A JOINT RESOLUTION expressing the opinion of the general assembly that there should be A NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY THAT SUPPORTS THE RESPONSIBLE EXPLORATION FOR AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOMESTIC ENERGY RESOURCES, AS RECOMMENDED BY THE Legislative research comMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY ISSUES.
Whereas, economic recovery, job creation, effective global competitiveness, and national security depend upon developing our nation's diverse energy resources; and
Whereas, the identification and utilization of abundant supplies of affordable and reliable energy are vital to the prosperity of North Carolina and our nation; and 
Whereas, the production of unconventional natural gas deposits in North America, including shale, is forecasted to increase to 64 percent of all domestic natural gas production by 2020. The United States is estimated to have a future natural gas supply of over 2,000 trillion cubic feet, which is enough gas at current consumption rates to supply the nation for the next 100 years. This increase is attributable to increased unconventional gas plays, largely from shale gas development; and
Whereas, the U.S. Department of Energy reports a shale gas potential of three to four trillion cubic feet of production per year may be sustainable for decades, and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America reports that to achieve forecasted results, industry must have land access for drilling, a reasonable permitting process, and adequate prices and demand for natural gas; and
Whereas, the President of the United States, the Governor of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources have in recent months stated their support for environmentally responsible shale gas development; and
Whereas, the North Carolina Geological Survey reports 785,000 acres of Triassic basin formations that hold potential shale gas; and
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing and considering new regulations regarding the practice of hydraulic fracturing used to recover natural gas from horizontal wells, often into shale formations that hold previously unavailable reserves of natural gas, to supply the nation for decades at low cost, a practice that has been used for decades and is well within the regulatory expertise of the states, pursuant to delegation by the Clean Water Act responsibilities by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and
Whereas, North Carolina's more than 60 million acres of federally managed waters on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf is the largest along the Atlantic coast and the fourth largest in the United States; and
Whereas, the U.S. Department of the Interior failed to include the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf in its leasing plan for 2012 through 2017; and
Whereas, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the creation of the Legislative Research Commission's Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration in 2008 to study offshore hydrocarbon and other energy resources; and
Whereas, the findings in the April 2010 final report of the Legislative Research Commission's Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration noted that potentially significant energy resources exist offshore North Carolina that include quantifiable estimates from the federal government of almost 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; and
Whereas, the Legislative Research Commission's Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration recommended that production of fossil fuel and alternative energy resources in North Carolina's outer continental shelf should include provisions for revenue and royalty sharing directed to the State of North Carolina; and
Whereas, the Legislative Research Commission's Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration heard testimony from the Southeast Energy Alliance that estimated production of natural gas and associated hydrocarbons offshore North Carolina would create more than 6,700 new jobs and add more than $659 million annually to the State's Gross Domestic Product over three decades, during which time this energy production could generate almost $10 billion in revenue sharing of government revenues at an average of $484 million per year to North Carolina; and
Whereas, the Legislative Research Commission's Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration recommended that production of fossil fuel and alternative energy resources in North Carolina's outer continental shelf should include provisions for revenue and royalty sharing directed to the State of North Carolina; and
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed New Source Performance Standards for oil and natural gas production that would significantly slow down drilling, resulting in less oil and natural gas production, lower royalties to the federal government, and lower tax payments to state governments; and
Whereas, the President and the Congress have not approved a pipeline project to transport oil extracted in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for environmentally responsible refining and marketing, a project that is expected to create 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 jobs in manufacturing for Americans in several states, generate substantial revenues to support state and local needs, and decrease the potential from supply disruptions from the Gulf of Mexico that have created recent price spikes and supply shortages to the citizens and businesses of North Carolina; and
Whereas, commercial nuclear power plants provide base load electricity generation to and are an important component of  a reliable, safe, and secure electric power supply for the citizens of North Carolina; and
Whereas, North Carolina receives approximately forty percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, is one of the top nuclear power producers in the country, and nuclear energy continues to be a safe, reliable, and clean resource; and
Whereas, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 mandates that generators of nuclear power are responsible for paying the costs associated with establishing a permanent repository for the disposal of nuclear fuel from commercial reactors; and
Whereas, the United States government failed to begin accepting commercial nuclear fuel by 1998 as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, and there have been ongoing and extensive delays caused by the government's failure to reasonably implement a waste management program and develop a disposal facility; and   
Whereas, the President has unilaterally halted development by the U.S. Department of Energy of a planned national repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, a repository that was required by federal law to be in place by 1998, and the Department of Energy continues to collect the fees authorized by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to fund the required repository, fees that are paid by utilities that own nuclear power generation facilities and recovered from the purchasers of electricity generated by those facilities; and
Whereas, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy has now taken action to terminate the current waste disposal program approved by the Yucca Mountain Repository Site Approval Act of 2002 and, therefore, there is currently no centralized waste management and disposal program being implemented and against which a fee can be assessed; and 
