Our team looks forward to working with the N.C. General Assembly to maintain and advance a competitive business climate that grows private-sector jobs as outlined in the NC Chamber’s 2025 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.
Learn more about NC Chamber Membership
Pillar 1: Education and Talent Supply
- Support sustainable early childhood education policy reforms and innovations that address the growing workforce challenges of the business community.
- Support efforts that define, standardize, and incentivize non-degree workforce credentials that align with in-demand jobs and increase student engagement.
- Advocate for proper assessment efforts, programs, and policies to help cultivate and enrich an emerging talent pipeline.
- Promote and advocate for high-impact programs that connect students with postsecondary and career opportunities.
- Work with the North Carolina Community College System to identify policy reforms and initiatives in support of a robust workforce.
- Champion data-driven, research-based initiatives and solutions that specifically target the evolving challenges within North Carolina’s health care workforce.
- Assist with the modernization and removal of barriers to allow justice-involved individuals to return to the workforce.
- Advocate for solutions that retain and improve the talent supply pool of transitioning military personnel to employment opportunities in North Carolina.
Pillar 2: Competitive Business Climate
- Advocate for long term economic and business recovery resources and solutions for hurricane relief in North Carolina.
- Support legislation that will meaningfully establish a small business health insurance product in our state.
- Advocate for solutions that increase value for North Carolina employees to improve health outcomes and make costs more predictable and affordable, while opposing efforts increase costs through mandates and other unnecessary market intervention.
- 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. Preserve and protect reforms from judicial creep.
- Eliminate the regressive state franchise tax that penalizes North Carolina and harms economic development.
- 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.
- Adopt a model-like version of a statute for reporting adjustments to federal taxable income and federal partnership audit adjustments.
- Monitor data privacy and artificial intelligence regulatory proposals in North Carolina and across the nation. We will oppose private rights of action.
- Protect the integrity and solvency of our state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system.
- Oppose legislation enacting burdensome mandates on employers with existing or new call centers in North Carolina.
- Support regulatory reforms that create consistency in rule adoption across rulemaking bodies, encourage education over regulation to achieve compliance, and increase public transparency. We oppose regulatory creep.
- Support permitting efficiency reforms that foster economic growth in North Carolina and accelerate job creation.
- Support the creation of a Manufacturing Caucus at the North Carolina General Assembly.
- Establish and maintain relationships with economic development organizations and leaders to assist with the legislative priorities in alignment with those of the Chamber’s that impact the well-being of North Carolina.
- Advance agriculture policy priorities and legislation that protects and promotes North Carolina’s agribusiness.
Pillar 3: Infrastructure and Growth Leadership
- Advocate for long term infrastructure recovery solutions for hurricane relief in North Carolina.
- Remove the statutory cap on public-private partnerships, thereby advocating to increase the limited methods of achieving critical infrastructure projects.
- Advocate for a modernized transportation funding structure, including increasing overall revenue, 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
- Support creation of a State Infrastructure Bank and other innovative financing solutions to leverage private money for the expansion of infrastructure in North Carolina. Support efforts to improve and speed up transportation and infrastructure project delivery timelines.
- Promote a forward-thinking, “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that supports grid modernization and reliability and improves access to natural gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, renewables, solar, and wind power.
- Protect North Carolina’s energy regulatory structure necessary for leadership in advancing nuclear power generation.
- Support efforts to strengthen broadband infrastructure grants, broaden access to digital devices, improve affordability and adoption, and enhance availability in unserved areas.
- Work to mitigate regulatory barriers and address challenges to housing availability to improve opportunities for the state’s workforce.
- Support efforts to update and expand North Carolina’s water infrastructure for long-term resiliency and sustainability.
NC Chamber Legal Reform Agenda
The NC Chamber will work to advance tort and civil liability reforms that establish 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.
- Support legislation that will prohibit third party litigation investment.
- Monitor legislation that would make consumer legal funding legal in North Carolina, ensuring that any framework embraces transparency and disclosure.
- Oppose efforts by personal injury plaintiff 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.
- Support legislation that prohibits the harmful practice of misleading trial lawyer advertising.
- Support a clarification to Rule 702 regarding expert testimony that would harmonize North Carolina and federal statutes.