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It’s never a good sign to see tense looking cops and large trucks with blinky lights on top show up outside a government building. That was the scene after white powder was discovered in an envelope at the historic State Capitol Building in Raleigh.

According to the Associated Press, an assistant to Gov. Bev Perdue’s chief of staff, Britt Cobb, opened the envelope just before 3 p.m. Click here for more.

That was about the same time folks we gathering in the building for a bill signing ceremony featuring 9-year-old Collin Tastet of Greensboro, who had helped push through a bill to require insurers to pay up $2,500 in annual hearing aid costs for those 21-years-old and younger.

Tastet is a nice young man and was seemingly at ease with talking to us scruffy media types. You can read the early report on the bill signing here. There’s more in tomorrow’s paper.

A block away in the legislative building – where the House and Senate actually meet today – the Senate officially rejected the House version of the budget. That allows conferees to be appointed and the process of coming to a House-Senate budget compromise to officially begin.

The Senate also gave final approval to a bill that would put a temporary moratorium on local governments getting into the broadband internet business. The pause is so lawmakers can study the issue and come up with rules of the road, to borrow Sen. Dan Clodfelter’s phrase.

Clodfelter argued that no city has the authority to get into an enterprise business – something that charges residents a fee for service – without specific statutory authorization. And the authorization in the case of broadband is murky at best.

“I submit to you it’s neither irrational, unreasonable or improper to say let’s take a deep breath,” Clodfelter said.

During the debate Monday night, Sen. Joe Sam Queen, a Waynesville Democrat, offered an amendment to allow the study to go forward but remove the moratorium.

Sen. David Hoyle, a Dallas Democrat and the Rules Committee chairman, offered a substitute amendment that essentially altered the bill’s language a bit but kept the moratorium around. Hoyle is one of the bill’s primary architects.

“We do not need a moratorium on the expansion of broadband across North Carolina,” Queen said. “This will only pour cold water on a very innovative sector.”

Now for a word on substitute amendment: When a substitute amendment is offered and accepted, it has the effect of wiping out the first amendment, which then can’t be offered again during the debate. It’s a way of doing away with things that the majority really doesn’t want to vote on.

During the past five years, I’ve mostly seen it used in the Senate my Democratic leaders to do away with Republican amendments they view as noxious – typically politically charged measures that could be awkward votes for rank and file members. I can’t recall the last time I saw a Dem on Dem substitute amendment.

I don’t know what, if any, conclusion can be drawn other than Hoyle was going to make darned sure his bill went through as is. Vote for the final measure was 41-7.

Other notes from the day’s news and tomorrow’s schedule:

• The Council of State meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. The agenda doesn’t reflect anything other that the usual roster of property and insurance matters.
• House and Senate Republicans hold their weekly presser at 9:30 a.m.
• SEANC, the state employees union, plans to rally at 10 a.m. behind the legislative building tomorrow. They’ll be focusing their ire on the budget.
• State Treasurer Janet Cowell has appointed a new chief investment officer. Shawn Wischmeier comes to North Carolina after serving as Chief Investment Officer for the Indiana Public Employees’ Retirement Fund since 2006, according to a news release.
• Greensboro Democrat Pricey Harrison at 11 a.m. will be promoting a bill that would force the state to divest itself of any holding associated with coal mining giant Massey Energy.