When utility Duke Energy backed North Carolina legislation four years ago to spur new investments in natural gas and nuclear power, opposition from pulp and paper mills, furniture factories, and other large industrial customers helped tip the political scales and reshape the measure into what ultimately became a landmark bipartisan climate law.
Today, some of the same companies are changing their tune: deriding solar and wind investments, embracing coal and gas, and backing a bill that would unravel the 2021 statute.
Testifying before the Senate Agriculture, Energy, and Environment Committee in March, three major industrial associations spoke positively about Senate Bill 261, which would eliminate a 2030 deadline for Duke Energy to cut its carbon pollution by 70% compared with 2005 levels, but maintain a requirement that it decarbonize by midcentury.
The bill would also allow the utility to recover power plant development costs from ratepayers before the facilities are producing electricity — a break from the status quo that would encourage Duke to build conventional nuclear plants, which have high upfront costs and long construction timelines.
Kevin Martin, head of the manufacturing and industry trade group Carolina Utility Customers Association, told Canary Media his organization is “directionally supportive” of SB 261 but also backs the 2021 law’s long-term carbon goals. Martin made similar comments to senators in the Republican-run General Assembly.
Other stakeholders who testified displayed less support for the clean energy transition.
“The pause in the interim [2030] goal is wonderful,” Susan Vick, a lobbyist representing the Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Utility Rates, said in her testimony. “We have some of the cleanest coal plants in the country, and we worry about those being retired.”
Vick said her group is “resource agnostic” but has “serious concerns” about Duke’s latest carbon reduction plan, a requirement of the 2021 law. The plan allows for what Vick called “prolific” investments in solar and wind, resources she said were neither “least cost” nor reliable. She also noted that her group’s member companies had seen rates increase 24% on average since the law was passed.
How the economics of clean energy won over North Carolina’s industrial customers
Although the Trump administration has made a sharp U-turn on Biden-era policies meant to spur clean energy, little about the economics of renewables has changed since the start of the decade.
Such realities, alongside booming power demand, have prompted major industries in North Carolina to welcome renewables alongside more traditional electricity sources.
Duke Energy’s monopoly has also influenced industries’ approach to energy policy. Because they can’t purchase power anywhere else, large customers have relied on regulators to control prices. Big power users have also sought green tariffs — allowing them to buy renewable energy at a premium with Duke acting as a go-between — to help them meet their own sustainability goals.
Those dynamics led major industry groups to join forces with clean energy advocates in 2021 to fight an early draft of a bill that prescribed massive new investments in gas plants and would have charged customers for the utility’s forays into new nuclear power.
“We support the need to transition to clean energy,” Christina Cress, an attorney for the Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Utility Rates and an author of the letter, told Canary Media at the time. “We have several member companies who have very ambitious carbon reduction goals.”
By the fall, the bipartisan version of the bill that was signed into law allowed Duke to seek multiyear rate increases, prompting some of the industrial groups to oppose it and others to remain neutral. But none voiced opposition to a 2030 requirement that the utility cut its carbon pollution by 70%, nor to an incentive that could speed the retirement of the company’s coal plants.
Rising electric rates prompt calls for more power plants
Fast forward to 2025, and some of these same mills and factories are lining up behind a measure that would roll back the climate benefits of the 2021 law.
David Haines, president of the North Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, suggested in his testimony that the state’s climate law is causing recent energy price increases. “We appreciate your concern over escalating utility costs,” Haines said to lawmakers. “The Manufacturers Alliance shares that concern. However, [Duke’s carbon reduction plan] is still out there.”
