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RALEIGH — First, let’s be clear: North Carolina is not California.

State lawmakers and bureaucrats won’t make anyone’s list of soy-swilling, tree-hugging, Mother Earth-worshipping environmentalists. At least not most of them.

“The number of legislators for whom the environment is a priority can be counted on two hands,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison , a Greensboro Democrat who rides a bike when she can, eschews plastic water bottles and is generally known to be one of the “green” legislators in the halls of the General Assembly.

Despite that, Harrison and environmental advocates say, North Carolina’s General Assembly — made up of a 120-member House and a 50-member Senate — has passed sweeping environmental laws and taken incremental steps toward cleaning the environment:

• The 2002 Clean Smokestacks law required power companies to reduce harmful emissions from their coal-fired generating facilities. At the time, advocates hailed the measure as a landmark, and it has since been used as a model by other states.
• In 2007, Senate Bill 3 never got a cool nickname, but it made North Carolina the first state in the Southeast to require power companies to get a minimum percentage of the electricity they sell to customers from renewable resources such as wind or solar energy.
• This year, the General Assembly passed laws that require state agencies to consider fuel-efficient models when buying cars and that ban the use of disposable plastic bags at stores in several Outer Banks counties.

But environmental advocates caution that they rarely get a complete win when it comes to legislation.

“Senate Bill 3 definitely goes on the list, but it comes with a caveat because it has pretty powerful incentives for power companies to build new coal and nuclear plants,” said Elizabeth Ouzts, director for Environment North Carolina.

And although it’s good that the state motor fleet will be more fuel efficient, she said, the legislature has balked at rules that would require greater fuel economy standards for all cars sold in North Carolina.

Ouzts is part of what Harrison describes as a “stronger and more organized environmental advocacy community” that has provided a counterweight to industrial interests and some landowners.

Interest in environmental issues from top legislative leaders such as Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight , a Manteo Democrat who pushed for the plastic bag legislation, and House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, also has helped those with a green streak, Harrison said.

Gov. Bev Perdue , who was inaugurated in January 2009, also has taken an interest in environmental causes. For example, she stepped in to resist efforts from Alcoa to renew a power generating permit on the Yadkin River.

Still, Harrison said, it is still those allied with industry who tend to give more to political campaigns and to hire more lobbyists to sway legislators on public policy.

“It’s a little bit of an unlevel playing field,” Harrison said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com