[link removed]
Good evening,

Excellent news: Duke Energy will not pursue offshore wind energy generation off the coast of North Carolina!

The decision was made following an independent evaluation demonstrating ([link removed]) that offshore wind is not cost-effective, which was presented to the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC).

This is what we at the John Locke Foundation have long argued for.

For several years, our Center for Food, Power, and Life’s ([link removed]) regular research briefs examined the costs, reliability, environmental impacts, and legal complications of different sources of energy. The Center’s Director, Jon Sanders, has arduously beat the drum about the unique costs of offshore wind.

One of the Center’s key points has been that offshore wind is neither reliable enough nor cost-effective enough to meet both North Carolina’s growing energy demand and the statutory requirements to reduce carbon emissions.

And now the NCUC agrees too, finding that new natural gas and nuclear power plants are more cost-effective and reliable.

Beyond cost and reliability, Duke’s decision to back away from offshore wind energy is a welcome outcome.

Offshore wind would worsen energy poverty, severely impact North Carolina’s coastal fishing and beach tourism industries, and overall harm economic growth.

On the environmental front, offshore wind turbines threaten irreparable devastation to critically endangered or threatened marine animals or birds, such as the North Atlantic Right Whale. It’s also foolhardy to place them in North Carolina’s uniquely hurricane-prone waters.

Ultimately, whether it's economic or environmental, Duke Energy’s decision to drop offshore wind is very good news for North Carolina.

You can read more about energy from Locke here ([link removed]) , here ([link removed]) , and here ([link removed]) .

Esse quam videri,

Donald Bryson
CEO
John Locke Foundation

Watch our latest video here!
[link removed]
Write about the American Revolution, and you could win thousands $$$
[link removed]
More from Locke
1) ⚔️⚔️⚔️ Neighbors battle neighbors at the House in the Horseshoe ([link removed])
* The House in the Horseshoe State Historic Site recently held a reenactment of a July 1781 battle between a Patriot militia and Loyalist Tory forces
* The reenactment demonstrated that the Revolutionary War in North Carolina was characterized by small-scale guerrilla warfare between local Patriots and Loyalists
+ The battle at the House in the Horseshoe involved Loyalist Colonel David Fanning and his men surrounding and attacking the house of Patriot Colonel Philip Alston
+ The three-hour fight ended when Fanning's men attempted to set fire to the house, and Alston's wife, Temperance, surrendered to Fanning to save her family and home
* It was an excellent example of the kind of backwoods raiding and marauding that went on in our state during the war, pitting neighbor against neighbor and family against family in surprisingly hateful attacks on each other
+ The event will not be held in 2026 due to site renovations

You can read the full dispatch here ([link removed]) .

2) 🗳️🗳️🗳️ North Carolina has thousands of bad voter registrations ([link removed])
* The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has identified several issues with North Carolina’s voter rolls, affecting tens of thousands of registrations
+ PILF’s analysis found over 29,400 duplicate registrations across multiple states, with 17,817 matches between North Carolina and Florida alone
+ Over 12,700 duplicate or triplicate registrations were found at the same address, often due to minor variations in name spelling or nicknames
+ PILF’s study revealed 230 duplicate registrations within North Carolina, a problem that occurs when a voter's old registration isn’t canceled after they move to a new county
+ At least 613 registrations have placeholder or fictitious dates of birth, such as “1/1/1900,” which can hinder efforts to maintain a voter list and identify deceased voters
* The State Board of Elections (SBE) needs to address these problems by improving its data-matching systems, investigating lists from citizen groups, or streamlining the citizen-initiated challenge process

You can read the full report here ([link removed]) .

3) 🤔🤔🤔 Governor Stein's argument for vetoing HB 87 is far from convincing ([link removed])
* Governor Josh Stein vetoed HB 87, a bill that would allow North Carolina to participate in a federal tax credit scholarship program
+ He stated that Congress and the Administration should strengthen public schools, rather than “hollow them out”
* Stein believes that choice should be limited to families who have students in the public schools, choosing from traditional public schools, charter schools, and magnet schools
+ This view ignores the needs of families whose children attend low-performing public schools or whose local public options are not a good fit
+ His stance is also out of line with public sentiment, as a January 2025 Carolina Journal poll found ([link removed]) that 72% of respondents believe parents are best suited to determine where a child should attend school
* Also, the claim that public schools are being “hollowed out” is not supported by the numbers
+ Funding for K-12 public schools has increased for 14 consecutive years
+ North Carolina’s public schools received an extra $6.2 billion in federal funding to address pandemic-related issues
+ Support per student in North Carolina public schools has risen from $8,477 in 2013-14 to $13,222 in 2023-24
+ Anyone who thinks the public schools are being hollowed out is simply misinformed
* Gov. Stein’s veto of the federal tax credit scholarship program is petty and small-minded — the governor has every right to defend his veto, but the people of North Carolina deserve a more compelling case

You can get the full picture here ([link removed]) .

Donate ([link removed])

============================================================
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Link ([link removed])
** LinkedIn ([link removed])
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.