This Week at the Capital

This bill would require all middle and high school students to complete a career development plan that includes a self-assessment of the student’s aptitudes, skills, values, personality, and career interests. The plan must then offer exploration and identification of pathways for careers aligned with the student’s self-assessment that include the following for each career: identification of needed education, training, and certifications; information on the most cost-efficient path to entry; and opportunities within the school setting to explore and prepare for the career.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber supports this bill as it would work to provide students with tools to identify a path to career that aligns with their skills and interests.

This bill would extend the period of time that certain facilities can be held harmless when the Department of Health and Human Services resumes Environmental Rating Scale (ERS) assessments for licensed child care facilities. It also requires the North Carolina Child Care Commission to complete recommendations for star-rating system reform and report those recommendations to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber is working to identify and advance child care funding structures, policy reforms, and innovations that do not undermine safety and quality. This legislation is a key step in modernizing the regulatory environment around this critical infrastructure.

This bill would increase the child care subsidy market rates to the seventy-fifth percentile as recommended by the 2021 Child Care Market Rate Study for children in three-, four-, and five-star-rated child care centers and homes.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber is working to identify and advance child care funding structures, policy reforms, and innovations that do not undermine safety and quality. This legislation is would help communities across the state be more competitive in offering increased access to child care.

This bill would establish a three-year pilot project to implement the Tri-Share Child Care program, a program that creates a public/private partnership to share the cost of child care equally between employers, eligible employees, and the State to make high-quality child care affordable and accessible for working families, help employers retain and attract employees, and help stabilize child care businesses across the state.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber is working to identify and advance child care funding structures, policy reforms, and innovations that do not undermine safety and quality. This legislation would pilot a program being launched in other states to determine if it is an innovative solution that can be scaled statewide.

This bill allows for a development that meets certain criteria for workforce housing development to be permitted in any zoning district and in any territorial area of a local government.

Why we’re supporting: Housing has been identified as a critical factor in the state’s workforce challenges. This bill would specifically address the housing shortages contributing to those challenges.

This bill provides a tool to increase the housing supply and boost homeowners’ property rights. It helps to mitigate barriers to access and affordability, as well as addresses current challenges and creates opportunities for a much-needed expanded workforce.

Why we’re supporting: Housing has been identified as a critical factor in the state’s workforce challenges. This bill would specifically address the housing shortages contributing to those challenges.

This bill would make a number of unwarranted changes to North Carolina statutes surrounding the validity of certain liens for medical charges in civil actions.

Why we’re opposing: House Bill 161 would inflate the amount of charges recoupable by injured parties when certain medical charges are at issue in civil actions, effectively resulting in the potential for phantom damages to be awarded to these parties.

This bill would require that if a service company charges its customers for missing scheduled service appointments, the service company shall pay to customers the same amount if it fails to deliver service to a customer at a scheduled service appointment time.

Why we’re opposing: This would restrict provider’s ability to triage customers by level of service urgency, which requires them to have some flexibility in adjusting schedules.

This bill would make numerous changes to laws impacting consumer legal funding contracts in North Carolina. It legalizes and provides a regulatory framework for consumer legal funding contracts and would permit consumer legal funding companies to pay non-recourse loans to an individual who is experiencing financial hardship during litigation. The bill establishes rate caps and charge maximums on these types of loans, while also expressly requiring that these types of loans be subject to disclosure and discovery during a case.   

Why we’re monitoring: We opposed the bill last year (SB 357 2021) due to our concern that third-party litigation funding would increase the number of or prolong frivolous lawsuits. We have been engaged in negotiations to ensure that the bill filed this year would include several needed changes in order for us to remain neutral on the legislation. While we tend to not support anything that prolongs the litigation process or creates friction while settling a case, we believe the framework presented in this bill will lead to a balanced understanding of consumer legal funding and its impact on litigation in North Carolina.   

This bill would establish extended producer responsibility for certain producers of packaging materials. The bill would also ban the manufacturing and distribution of packaging materials containing certain substances.  

Why we’re opposing: This bill would harm the regulatory environment for the manufacturing sector. 

This bill would limit North Carolina counties and municipalities’ ability to prohibit consumer choice over energy services based upon the type and source of energy to be delivered.

Why we’re supporting: Job creators, particularly those that pay commercial and industrial energy rates, must have flexibility in the management of their energy services to keep costs affordable and predictable. This bill ensures that employers in North Carolina will be able to choose energy sources – including natural gas, propane, and renewable natural gas sources – that enable them to maintain an optimal energy strategy, best suited to their specific power, heating,
and cost requirements.

The NC TEN Commission, a group of stakeholders led by Senator Vickie Sawyer, met at the end of 2022 to vote on which transportation revenue items should be considered by legislators during the 2023 session. The conversation centered around four areas of revenue changes: registration fees, user fees, sales taxes, and technology fees. Stakeholders broke into groups, discussed each of these buckets and then proposed action steps.

This legislation is the result of that work and would enact a number of policy changes to diversify transportation infrastructure funding, including raising the fee for EVs and establishing a fee for hybrid vehicles, removing the Highway Use Tax cap, creates a fee on prearranged transportation and ride shares, and raises the cap on public-private partnerships across the state.

Why we’re supporting: Creating a modernized transportation funding structure is a key priority as we work to keep our residents and visitors safe, improve our quality of life, and meet the demands of a growing state.