Independent. Informative. Intelligent.

Economic Development

Ross criticizes Trump’s Carolina Long Bay buyout

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-2nd, and some of her West Coast colleagues are scrutinizing the big-money settlement the Trump administration paid out in April to a French company to get it to abandon its offshore wind leases. Their objections during a recent U.S. House oversight hearing focused on the administration’s...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

REBIC opposes longer moratorium on water-transfer permits

A Charlotte business group is asking members to “reach out” to legislators to stand up for the city’s ability to get another 30 million gallons of water a day from the Catawba River. The Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition is targeting the 17-month extension some House members are proposing...

By Ray Gronberg

May 28, 2026

DOT shuts down I-77 “engagement” center

State Department of Transportation officials have pulled the plug on a “community engagement center” in Charlotte they opened in late March to answer questions about the Interstate 77 widening project. The move comes because project’s dead following this week’s vote by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization to rescind its...

By Ray Gronberg

May 26, 2026

Supreme Court upholds Duke Energy 2023-25 rates

The N.C. Supreme Court has rejected challenges from manufacturers, electric co-ops and Attorney General Jeff Jackson to Duke Energy’s 2023-25 rate-increase packages. Justice Trey Allen’s opinion held that held the N.C. Utilities Commission on all of the key issues had the discretion to act as it did in setting rates...

By Ray Gronberg

May 26, 2026

State sues VinFast, claims breach of deal

The state Commerce Department is suing VinFast to take control of the Chatham County land the Vietnamese company had promised would become the site of an automobile factory. Filed on Thursday, the company contends that work has stalled and it’s now impossible for the company to have a factory up...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

DOT chief concedes communication failures in I-77 dispute

State Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson conceded that his agency could’ve and should’ve done a better job communicating with Charlotte residents about the plan to add more toll lanes to Interstate 77. Along the way, “we had a lot of robust engagement on the development of the project with with local...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Housing deregulation: If at first you don’t succeed …

Rep. Jeff Zenger and his allies are taking another stab at making local governments loosen their restrictions on housing development. A revised version of Senate Bill 445 rolled out this week in the Forsyth County Republican’s Regulatory Reform committee includes provisions that would force cities and counties to allow home...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

House considering data-center restrictions

House Republican have proposed a series of restrictions on data-center development, but are coupling them a restriction on the retirement of existing baseload power plants. The proposal’s embedded in a proposed revision of Senate Bill 730 that cleared the House’s Energy and Public Utilities committee on Wednesday. In all, the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Stein hires a housing adviser

Gov. Josh Stein has hired former Urban Institute Vice President Janneke Ratcliffe to serve as his senior adviser for housing policy. Ratcliffe will serve as Stein’s point person for an effort to come up with and implement a statewide housing strategy. An executive order rolled out on Tuesday instructs state...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

“WWAD” — the power of the Retail Merchants

Last week’s piece on the North Carolina lobbyists who’ve registered the largest number of clients brought forth an interesting comment from one of them who’s also a loyal Tribune reader. This basically notes that while our method identifies quite a few well-known heavy hitters, it shortchanges the lobbyists who basically...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Backtracking on Brunswick

It’s looking like legislators are going to walk back a 2019 decision that allowed the Brunswick County Commissioners to farm out most all land-use decisions to appointed boards. Pending bills in both chambers say that going forward, the final decision in all development approvals will rest with the commissioners. House...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

NextEra buying Dominion Energy for $66.8B in stock

Florida-based NextEra Energy is buying Virginia’s Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal worth about $66.8 billion at current market prices. The acquisition will create the single largest regulated electric utility in the world, with roots in four of the country’s fastest-growing states, North Carolina among them. Dominion’s service area includes...

By Ray Gronberg

May 22, 2026

Commerce has some questions for employers

Gov. Josh Stein’s administration wants to find 50,000 employers willing to work with the state’s job-training programs. The state Commerce Department has launched a website that allows employers to voice interest in participating — and to volunteer information about what challenges they face in their business, among other things. The...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

Farm advocates seek limits on ag-land conversions

Legislators are looking at a couple bills that would make it harder to convert farmland into other uses. The current draft of the 2025 Farm Act includes a provision that would allow local governments to reject special-use permits for non-residential development they think will “have a negative impact on agricultural...

By Ray Gronberg

May 18, 2026

The view of I-77 from Raleigh

Senate leader Phil Berger is less than impressed by the Charlotte City Council’s reversal of its support for adding toll lanes to Interstate 77 from downtown to the South Carolina border. The council’s 6-5 vote earlier this week could — if it holds up — set the stage for the...

By Ray Gronberg

May 14, 2026