The state Division of Air Quality, a part of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is allowing more time for public comment on the controversial Titan Cement Plant planned for Castle Hayne, near Wilmington.

Comments on the draft permit will be accepted until Nov. 20. The original deadline was Oct. 30.

Environmental groups, including the N.C. Coastal Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center had asked for an extension.

* North Carolina's air quality this summer was the best it's been in more than three decades — the combined result of environmental laws, balmy weather and the recession.

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources said Monday that the state had just six "code orange" days in which ground-level ozone levels exceeded federal clean air standards. That's the lowest number since some local governments began tracking air quality in the state in the early 1970s. In the summer of 2008, the state had 36 days of unhealthy ozone levels, and 66 the year before that.

The primary reason for the decline in ozone levels is lower emissions from coal-fired power plants and automobiles, according to DENR. The state's Clean Smokestacks Act of 2002 required the state's 14 coal-burning plants to cut ozone-forming emissions by three-fourths by 2012. Coal is used to generate more than half the state's electricity. (N&O)

* U.S. Rep, Howard Coble has some problems with a plan to open up a host of new Internet domain names.

Coble, a Greensboro Republican, co-wrote a letter to the nonprofit organization that oversees internate domains such as .com or .org.

Coble’s interest extends in large part from his work on intellectual property rights.

Among the concerns, companies with recognizable brand names worry they’ll have to rush into a new cyberspace land grab to avoid others from squatting on their trademarks. Home Depot, for example, may find itself not only needing to hold onto homedepot.com but names like home.depot. (GN-R)

* The state environment agency is investigating whether its employees accepted gifts and meals from Verizon Business, a company that provides electronics to vehicle inspection stations.

Verizon gave the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources documentation of meals and a Carolina Hurricanes hockey ticket the company provided free to five Division of Air Quality employees from 2006 to spring of this year, said DENR spokesman Jamie Kritzer.

Three of the employees implicated still work at the agency, he said. Kritzer said the agency is working to verify the information it received from Verizon.

The State Bureau of Investigation is already investigating the gifts. Verizon Business holds a lucrative no-bid contract with the state. (N&O)

* State Rep. Nick Mackey has denied charges by the N.C. State Bar that he willfully failed to file four years of tax returns on time, saying he was following the advice of his tax preparer.

He also denied that he failed to pay four earlier years of taxes on time, saying he believed all forms had been filed and that monthly payments were being made. In his response posted by the State Bar this morning, Mackey also denied charges that he didn't properly represent a former legal client, and disputed allegations about his former tenure as a Charlotte police officer.

Mackey faces a December hearing before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which could opt to dismiss the charges or levy a punishment ranging from a warning to disbarment. The bar is the state agency that oversees North Carolina's 26,000 lawyers. (Char-O)

A federal grand jury wants to hear from two state environmental officials who handled permits on the Cannonsgate land project, a development in coastal Carteret County where former Gov. Mike Easley acquired a soundfront lot in 2005.

The officials have been asked to appear today.

Questions have swirled around the permitting process since reports in The News & Observer in May showed that real estate broker McQueen Campbell, a friend of Easley, bragged in writing that political contacts helped secure the wastewater treatment plant permit in half the one year's time he said it should have taken, J. Andrew Curliss reports.

In an interview, Campbell would not say what he meant by political contacts, other than to say he knew "who to call to get all these things done."

State records show the plant permit at Cannonsgate was granted faster than most, but not to the degree Campbell was claiming. It was part of an express review available to all developers. It was granted in 64 days.

The average of similar sized plants was about 110 days.

More after the jump.

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Natural and economic resources includes the state's agricultural and environmental agencies as well as the departments of labor and commerce.

All agencies within this category will see vacant positions eliminated.

The budget proposal would also:

* Increase the annual fee to register pesticides administered by the Department of Agriculture from $100 to $150 to raise $500,000.

* Require the Labor Department to charge enough fees for an apprenticeship program to raise $450,000. The figure would offset a 25 percent reduction in funding for the program.

* Eliminate 70 vacant positions in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to save $3.4 million.

* Reduce by $50 million each year for two years the appropriation to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

* Require the Department of Commerce to sell the state's King Air plane and reduce all costs associated with operating it, including a pilot position, to save $148,000 this year and $296,000 next year.

The N.C. Division of Coastal Management wants to know if you think the state should worry about rising sea levels.

The agency is conducting a survey to get a handle on people's perceptions of rising sea levels and the state's vulnerability to such change.

It is asking questions such as "Do you believe sea level rise is happening in North Carolina, and do you think your property or finances will be affected?" and "Do you think that the State should be taking steps now to plan and prepare for sea level rise?"

"We are seeking responses from a diverse audience," Tancred Miller, coastal policy analyst for the state agency and the primary author of the survey, said in a press release. "Whatever an individual’s knowledge or belief about sea level rise, everyone’s perceptions are of great interest to us."

The survey can be taken at the department's Web site. Responses will be accepted until Aug. 31.

Gov. Beverly Perdue is pushing a bill that would increase oversight of coal ash ponds.

North Carolina is home to 12 potentially high-hazard ponds of the sludge byproduct of coal-fired electric plants, more than any other state. The EPA's high-hazard designation means people would probably die if a dam failed, not that the agency has found structural problems.

The bill would subject the dams that create coal ash ponds to direct inspection by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

“Because of where some of the ponds are located, greater safety oversight and more frequent inspections will help reduce potential risks,” Perdue said in a news release.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, would subject coal ash dams to the state's Dam Safety Act, which would more closely regulate the impoundments and would require a state inspection every two years.

A new member will likely join the State Board of Education next month.

Reginald Kenan, a lawyer from Duplin County and a longtime local school board member, is up for a confirmation vote in the legislature tonight, Lynn Bonner reports.

Legislators will also vote to confirm Wayne McDevitt of Marshall and Patricia Willoughby of Raleigh, who were reappointed by Gov. Beverly Perdue.

McDevitt, the board's vice chairman, served in the administration of former Gov. Jim Hunt as his chief of staff and as an N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources secretary.

Willoughby is executive director of the N.C. Business Committee for Education. She was state schools superintendent in 2004 and 2005.

McDevitt and Willoughby have been on the board since 2001.

A former Wake Forest mayor and a Raleigh businessman pleaded guilty to bribery Monday.

The charges state that the two promised a state official nearly $200,000 to speed up environmental permits for a proposed ethanol plant.

Federal prosecutors also disclosed Monday that two other investors in the plant, including the former owner of Thee Dollhouse topless bar in Raleigh, extorted money to speed permits for a project in 2002.

But they said the statute of limitations had already passed for those charges.

James Albert Perry Jr., 62, the former mayor of Wake Forest, and David Lee Brady, 76, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery.

They had promised the money to Boyce Hudson, then an employee of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. (N&O)

Where does the State Energy Office belong?

The agency, which leads the state's efforts to provide information about sustainable energy, would move to the N.C. Department of Commerce under a state bill endorsed today by Gov. Beverly Perdue as part of a reform package.

State Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat and bill co-sponsor, admitted that might sound a little odd to some people, since Commerce typically handles business recruiting and development.

But she argued the office should focus on business.

"This office is largely a relic of the Arab oil embargo, when it was focused more on energy security," she said. "We seem to have now entered a new era where it's as much about economic development and homegrown energy options as trying to find alternatives to Mideast oil."

The office is currently part of the Department of Administration, a catch-all government agency that houses the state construction office, among other things.

Harrison opposed an earlier effort to move the office to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources which she argued was designed to undermine it. She says the new proposal is a good-faith effort.