North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper has created an Executive Order to ‘lessen the impact’ of hurricanes. 🙄

The Stunt Governor has issued Executive Order 80 to “address climate change” and “transition” North Carolina to a “clean energy economy.”

The Environmental Protection Agency announced on October 17th that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by 2.7 percent during President Donald Trump’s first year in office – but let’s go with Roy’s Hurricane theory.

“A strong clean energy economy combats climate change while creating good jobs and a healthy environment,” said the Stunt Governor in his press release. “With historic storms lashing our state, we must combat climate change, make our state more resilient and lessen the impact of future natural disasters.”

This is the same man who mocked former Governor Pat McCrory for “building up the rainy day fund in excess of what’s necessary for the state.”  Then he and his administration turn around and seriously botch the Hurricane Matthew relief efforts.

Cooper’s such a great ‘green’ guy, right? This is a distraction that exploits the disaster area left in the wake of Hurricane Florence and which allows local media to forget all about Cooper’s shady Solar Farm shenanigans and the Pipeline Slush fund.

What this Green Stunt EO Does

The Executive Order creates a new “North Carolina Climate Change Interagency Council” headed up by Michael Regan, Cooper’s Secretary of Environmental Quality.

Cooper’s order forces North Carolina to honor the Paris Agreement and wants to cut NC greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to below 2005 levels,  put 80,000 zero-emission vehicles (ZEV’s) on the road by 2025, and “reduce energy consumption” in state-owned buildings.

The press release also outlined the other things this order does – which mainly consists of adding more bureaucracy.

• The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will develop a North Carolina Clean Energy Plan to encourage the use of clean energy, including wind, solar, energy efficiency, and energy storage.
• The North Carolina Department of Transportation will develop a plan to accelerate the use of zero-emission vehicles across state government. Cabinet agencies will prioritize the use of ZEVs for trips that can reasonably be made with a ZEV.
• DEQ will help cabinet agencies improve their energy efficiency and publicly report utility consumption.
• The North Carolina Department of Commerce will support the expansion of clean energy businesses and service providers, clean technology investment, and companies with a commitment to procuring renewable energy.
• All cabinet agencies will integrate climate mitigation and resiliency planning into their policies, programs and operations.

Really, is that all? Nope. It never is.

Virtue Signaling Into North Carolinian’s Wallets

What does this mean for North Carolinians? A hit to your wallets and livelihood.

Flashback to 2017, when John Locke Foundation’s Rick Henderson broke down Cooper’s scientific ignorance in relation to the Paris Climate Accord.

“North Carolina’s participation in any kind of global climate deal would have no impact on global temperatures – in fact, they basically said if the U.S. economy shut down completely, the major greenhouse emitters like China and India would overwhelm that contribution to carbon emissions within a matter of months,” said Henderson.

“What we do here at the state level is ineffectual,” said Henderson.

“Implementing regulations like this that are mandates and not market driven increase the cost of energy, make it more difficult for consumers to get the goods and services they want in a timely manner and kill economic growth and that’s something you don’t want to do unless you want to feel virtuous about your treatment of the planet,” Henderson said.

Let’s but Henderson’s comments in context with Cooper’s current Climate Executive Order: Cooper’s order is a costly virtual signaling stunt.

Then again, what should North Carolinians expect from a Governor who received an “F” for his fiscal policies?