Clodfelter for DENR?

Is state Sen. Dan Clodfelter of Charlotte in line for appointment in the Perdue administration as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources?
Dome hears he's interested. The N&O Web site had this to say:

"Dome has heard one more name for the secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.

"Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a five-term Charlotte Democrat who currently sits on the Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, is reportedly interested in the job.

"He joins a long list of names, including current Secretary Bill Ross, parks director Lewis Ledford, former Secretary Bill Holman, Creedmoor Mayor Darryl Moss, conservationist Reid Wilson, transportation board member Nina Szlosberg and consultant Freda Porter."

Here's my two-cents' worth: Clodfelter is a highly knowledgeable workhorse on a variety of issues, including the environment. He was a key player in the long campaign to adopt better stormwater runoff rules. He's also an effective senator and skilled legislator, so if he were appointed, it would be a loss to the Senate for his expertise and judgment -- but a gain for the administration for the same reasons.

What would Bev do?

In case anyone is looking for clues to what Gov.-elect Bev Perdue will do once she takes office Jan. 9, there's new information on her Web site from 14 Transition Advisory Groups who've looked at the issues since the election and made specific recommendations to Perdue for actions she ought to take in such areas as environment, commerce, education and so on.
For example, the group looking at transportation issues made these suggestions, among others:
--Sell infrastructure (for example, bridges, ferry system) to private entities.
--Require counties to maintain county roads.
These reports don't bind Perdue to anything, but they may provide some hints to her thinking once she's in office.
Take a look here for all 14 reports:

The Grinch Who Stole the Pay Raise

If you read Observer Washington correspondent Lisa Zagaroli's story Wednesday about the pensions that members of the N.C. congressional delegation will be eligible for when they leave office, no doubt you noted the curious case of U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, a Republican from Guilford County and a true skinflint.
I say that with some admiration. I've known Coble for decades and he's pretty tight with a buck -- his, yours or mine.
He didn't enroll in the congressional pension system, though by now it would have earned him a pension of about $65,000 a year after 24 years in the U.S. House. "It's a taxpayer ripoff," Coble told Zagaroli.
"I think the taxpayers probably should contribute to a modest pension, but this one is not modest. This is a lavish pension plan, vesting at five years and automatic cost of living (increases) worked into that."
When Coble was in the N.C. House of Representatives back in the 1970s, he was in the distinct minority on a lot of issues related to spending. He once sponsored a bill to stop a proposed legislative pay raise. My colleague the late Brent Hackney, then a Raleigh correspondent for the old Greensboro Daily News, wrote a story calling him The Grinch Who Stole the Pay Raise.
Coble, ham that he is, loved it. For years thereafter he reveled in the nickname -- and when he called his hometown paper to speak to one of us, he'd growl, "This is the Grinch."

2010 -- it's begun!

Tom Jensen, the analyst for Public Policy Polling whose writings about the 2008 election proved so accurate in this year's elections, is out with word that Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is in a good position to challenge Republican Sen. Richard Burr in 2010. Here's a link:

$2 to $3 billion for NC transportation?

There was some hopeful talk for travelers around Charlotte and those headed across the Yadkin River at this morning's final meeting of the 21st Century Transportation Committee. No, it's not that the General Assembly would adopt recommendations quickly and produce a lot of immediate revenue for highway, mass transit and other transportation projects. That's going to take a while.
This time the talk was some optimism about getting money from President-elect Barack Obama's proposed national infrastructure program, for N.C. transportation projects such as completion of the I-485 loop around Charlotte and replacing the aging I-85 bridges east of Spencer over the Yadkin river -- the principal east-west crossing for a great many cross-state motorists.
While there's no information on a specific sum that might be available if and when the president-elect gets congressional approval for his program in 2009, committee chairman Brad Wilson speculated that North Carolina's share might come to as much as $2 billion or $3 billion -- "big money," he accurately noted, making it critical for the state to have projects in the pipeline and ready to go when money becmes available.
State Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston, is concerned that enough projects won't be fully ready to go. "If DOT has ever been in a hurry on anything, I've never seen it," Hoyle said.
The transportation committee reportm isn't online just yet but will be available at the committee's main Web site at http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/21stCenturyTransportation/Homepage/index.html

Users v. withdrawers: getting it right

Richard Whisnant, UNC Chapel Hill professor and co-author of a new study on state water allocation policy, notes that there's an important distinction that may escape some casual readers. The study recommends that those who withdrawn large amounts of water be required to get permits to do so -- but that's not the same thing as large users of water.
"The two populations are very different, since so many large users buy their water from someone else who withdraws and treats it," Whisnant says.
An Observer editorial Wednesday morning referred to water "users."

Data flowing on water study

A comprehensive study of the state's water allocation policies -- launched during a fierce drought and aimed at helping policymakers sort through competing issues and arriving better water policies that would preserve water resources as the state grows rapidly -- has developed over the past year on a Web site that invites the public's contributions. It also tracks changes as the study moved along.

The water study's principal authors are Richard Whisnant of the UNC Chapel Hill School of Government and Bill Holman of Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. You may have read about it in Bruce Henderson's story in the Observer Monday.

Whisnant and Holman were just the right analysts for the job. They've got a ton of experience, knowlege, judgement -- and wit to tackle the subject. As the so-called "water Wiki" notes:

"You cannot step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are flowing in upon you." ~Heraclitus, 500 B.C.

"You cannot click twice into the same water wiki, for fresh data are flowing in upon you." ~An Editor of the Water Wiki, 2007"