Lithium Mining
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is calling a newly identified lithium deposit in the Appalachian Mountains — concentrated in the Carolinas — a “great find,” saying it could help the United States reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals essential to modern technology. Federal officials made the announcement last week, just as a major North Carolina lithium mine west of Charlotte in Kings Mountain cleared a key permit weeks ago. The Kings Mountain lithium mine in Cleveland County was dormant since the 1980s until the U.S. Department of Defense in 2023 agreed to purchase $90 million in lithium from the 800-acre Albemarle site off Interstate 85, about 35 miles west of Charlotte. The U.S. Geological Survey said last week that researchers have identified an estimated 2.3 million metric tons of recoverable lithium, largely concentrated in the southern Appalachians in the Carolinas, with additional deposits in the northern Appalachians in Maine and New Hampshire. The lithium is estimated to be worth more than $64 billion.
Election Trust
Republicans who took control of the North Carolina elections board a year ago have sought to clean up voter rolls and improve election security. Yet North Carolinians remain skeptical of election administration in the state, new data shows.
Nearly one-third of North Carolinians — 31.4% — say the state’s elections are becoming less trustworthy, according to a new poll conducted for Opinion Diagnostics, a Boston-based polling company run by advisors to Republican politicians in Massachusetts and North Carolina. Only 15% of the 830 respondents said trust was rising, and 44% said their opinion remained unchanged. Another 9% were unsure.
Sam Hayes, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told WRAL that the board is taking steps to secure the election and earn the public’s trust. Hayes said he hopes North Carolinians tie their trust to how well the board follows the law and how smoothly elections run.
“I don't know any better way to build trust with the electorate, with folks throughout the spectrum, than to stick to the written law,” Hayes said.
The state elections board hired Hayes last year to replace Karen Brinson Bell, who had been hired in 2019 when Democrats controlled the board. Hayes formerly worked as general counsel for the state’s past two Republican House speakers.
Hayes said local and state-level election officials have demonstrated their competence in recent elections. They counted more than 1.5 million ballots in the March primaries — up 5% from 2022 — with no major disruptions, equipment problems, or administrative issues reported across the state’s 100 counties, he said. Hayes is also spearheading the board’s effort to modernize the State Elections Information Management System to enhance its functionality and security.
The poll, conducted between April 21 and 24, also found that 64% of North Carolinians are at least somewhat concerned that election officials won’t follow procedures for counting ballots. Thirty-eight percent said they’re “very concerned.”
The poll results show the state elections board “is going to have to go really out of their way to inform the public that our elections are safe and secure,” said Patrick Sebastian, an Opinion Diagnostics partner.
There’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud in any recent North Carolina elections. Nevertheless, more than one-third of respondents — 36% — to the Opinion Diagnostics poll said the 2020 election was hindered by “widespread problems or fraud that affected the outcome.” Another 13% said the election suffered from “significant irregularities” that didn’t change the outcome.
State Buildings
Speaking this week at the State Energy Conference of North Carolina at NC State University, Gov. Josh Stein highlighted a provision in his April state budget proposal. It would direct the Department of Administration “to explore energy-efficiency measures in new construction (e.g., geothermal systems) to achieve additional long-term savings.” Geothermal energy systems use underground heat to control buildings’ temperatures. The most recently opened state government building is for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, which is on Blue Ridge Road in western Raleigh. The Bath Building downtown was demolished last year, but there are no plans yet for what is now green space. As for the administration department itself, it moved out of what was known as the Administration Building a few years ago, and the building has since been demolished. In its place, a new N.C. Education Campus is under construction — but that project is overseen by the legislature, not DOA, a Cabinet agency in Stein’s administration that now occupies space in the Albemarle Building.
A top Republican and Democrat in the House are teaming up to advocate for $50 million in one-time funding in this year’s budget talks to build more affordable housing across North Carolina.
Rules Committee Chairman John Bell and Democratic Leader Robert Reives filed legislation Tuesday along with Reps. Chris Humphrey, R-Lenoir and Carla Cunningham, D-Mecklenburg, that would appropriate the non-recurring funding for the establishment of a revolving loan fund for affordable housing development at the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.
The money wouldn’t be used for vertical construction of homes or the renovation of existing homes.
Instead, the agency would be directed to provide below-market interest rate loans to builders for land acquisition, predevelopment (permit fees, land surveys, environmental due diligence, soil testing, and engineering and site planning) as well as infrastructure costs (water, sewer, utility, stormwater, and road development, and site clearing and grading).
The one-time allocation of $50 million is anticipated to help develop and prepare enough lots to build around 1,000 affordable units, Bell told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.
“It’s just the guesstimate, but it just depends on fuel costs, building supplies, supply and demand,” Bell said.
A recent report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that North Carolina only has 38 affordable and available rental units per every 100 extremely low-income residents. More than 348,000 North Carolinians are extremely low income, according to the report.
Bell said increasing the supply of affordable housing is a top priority for both parties this session, and expressed optimism that the appropriation he and Reives are pushing for will be added to the potential budget House and Senate Republicans are currently negotiating.