Whereas, despite the absence of an ongoing waste management and disposal program, the Secretary is continuing to collect over $750 million per year from reactor licensees, including those serving the citizens of North Carolina; and
Whereas, the citizens of North Carolina, through the rates charged, have contributed $897.3 million in fees to fund the federal government's waste management and disposal program as prescribed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982; and
Whereas, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy to collect fees only in an amount sufficient to offset the costs of the federal government's waste management and disposal program and provides that the Secretary is to request a fee adjustment if "excess or insufficient" revenues are being collected, and the current balance of the fund is more than $25 billion and grows by approximately $1 billion annually solely from the addition of investment income; and
Whereas, the recent report by the United States Secretary of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future described the federal government's program to manage and dispose of used nuclear fuel as "… one of broken promises and unmet commitments" and recommended fundamental changes in the program, but the federal government has yet to act on any of the Blue Ribbon Commission's recommendations; and
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed and proposed numerous significant new rules, regulations, and policy guidelines that will impact energy generation and utilization, including the Clean Water Act, section 316(b) rules; the Cross‑State Air Pollution Rule; the Cooling Water Intake Structures rules; Title I of the Clean Air Act, Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) Standards and new Boiler MACT Standards; National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Sulfur Dioxide and Ozone; and the Coal Combustion Residuals rule; and
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not considered the combined impact of these new rules, regulations, and policy guidelines on citizens, states, and businesses, and the compliance with this array of new regulatory requirements, separately and together, particularly in the short time frames provided, will be extraordinarily expensive, directing available business capital to regulatory compliance rather than economic growth; and
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not considered the combined impact of these new and proposed rules and regulations on citizens, states, and businesses, and, if compliance can be accomplished at all, it is certain to increase the cost and reliability of electricity to residential, commercial, and industrial users at a time when no citizen or business can afford to pay more for energy without cutting back on other expenses, inhibiting economic growth and posing a serious risk to the reliability of the electric grid; and
Whereas, the foregoing information regarding federal policies and their effect on energy issues provides an incoherent, indefensible, and unsustainable energy policy that risks North Carolina's and the nation's economic recovery, global competitiveness, and energy security; and
Whereas, these federal activities are driving up the cost and driving down the reliability of energy at a time when economic recovery, business development, and job creation should be the top priorities of our leaders; Now, therefore, 
Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring:
SECTION 1.  The General Assembly understands the urgency and importance of adopting a national energy policy that supports the responsible exploration for and development of this nation's diverse energy resources in order to secure abundant supplies of affordable, reliable energy for the economic recovery and future prosperity of North Carolina and the nation.
SECTION 2.  The General Assembly advocates that the federal 2012‑2017 five‑year leasing plan be amended to include at least North Carolina's more than 60 million acres of federally managed waters on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and expedite studies and permits to accelerate exploration, production, and development of the natural gas and hydrocarbon resources thereunder. The General Assembly also advocates that the federal government include revenue sharing provisions for North Carolina's federally managed waters on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf similar, if not identical, to those included in the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.
SECTION 3.  It is the opinion of the General Assembly that ratepayers in North Carolina and throughout the nation could be protected by the immediate suspension of the collection of Nuclear Waste Fund fees because the continued collection cannot be justified under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 given the unlawful termination of the waste management and disposal program at the Yucca Mountain site.
SECTION 4.  It is also the opinion of the General Assembly that the collection fee should not be resumed until the long‑term final repository program is revived or another waste management and disposal program is established based on the final recommendations of the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.
SECTION 5.  The federal government should put in place immediately the governance and financial reforms recommended by the Blue Ribbon Commission in order to make real progress toward disposal of used nuclear fuel in a geologic repository and to ensure that monies paid by electricity customers toward that end are used for the purpose of fuel management.
SECTION 6.  In compliance with the mandates of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Yucca Mountain Repository Site Approval Act of 2002, it is the opinion of the General Assembly that the United States Department of Energy should resume work on the license application for the Yucca Mountain long‑term spent nuclear fuel and high‑level radioactive waste repository to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete the environmental and technical review of the proposed repository.
SECTION 7.  The General Assembly endorses the following:
(1)	Providing statutory oversight and direction to implement a responsible energy policy in light of the Executive Branch's failure to implement such a policy.
(2)	Having access to a cumulative regulatory impact assessment of all of the major regulations under consideration under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, including the cumulative effect of all of these regulations on the economy, jobs, and energy affordability and reliability, drawing on the expertise of other federal agencies and the private sector.
(3)	Providing additional oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, considering the current encroachment of state enforcement powers and duties, air quality and water quality policy planning, and economic growth impacts due to regulatory uncertainty created by the Agency's recent actions regarding rules, regulations, and policy guidelines.
SECTION 8.  The Secretary of State shall transmit certified copies of this resolution to each member of the North Carolina Congressional delegation, the Secretary of the United States Department of Energy, the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the President of the United States, and the legislatures of the states so that they may be apprised of the opinions of the North Carolina General Assembly in these matters.
SECTION 9.  This resolution is effective upon ratification.