RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Gov. Roy Cooper has put reconsidering two more vetoed bills on the agenda of the North Carolina legislature this month.
In vetoing one wide-ranging regulatory bill, Cooper criticized sections of the measure placing exemptions on requiring stormwater restrictions for new or redevelopment building projects.
“We should make it easier, not harder, for state and local governments to protect water quality,” Cooper said in his veto message. “Rolling back ways to protect water quality is dangerous.”
The Democratic governor vetoed the another bill - a set of unconnected law changes - because one section would take away two of his 13 appointments on the North Carolina Medical Board, which regulates doctors, and let General Assembly leaders choose them. Cooper and the Republican-controlled legislature have been engaged in a legal tug-of-war over who picks membership on regulatory boards, and he called the medical board shift an unnecessary “intrusion on executive authority.”
Cooper also said another provision in the grab-bag measure, designed to help clarify that a state employee can collect pay for additional work on the state’s Property Tax Commission, was unfair.
Cooper signed two other measures the legislature left on his desk following a one-day session Aug. 3 into law, and announced the two vetoes Monday night, hours before a constitutionally-mandated deadline to act.
The Republican-controlled legislature now must consider whether to override six vetoes after returning to work in earnest next week during a session that will also include court-ordered remapping of House and Senate districts. The other four were left over from the General Assembly’s primary work session that concluded June 30.
Overrides look possible on the last two vetoes because they were approved by veto-proof majorities, even though more than 20 legislators didn’t vote or were absent.
Cooper has now issued 11 vetoes during his first 7½ months in office. The General Assembly overrode five vetoes during the annual work session, including the state government budget.
The stormwater restrictions Cooper rejected direct the Environmental Management Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality not to require stormwater permits for a new residential project unless it creates more than 10,000 square feet of roads, parking lots or other impervious surfaces.
The other vetoed measure would block a ruling by the state Attorney General’s Office that Property Tax Commission member Bill Peaslee couldn’t receive a second state paycheck for his occasional duties on the commission. Peaslee, a Republican lawyer, has a full-time job as a deputy commissioner on the state Industrial Commission.
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