This Week at the Capital

This bill passed the House last session and remains active for 2024. It 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 remains active for 2024. It 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.

These companion bills remain active for 2024. This bill provides in-state tuition to North Carolina high school students who historically have not been offered that opportunity because of their immigration status.

Why we’re supporting: Immigration has long been a limiting factor to our state’s workforce challenges and this bill is a positive step in achieving balanced reforms. The NC Chamber will score this vote for our annual How They Voted report.

This bill provides licensed child care centers and family child care homes the certainty and predictability they need in extremely challenging times. Most importantly, it will relieve enormous stress and pressure to prepare for and accommodate star-rating assessments under an outdated system. That devotion of time and resources interferes with the attention and time child care providers need to spend focused on children and their families.

Why we’re supporting: This bill will modernize the regulatory environment around our state’s critical child care infrastructure.

This bill will alleviate the burdens of military families by allowing active-duty military personnel and their spouses to obtain a Compact Privilege based on having an unrestricted license in good standing from a participating state.

Why we’re supporting: This bill will help retain transitioning military and connect them with employment opportunities, improving our state’s talent supply pool and building a more resilient economy. 

The bill passed the House last session and remains active for 2024. These companion bill would create a 21-day time limit for local governments to review sealed plans for commercial and multifamily building projects. Should the local government be unable to complete the review in 21 days, a builder and contact the NC Department of Insurance and have a qualified third party engineer review the plans.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber strongly supports this bill as it would streamline the approval of major commercial and multifamily project, which will allow projects to be completed sooner and eliminate costly delays. Under the current process, some regions are taking as long as six months to review plans after they are submitted.

This bill passed House last session and remains active for 2024. It amends GS 58-50-61 definition of utilization review (a set of formal techniques designed to monitor the use of or evaluate the clinical necessity, appropriateness, efficacy or efficiency of health care services, procedures, providers, or facilities) so that the techniques also include prior authorization.

Why we’re opposing: Any reduction in the ability of health plans to appropriately manage utilization will have a significant upward impact on health care costs for consumers and employers.

This bill passed the House and remains active for 2024. It lowers the threshold for level funded health care plans from 20 employees down to 5 employee for businesses.

Why we’re supporting: At a time when healthcare costs are incredibly high, this bill provides additional options for small employers when purchasing health care. “Level funding plans” allow businesses to access health insurance at a lower cost by requiring that they carry extensive stoploss protection. If the cost of care is less than what the employer paid in, the employer retains a portion of the surplus. If the cost of care exceeds this, their stoploss coverage will be used.

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 data-privacy bill would specifically enumerate consumer rights to access, deletion, portability, and to opt out. It also includes a 45-day period to comply with a consumer request with additional time allowed if requested. The bill provides for Attorney General enforcement of the chapter and a fine of $7,500 per violation. Thankfully, and of note, this bill does not include a private right of action like previous bills we’ve seen on this topic.

Why we’re monitoring: The business community continues to monitor proposals that would regulate consumer privacy in North Carolina. A growing number of states have data-privacy laws and the patchwork effect of this makes it confusing and cumbersome for businesses to remain in compliance. There are a number of exemptions in this proposal and we are working to figure out the exact impact of this sweeping change.

This bill enacts needed reforms to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality stormwater program permits and includes Chamber-backed reforms, such as shot clocks starting on day of submittal, shot clocks pausing when the agency asks for additional information, shorter shot clocks with approved provisions, and permit fee reimbursements for late permits.

The bill also requires the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission to develop a new Fast-Track Permitting program for stormwater. This is similar to the Fast-Track Sewer Permitting program, which requires that a project is correctly designed and certified by a design professional. Inspections would not be allowed under the fast track program.

Why we’re supporting: Some parts of our state are experiencing six- to nine-month delays for stormwater express permits, and this much needed reform will add accountability and efficiency to the program.

This bill would authorize the state Department of Environmental Quality to order a business they deem a “responsible party” to pay public water systems the “actual and necessary costs” they incurred to remove or correct contamination.

Why we’re opposed: This bill would harm North Carolina’s legal climate by expanding liability on manufacturers when the science being used is problematic.

The bill would allow for a credit worthy locality to receive a grant anticipation note from the Department of Transportation to pursue private lending in order to accelerate local projects already identified as a State Transportation Improvement (STI) project. The money would then be paid back to the locality when the project comes back up on the STI.

Why we’re monitoring: We are interested in the novel way this bill attempts to allow for local governments to finance new transportation projects. However, given our strong support for the State’s Strategic Transportation Investment Prioritization and our unwavering support for making data-based decisions about transportation investment, we continue to review the bill in an effort to make it stronger. We applaud lawmakers for thinking creatively about transportation financing.

The bill would modernize development regulations, including building codes, construction and contracting regulation, and environmental regulations.

Why we’re supporting: This bill would address challenges to housing availability to create opportunities for a much-needed workforce.

The bill would make changes to transportation laws as recommended by the N.C. Department of Transportation.

Why we’re supporting: This bill would support enabling the full utilization of Build NC Bonds, allowing projects to proceed without delay or further cost increases. This is an item on our 2024 legislative agenda.