Bell, Reives and Humphrey were joined at Wednesday’s news conference by representatives from Habitat for Humanity, who said the one-time appropriation by lawmakers would cover the costs of developing land and surrounding infrastructure before housing can be built.
Matthew Whittle, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Goldsboro-Wayne, said the organization has affiliates across the state who are trying to build more affordable housing but need financial support to “scale up to meet this housing need that we see.”
As the demand for housing has increased, Habitat for Humanity and its affiliates have shifted from building individual homes to spearheading projects to build entire subdivisions over multiple phases of development.
Bell and Whittle pointed to an ongoing subdivision development in Goldsboro called McNair Heights as a model for what can be achieved with the funding lawmakers hope to approve this year.
The first phase of McNair Heights began construction last year and was slated to total 31 single-family homes. Vertical construction on the development began in January, after months of infrastructure development that totaled $1.9 million in cost. Altogether, the first phase of the project was expected to cost $7 million.
Bell told reporters he envisions the revolving loan fund that would be created by his bill to distribute the $50 million allocation over five years. After the money has been spent, he said, lawmakers may evaluate the program and determine if it should get another round of funding.
Bell said he reached out to Reives, who filed similar legislation last year, and asked him to join him as a primary sponsor of the bill. A day after Bell and Reives introduced the bill, it had garnered the backing of 38 lawmakers from both parties.
Bell also said he had discussed the bill with Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, who represents parts of his district in the upper chamber, and believes the issue is a priority for him as well.
Tax Revaluations
The Senate Finance Committee gave its stamp of approval Wednesday to legislation backed by Senate leader Phil Berger that would pause property reappraisals from taking effect in a dozen North Carolina counties this year. Berger, R-Rockingham, represents a large swath of the non-urban parts of Guilford County. That's one of the 12 with newly reappraised property values.
"They'll go back to the old numbers and do their budgets using the old numbers to give us the time to look at the problem," Berger told reporters last week.
Complicating the matter is local governments' ongoing budget process. Counties and municipalities must pass their budgets by the beginning of June, including proposing the budget and holding public hearings.
Establishing new property tax values is a key step in determining a property tax rate and is heavily influenced by the value of the tax base.
"Of the property tax reform options currently being discussed, pressing pause may be the most responsible path. Doing so would create time to develop a more effective solution — one that truly helps people struggling to pay their property taxes without damaging the systems that allow government to function," N.C. Association of County Commissioners' Executive Director Kevin Leonard wrote in a statement.
The 12 counties with reappraisals set to go into effect this year are: Anson, Bladen, Buncombe, Chowan, Clay, Davidson, Guilford, Harnett, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender and Scotland.
Sen. Steve Jarvis introduced Senate Bill 889 in the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. Jarvis, R-Davidson, said his home county's reappraisal found that property values have increased by an average of 65%. He added that the dozen counties with reappraisals set to go into effect in 2026 would instead see them become effective in 2027.
Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, is a co-sponsor of the bill. He said that both Bladen and Pender County officials support the proposal to make sure their reappraisals were accurate.
Jackson is also one of 10 Senate Republicans who Berger in February appointed to a working group to consider property tax reform. That group has started meeting, Jackson said, but hasn't come up with many concrete proposals.
The N.C. House has been working on its own property tax proposals, including a constitutional amendment voters would consider this fall.
Speaker of the House Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said the House is "not necessarily opposed" to the moratorium proposal but indicated that he'd like to see it wrapped into a larger property tax package. "All these ideas are percolating and bills moving dealing with property tax and I think we need to get a comprehensive solution. That may be one component of it," Hall told reporters Wednesday.
I-77 Resolution
The Charlotte City Council intends to ask the North Carolina Department of Transportation to pause any “irreversible actions” on the Interstate 77 toll lanes project until the department satisfies a list of its requests, according to a draft resolution circulated to council members on Monday. The sweeping resolution, provided to The Charlotte Observer through a public records request, asks the department to redo its design analysis with a focus on displacement patterns and community benefits.
Variables such as traffic volume shifts, routes, toll pricing and socioeconomic data should all be reanalyzed, the resolution asks. Under the resolution, which is still subject to change and hasn’t been formally approved, Charlotte would withhold its support from any final tolling or contract authorizations until its conditions are met.
NCDOT seeks to add toll lanes to an 11-mile stretch of I-77 from uptown to the South Carolina border. The project is estimated to cost more than $4 billion, according to the resolution, which is more than the previously reported $3.2 billion estimate. Charlotte previously gave approval to the project through its seat on the regional transportation board.
As NCDOT revealed more details about its design plans, residents and elected officials alike “have become increasingly concerned about the scale and permanence of potential displacement of homes and businesses, impacts to parks and greenways, noise, air quality, construction disruption, and long-term neighborhood stability,” the resolution states. “The City Council finds that proceeding without additional analysis and community-driven dialogue risks irreversible harm and forecloses potentially better solutions,” the resolution states.
A few council members made brief references to the resolution on Monday, when Mayor Vi Lyles announced she would add it as a discussion item to the May 11 agenda. District 7 councilman Ed Driggs — routinely the lone voice against the city opposing the project now — offered support for passing the resolution. Community members are pressuring the City Council to rescind support altogether, Driggs said, but the resolution allows council to try other avenues first.