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Former state Rep. Mitch Gillespie is taking on two new roles in the McCrory administration. The governor appointed the Marion Republican to the Southern States Energy Board and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. He is currently the assistant secretary at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Other recent appointments from Gov. Pat McCrory:

--George Howard, the former business partner with DENR Secretary John Skvarla, was named to the Interstate Mining Commission. Howard is the co-founder and CEO of Raleigh-based Restoration Systems, an environmental mitigation company. He is also on the N.C. Mining and Energy Commission.

DENR Secretary John Skvarla has turned to a veteran state government employee to be his human resources director.

He has names Anne G. Lasley to head the division of human resources division at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Lasley has worked for state government for 24 years, directing human resources programs for the Division of Services for the Deaf and the Employment Security Commission. She served as a member of Gov. Pat McCrory's Human Resources transition team.

John Skvarla continues to put together his team at the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

He has named Joe Harwood, who ran his own Mecklenburg County-based consulting firm to lead the department's customer service branch as the agency's ombudsman. Like Gov. Pat McCrory, Harwood had previously worked for Duke Energy in the environmental, regulatory, legislative and customer affairs area.

During the campaign, McCrory had specifically mentioned DENR as a state agency that he thought was not business friendly. Skvarla created the post of ombudsman.

Skvarla also went to another power company veteran when he named Drew Elliot as his communications director. Elliott worked as spokesman for Progress Energy and before that was a legislative assistant for Republican Sen. Richard Burr. Most recently he worked at South University in Georgia as assistant to the chancellor for communications.

Also named was Carr McLamb, a Raleigh attorney, as DENR's deputy director of legislative affairs. He previously worked for the firm of Jordan Price Wall Gray Jones & Carlton.

John Skvarla, the personable and accomplished new secretary of the state’s environmental-protection agency, has been dodging the question of just what he thinks about global warming. Perhaps the fact that he suggests it’s still an open question provides the answer.

But here’s a more definitive clue.

Secretary John Skvarla Wednesday named his team to run the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. As expected, former state Rep. Mitch Gillespie, a small business owner and a long-time critic of DENR, was named assistant secretary for the environment. Brad Ives was named assistant secretary for natural resources. He is currently vice president for corporate development at Semprius, a manufacturer of solar panels in Research Triangle Park. Neal Robbins was named director of legislative and intergovernmental affairs. He is an attorney with Robbins Law in Winston-Salem, where his practice focused on debtor-creditor issues. Lacy Presnell, a Raleigh attorney, was named general counsel. Mary Penny Thompson, who had been chief deputy, was named acting assistant secretary for administration.

John Skvarla, the new head of the state’s environmental protection department, continues to make environmentalists a little nervous.

On Tuesday, he issued a mission statement cautioning that environmental science “contains a diversity of opinion” and that “all public programs and scientific conclusions must be reflective of input from a variety of legitimate, diverse and thoughtful perspectives.”

The statement comes after comments Skvarla has made in news media interviews indicating he believes climate change is a controversy that remains unsettled. Although most scientists think that it is, there are some who dispute that there is global warming or, if there is, that it isn’t caused by human activity.

Document(s):
DENR Mission Statement.PDF

SKVARLA FACES NEW QUESTIONS: Secretary John Skvarla's memo to staff at the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources this week is getting a good bit of attention and creating more questions than it answers. As reported here first, the agency's new mission statement includes this line: "environmental science is quite complex, comprised of many components, and most importantly, contains diversity of opinion." The memo also suggests the agency is more service organziation than state regulator. It raises big questions for the McCrory administration: Is climate change a scientific fact? What about sea level rise? And are human's responsible for global warming?

McCRORY DODGES GLOBAL WARMING QUESTION: As the DENR secretary questions the validity of science, the new Republican governor is sidestepping the global warming issue entirely. Pat McCrory told Travis Fain at the News & Record: "John (Skvarla) and I aren’t going to get caught up in the political semantics of either the left or the right on climate change or global warming. We believe in clean air, clean water and clean ground. ... As my father used to say ... we must walk the fine line between continuing our economic prosperity while also protecting the quality of life and the environment which brought may of us here. And that’s the fine line leadership must continue to walk.” Expect this question to re-emerge Wednesday.

The man Gov.-elect Pat McCrory appointed to run the state's environmental agency isn't convinced about global warming. And he’s anxious to move the needle back from what he sees as over-regulation toward what he promises will be a middle ground that protects the environment without hindering economic growth. Meet John Skvarla here.

More political news:

--President Obama cuts short his vacation with automatic budget cuts looming.

--More than 300 shipyard workers in North Carolina could stop loading and unloading cargo ships as of midnight Saturday, the result of stalled contract talks that threaten to idle more than 14,500 dockworkers at 15 of the nation’s major shipping ports.

Gov.-elect Pat McCrory named three senior members of administration Thursday, including a former U.S. Ambassador to head health and human services and a Raleigh businessman lead the environmental agency.

At a news conference, McCrory announced that Aldona Wos, a Greensboro physician and former U.S. Ambassador to Estonia,would head the Department and Health and Human Services, one of the largest agencies in state government.

Also named was John Skvarla, the CEO of Restoration Systems, a Raleigh-based company, that does environmental mitigation work, to be his new secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.

McCrory also named Thomas Stith, a former Durham City Councilman, who has headed his transition team, to serve as his chief of staff.