The NC Chamber congratulates those elected to the N.C. General Assembly. Our team looks forward to working with you to maintain and advance a competitive business climate that grows private-sector jobs as outlined in the NC Chamber’s forthcoming 2023 Jobs Agenda.
Our state’s diverse business community recognizes that, at times, you may address complex, sensitive, and controversial issues, we trust you will do so with balance, respect, and an eye on maintaining North Carolina’s status as a top state to live and work.
Our goal, as the state’s largest and most diverse business organization, will be to never surprise you, maintain high visibility and accessibility when it comes to issues impacting our business climate, and to be direct and communicate our concerns when we believe our status as the leading state for private-sector job creation is at risk.
Pillar 1: Education and Talent Supply
- Recognizing the need for greater access, affordability, and a safe, high-quality environment in which to learn, the NC Chamber will support appropriate pre-K and childcare funding structures, policy reforms, and innovations that address the growing workforce demands from the business community.
- The NC Chamber supports efforts that define, standardize, and incentivize workforce value non-degree credentials to align with in-demand jobs as well as the removal of barriers for the private sector to increase student engagement.
- We will continue to advocate for proper assessment efforts to identify learning deficiencies and to resolve them with evidence-based approaches through methods that uphold pedagogic and administrative accountability, refine programs and policies aligned with the science of reading, and increase third-grade reading proficiency to help cultivate and enrich an emerging talent pipeline.
- The NC Chamber will continue to promote and advocate for high-impact programs such as apprenticeships, career and technical education, and early college high schools that connect students with postsecondary and career opportunities.
- We will work closely with the North Carolina Community College System to identify policy reforms and initiatives that increase enrollment and deliver quality education; strengthen advisory support, training, and upskilling/reskilling; increase access for currently employed and displaced workers; and ensure a high-quality teaching force.
- North Carolina’s growing population is placing a strain on an already diminishing housing supply. The NC Chamber will work to mitigate barriers to access and affordability to address current challenges and create opportunities for a much-needed expanded workforce.
Pillar 2: Competitive Business Climate
- We will support and advocate for efforts to allow for remote online notarization in North Carolina with a more limited set of excluded documents, a necessity for businesses to operate in today’s fully digital environment.
- The NC Chamber is committed to bringing value-driven health care to North Carolina in order to improve health outcomes and make costs more predictable and affordable. For this reason, the NC Chamber supports new legislation that will meaningfully establish association health plans in our state.
- We will work to advance Certificate of Need (CON) reforms that reduce costs to the health care system and businesses while opposing the indiscriminate elimination of such laws.
- The NC Chamber will support innovation and research and development investments in North Carolina, including efforts to secure the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s headquarters in our state.
- The NC Chamber will oppose legislation that expands the number of health insurance mandates imposed on North Carolina businesses as mandates unduly increase health care costs for employers.
- The NC Chamber will advance tort and civil liability reforms that reestablish North Carolina’s position as a top-10 state for legal business climate, including reforms that provide certainty and protect companies from frivolous nuisance lawsuits. Specifically, we will:
- Monitor COVID-19 liability protections passed for businesses in 2020 and set to expire in February 2023.
- Monitor legislation that would make consumer legal funding legal in North Carolina.
- Oppose efforts to legitimize or increase class action litigation financing in North Carolina.
- Oppose efforts by personal injury attorneys to manipulate juries into awarding inflated noneconomic damages – a practice called jury anchoring where the plaintiff’s attorney provides the jury with a subjective and arbitrary range or formula to guide the award amount.
- Support legislation that prohibits the modern restatements of laws in order to prevent enhanced liability and the advancement of a liability-expanding legal reform agenda.
- Support legislation that requires conflict of interest due diligence in the administration of cy pres awards after a class action fund’s creation.
- Oppose any effort to change North Carolina’s decades-long adherence to the contributory negligence standard.
- We will work eliminate the state franchise tax as it is a regressive tax that penalizes North Carolina businesses for tangible investments in the state.
- We will monitor developments surrounding the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s interpretation of our state’s tax laws, particularly with regard to positions that harm North Carolina’s reputation as one of the best states in the nation for business and effectively drive business out of the state.
- We support an anti-deference statute that would seek to eliminate the automatic deference given to a state agency in the administrative appeals process of an agency decision, giving the petitioner a shot at a fair decision.
- We will support efforts to increase regulatory predictability and certainty for job creators related to environmental, social, and governance criteria. Businesses need to know what the rules are and must have the autonomy to make decisions that are in their employees’ and customers’ best interest.
- We will support the continued, historical exemption of certain business inputs by advocating for the extension of the jet fuel sales tax exemption in North Carolina.
- We will advocate for a 30-day safe harbor for remote workers before an employer is required to withhold taxes in the state where the remote worker is staying.
- We will monitor data privacy proposals in North Carolina and across the nation. We will oppose a private right of action.
- We will work to defeat legislation that erodes the balanced reforms to North Carolina’s workers’ compensation laws or that threaten North Carolina’s status as a right-to-work state.
- The NC Chamber will fight to maintain balance on the North Carolina Industrial Commission, Board of Review, and other boards and commissions by supporting and/or opposing nominees during the confirmation process. Our guiding principles will include ensuring said bodies are led by individuals with a balanced view of their substantive areas of authority and a strong commitment to the work ethic required by the position, as well as making sure that the business community is well represented.
- We will continue to protect the integrity and solvency of our state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system, ensuring that we can keep providing claimants with the employment relief they need while preventing unnecessary burdens on job creators who pay the taxes that support the UI Trust Fund.
- The NC Chamber will oppose legislation enacting burdensome mandates on employers with existing or new call centers in North Carolina.
- The NC Chamber will support regulatory reforms that create consistency in rule adoption across rulemaking bodies and that encourage education over regulation to achieve compliance.
- The NC Chamber will support reforms to the Administrative Procedures Act clarifying that temporary rules are automatically returned to an agency when associated permanent rules are objected to and are not revised or not requested for return by the agency within the time frames of 150B-21.12(b).
Pillar 3: Infrastructure and Growth Leadership
- The NC Chamber will advocate for a modernized transportation funding structure to keep our residents and visitors safe, improve our quality of life, and meet the demands of a growing state in an increasingly competitive business environment. We will continue to boldly lead a coalition of future-minded organizations, Destination 2030: The Road to a Stronger Transportation Future, that seeks to identify and advocate for additional revenue sources that can stabilize North Carolina’s infrastructure investments.
- We will advocate to increase the limited methods of achieving critical infrastructure, including transportation projects, by removing the statutory cap on public-private partnerships.
- The NC Chamber will support the implementation of the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in North Carolina to ensure the benefits promised by the bill will be fully realized in the coming years across our economy.
- The NC Chamber will continue promoting its forward-thinking, “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that supports grid modernization and improves access to natural gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, renewables, solar, and wind power.
- The NC Chamber will support legislation expanding availability, regulatory predictability, and access to natural gas and biogas.
- The NC Chamber will support legislation preventing moratoriums on natural gas infrastructure and protecting access to natural gas as a fuel choice for job creators and housing affordability.
- The NC Chamber will champion legislation which prevents North Carolina from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (R.G.G.I.) and requires legislative approval for enforcement of similar carbon tax and cap-and-trade programs on North Carolina ratepayers and job creators.
- The NC Chamber will support efforts to strengthen broadband infrastructure grants, broaden access to digital devices, improve affordability and adoption, and enhance availability in unserved areas.