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Fiscal Research sees a cloudy economic picture

Legislative staffers are expecting pretty much all the state’s key economic indicators to slow in fiscal 2026-27 — just in time for next year’s mid-term elections. Their reckoning, based on numbers obtained from Moody’s Analytics, is that the average unemployment rate in North Carolina for the upcoming fiscal year will increase...

By Ray Gronberg

December 10, 2025

Boom finds AI customer for its engine tech

The jet engines Boom Supersonic’s designing for the airliners it wants to build in Greensboro may wind up powering data centers first. Boom announced Tuesday that it’s gotten an order from San Francisco-based Crusoe Inc. for 29 “Superpower” turbines for use in AI data centers. Crusoe has projects in store...

By Ray Gronberg

December 10, 2025

Tillis: Highlight the business case for renewables

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, of course, was on hand for Monday’s Clean Energy Champions luncheon not so much to talk about his future but to discuss the uncertain times facing renewable energy technology. He counseled pragmatism and a strong, business-oriented focus. Doing the “right thing” in the sector, by itself,...

By Ray Gronberg

December 9, 2025

Lumbee recognition in pending defense bill

U.S. House members are going to try to pass the long-awaited Lumbee recognition bill by incorporating it into an omnibus defense-spending bill. The move is already drawing criticism from the leaders of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Their principal chief, Michell Hicks, said the bill is “not the appropriate...

By Ray Gronberg

December 9, 2025

Farmers, biz groups complete Clean Energy awards

Another of the Clean Energy Champions awards announced Monday went to Martin County farmers Ken and Johna Gurganus, in part for their efforts year to oppose House Bill 729. This was a proposal from state Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, and senior chairman of House Agriculture and Environment, that in its first...

By Ray Gronberg

December 9, 2025

Hall, Gable honored for power-transmission bill

State Reps. Kyle Hall and Wyatt Gable received two of the “Clean Energy Champions” awards handed out Monday by Conservatives for Clean Energy’s North Carolina chapter, largely for a bill that addresses power-grid planning. Their proposal, House Bill 814, didn’t make it out of committee during this year’s long session,...

By Ray Gronberg

December 9, 2025

Nuclear Energy Update

The Trump administration wants to rescind existing regulations that asked the would-be operators of new nuclear facilities to explain how their design protected them from deliberate airplane crashes. It says the existing rule, a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, is redundant and unnecessary. Regulators propose ending it in early 2027. Back in the...

By Ray Gronberg

December 8, 2025

DEQ OKs water-quality permit for MVP Southgate

The MVP Southgate gas pipeline project has cleared another regulatory hurdle, this time at the state level. N.C. Department of Environmental Quality officials have certified the project’s compliance with state water-quality standards, subject to conditions that include testing of any private wells within 150 feet of the construction site. MVP...

By Ray Gronberg

November 14, 2025

Charlotte lands Scout Motors HQ

Meanwhile, in Charlotte, officials announced that Scout Motors, an upstart electric vehicle company that plans a $2 billion assembly plant in South Carolina, is putting its headquarters in the city’s Plaza-Midwood neighborhood. A $207 million investment is projected, along with as many as 1,200 jobs, at an average salary of $172,878,...

By Ray Gronberg

November 13, 2025

A big day for North Carolina’s car industry

Toyota executives say their company’s new, $13.9 billion battery factory near Liberty is flexible enough that it can respond to whatever the market or the government’s regulation of the car industry throws at it. The plant started shipping batteries in late May or early June, to assembly plants in Alabama...

By Ray Gronberg

November 13, 2025

Duke and private credit

Duke Energy CFO Brian Savoy made waves this week when he told a reporter from Bloomberg that the utility is exploring the idea of using “private credit” to finance a portion of its construction plans. The publication quoted him as saying that non-bank lending could be the “icing on the cake”...

By Ray Gronberg

November 12, 2025

Overturning CON

State Treasurer Brad Briner and the State Employees Association of North Carolina have joined forces to support a New Bern ophthalmologist’s attempt to overturn the state’s certificate of need law. In a Nov. 5 court filing, they argued that the law is a barrier to one of the treasurer’s strategies...

By Ray Gronberg

November 11, 2025

DMV news

Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Paul Tine is pouring cold water every chance he gets on the idea that lawmakers should separate DMV from the N.C. Department of Transportation. Such a break-out, he told members of a joint legislative oversight committee recently, would likely end up costing taxpayers more money...

By Ray Gronberg

November 11, 2025

U.S. senators weigh Lumbee recognition

Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Michell Hicks’ arguments against giving North Carolina’s Lumbee full federal recognition ran into a chilly reception this week from a key U.S. Senate committee. Members of the Senate’s Indian Affairs committee signaled little patience with Hicks’ view that Congress should let the...

By Ray Gronberg

November 6, 2025

Toyota execs on earnings, tariffs and N.C.

Toyota’s new $12.9 billion battery factory near Liberty remains a key piece of its plans for the U.S. going forward, company executives said this week during their latest earnings announcement. “In all regions of the world, we want to produce locally and procure locally so that we can manufacture cars...

By Ray Gronberg

November 6, 2025