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Republicans consistently claim that Americans need to start taking responsibility for the own circumstances and be accountable for their economic situations, but they reject that requirement as overbearing when their campaign donors’ are expected to assume accountability for their own financial predicaments. The GOP really exposed their double-standard for accountability when BP was expected to pay for cleaning up the environmental disaster their Deepwater drilling platform caused by decimating coastal areas in and around the Gulf of Mexico. Expecting accountability from the dirty energy sector led one oil industry Republican to apologize profusely to BP for President Obama’s demand the oil giant pay for the cleanup and restoration their malfeasance was responsible for. It is likely that if Republicans could have pulled it off, they would have raised taxes on Americans living in the affected areas to not only pay for the cleanup, but to reimburse BP for their time and expense to stop the oil from flowing into the sea. It may sound unbelievable, but North Carolina residents are going to have to pay to clean up years’ worth of toxic coal ash Governor Pat McCrory’s former employer, Duke Energy, has kept in waste pits after the dirty energy giant dumped tens-of-millions of gallons of poison into the Dan River last month when a pipe ruptured.

Late last week a judge ordered Duke Energy, the largest supplier of electricity in the United States, to address the devastating groundwater contamination at 33 of its coal ash storage lagoons at 14 sites across North Carolina. It is probable the judge’s fairly rapid order was prompted after Duke’s malfeasance dumped 35 million gallons of toxic coal ash and arsenic-contaminated water into the Dan River at Duke Energy’s power plant in Eden, North Carolina. Coal ash is waste left after burning coal that contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, most of which are toxic. Estimates are that it will cost Duke Energy a $1 billion to clean its coal ash waste pits in North Carolina after the 35 million gallon toxic coal slurry spill last month, but Duke has no intention of paying for their own malfeasance regardless a judge’s order. Duke Energy’s CEO said it is up to customers to pay for the cleanup and it is likely North Carolina’s Republican governor and 28-year Duke employee will instruct North Carolina Utilities Commission to determine how quickly customers will have to pay to clean up Duke’s toxic dumps.

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Duke’s CEO Lynn Good said the company may carry costs for cleaning 70 miles of the Dan River now caked with toxic coal waste, but paying a billion dollars to clean up toxin-laden waste at the 14 other sites is the consumers’ responsibility. Good’s justification for making North Carolians pay for Duke’s misconduct is that “because that ash was created for the generation of electricity, we believe that ash-pond disposal costs are ultimately part of our cost structure.” However, the senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, Frank Holleman said “Duke has profited from doing the cheapest thing for decades, and it’s now time for them to pay the bill,” but with a 28 year Duke Energy employee as governor and a corrupt N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), it is unlikely Duke will pay a penny to clean up the toxic waste or 70 miles of the Dan River.

It was stunning the state judge ruled that Duke had to clear the storage ponds because three prior lawsuits challenging Duke’s toxic lagoons were all blocked by corrupt state regulators at the North Carolina DENR. In fact, last week, internal emails and other records uncovered through a public records request by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) revealed that corrupt regulators at the DENR knew about six Duke plants without permits back in 2009 in spite of being required for rainwater draining from the plants into public waterways.

Last week, the Associated Press filed a public records request for a copy of Duke’s storm water permit for the Dan River plant and was told that the permit did not exist. One of the lawyers for the SELC said “It is shocking that Duke Energy was openly violating the most fundamental requirements of clean water laws, and discharging industrial storm water directly into the Dan River illegally,” and it is likely why federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to Duke and DENR investigating the cozy relationship between Duke and the state environmental agency tasked with regulating it. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has little power to help North Carolina residents because House Republicans passed several pieces of legislation banning the federal agency from inspecting, regulating, or interfering with dirty energy companies poisoning air and water in the states.

North Carolina residents’ air and water has been under a sustained attack from not only Duke Energy, Governor Pat McCrory, and the corrupt Department of Environment and Natural Resources, but the Koch brothers and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as well. In fact, in concert with the Kochs and ALEC, another former Duke Energy engineer and North Carolina Representative Mike Hager introduced ALEC legislation (HB 298), “Electricity Freedom Act,” in the state’s General Assembly that fully repeals North Carolina’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS); a state law requiring utilities to generate more electricity from clean sources over time that is credited with contributing to the rapid growth of the clean energy sector in North Carolina.

The state’s clean energy sector is responsible for lower monthly electrical bills, cleaner air and water, and sent North Carolina to second place in the nation for job announcements with stronger growth in the clean-jobs industry continuing in the first quarter. Lower monthly bills, cleaner air and water, and stronger than most state job growth is good for North Carolina but the Kochs, ALEC, Duke employee McCrory, and ALEC Republicans are on the verge of eliminating the renewable energy sector and forcing residents to pay a billion dollars to clean up Duke’s toxic mess.

One is inclined to feel empathy for environmentally poisoned North Carolina residents, but they did enthusiastically elect former Duke employees as Republican governor and state legislators who work for the Koch brothers and ALEC. North Carolina is the state Americans should look at for a vision of America in the very, very near future when the Kochs and ALEC own and control the government. Everything Republicans, Duke Energy, the Kochs, and ALEC have achieved in North Carolina is being heavily promoted in Congress and every state in the union. Americans are responsible for the devastation Republican attacks on environmental protections have wrought because they are as disinterested in poisoned air and water as North Carolina residents are at having to pay a billion dollars to clean up Duke Energy’s 14 toxic dumps.