mike hager

December 13, 2013 - Corporate interest advocacy groups including the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council made repealing North Carolina's renewable energy law a top priority last year. Their effort failed, but now ALEC is trying a different approach by taking aim at the solar boom.

July 11, 2013 - More legislators in North Carolina than in any other state have signed Americans for Prosperity's pledge that discourages action on climate change. Credit for the pledge's political success goes to the billionaire brothers of Koch Industries who founded AFP -- but also to North Carolina's own Art Pope, a conservative mega-donor and longtime AFP leader.

May 28, 2013 - The failure of legislation to repeal the state's groundbreaking renewable energy program is a setback for conservative ideologues, but the lawmaker who led the repeal initiative says he hopes to continue the effort using new tactics.

May 8, 2013 - A bill to end North Carolina's renewable energy program was passed out of a Senate committee last week even though it didn't have the votes it needed. What's happening in the state is part of a broader national effort to revamp renewable energy laws.

May 3, 2013 - Clean energy opponents turned to dirty tactics to advance a bill repealing North Carolina's renewables program -- and that's not the only example of the state's energy policy being hijacked by powerful interests.

April 25, 2013 - A bill that would have ended North Carolina's renewable energy program appears dead in the water. How did the program's defenders prevail in the state's current archconservative environment?

April 4, 2013 - An effort to kill North Carolina's renewable energy law is meeting resistance from a politically powerful rural constituency.