to other issues.
I’m confused about the coal ash holding ponds clean-up in NC. Is it a question of whether or not the clean-up will be done or merely who will pay for it? If the latter, the answer is either the taxpayers or consumers through rate increases. Duke is sticking it to the consumers in SC for coal ash clean-up and FL consumers are covering the $3 billion Duke Energy nuke plant boondoggle.
There were attempt to get Duke to handle its coal ash properly. That is one issue and the one that the two previous governors were involved in.
Then the Dan River coal ash spill happened and Pat McCrory minimized the penalties on Duke.
In a just system, payment to clean up the spill from other people’s property should come out of profits.
But the key point is McCrory accusing Cooper of something that Cooper himself did not do nor did not seek in order to distract from the fact that McCrory, a Duke employee on leave as governor, acted in a corrupt manner on behalf of his employer. This was not the only case of McCrory’s benefiting Duke, just the most egregious one. Another example of the Big Lie tactic that the GOP is using this year.
I got the key point as well as why it didn’t get a full-on big L.
Where do you think profits come from? In a just system, utilities would be well- and heavily- regulated and in the long term there would be no profits. (Odd that Democrats weren’t upset when Duke Energy gave the DNC $10 million (a loan in 2012 that was forgiven a few months later), but they bought into Duke’s claim that it would be paid for out of profits.
I don’t really know enough of the ins and outs in this specific situation to comment further, but note that the people and politicians in NC believe the private sector always does it better and for less. The coal ash ponds are but one of the ways Duke “did it for less.”