The Navy could be prohibited from building an isolated landing strip for its Oceana Naval Air Station fighter jets at the Hales Lake and Sandbanks sites that are now under consideration by the Navy.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Farmville Republican, included an amendment prohibiting that site for an outlying landing field in the 2010 Defense Authorization Act approved Wednesday by the House Armed Services Committee, Barb Barrett reports. U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a Wilson Democrat, also helped with the amendment.

"The people of eastern North Carolina have spoken loud and clear on this issue," Jones said in a statement. “If the OLF is needed to support F/A-18’s operating out of Oceana Naval Air Station, then Virginia should bear the burden."

The Navy has been trying several years to find a rural spot in eastern North Carolina to practice nighttime landings, but has been blocked by lawsuits and Tar Heel state politicians.

The Hales Lake site is in Camden County; the Sandbanks site is in Gates County.
The bill must still go to the full House, and then to the Senate for approval.

The most-read posts this week were bad news.

The state's not doing well. The governor got a kick on the way out the door and a woman may have lied to a newspaper reporter. The posts:

1. Not-So Great Expectations: State tax collections are down 6.1 percent from projections, or about $520 million below what economists expected. So it's their fault...

2. Questioning Sentences: Gov. Mike Easley blamed structured sentencing for the problems with parole, but Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand said it's not to blame. So who is, Senator Rand?

3. Fielding Questions: Washington and Beaufort counties won their fight against the U.S. Navy. Now it's time for Camden and Currituck counties to fight. Just 96 counties to go...

4. (S)Tar Heels: Another Tar Heel is working in the Obama administration as a spokesman. But somehow he hasn't found a job for a certain former senator...

5. Crying Uncle: The niece of a patronage boss Eddie Carroll Thomas told a reporter she saw the job online, but later admitted that may not have been true. Maybe she saw it on EddiesList?

Camden and Currituck counties are also fighting a landing field.

After a successful fight by residents of Washington and Beaufort counties against a proposed landing field, the Navy began considering sites there and in Gaston County, along with three sites in Virginia.

Now, leaders in Camden and Currituck are mounting their own opposition. 

Camden County Manager Randell Woodruff said that the landing field would not only disturb the land in question but lead to restrictions elsewhere in the county.

"It really has the potential to be devastating to our tax base and our property values," he told Dome. "It's preventing us from attracting business and industry to the county, with that kind of facility taking up and putting restrictions on 30,000 acres."

He said the economic benefit of the landing field would go to Virginia, home of the Oceana naval air station, but the downsides will only affect North Carolina.

"We're not going to get anything but the noise," he said.

Related: Camden and Currituck officials commision soil study that shows problem with site.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole wants to make sure that folks know that she is opposed to efforts by the Navy to locate a landing field for military jets in northeastern North Carolina.

Dole, a Salisbury Republican, issued a release this afternoon saying that she has written to the secretary of the Navy to say she is still opposed to the so-called Outlying Landing Field in northeastern North Carolina.

"I have stated repeatedly that an OLF must enjoy the support of local residents,” Dole wrote. “At this point, I am aware of few if any residents in the Hale’s Lake or Sand Banks regions who support the construction of an OLF, regardless of any prospective economic benefits that might accrue in their region.

"For this reason, I cannot in good conscious support the establishment of an OLF in these communities.”

Dole has taken some heat, including in this recent column by N&O Executive Editor John Drescher, for initially being slow to come out in opposition to the plans.

Update: Brian Nick, Dole's chief of staff, says the point of the letter was not to remind anyone of Dole's opposition to the original site proposed in Washington County, but to point out her opposition to a couple of new sites - at Hale's Lake and Sand Banks - now under consideration. 

Robert Peterson considers himself an old-fashioned blogger.

A life sciences researcher in Chapel Hill, Peterson started out blogging for The Daily Kos, where he first learned about BlueNC in 2005 when he saw a piece crossposted by James Protzman. 

"At the time, I thought it was this well-established Web site," he said. "It wasn't until some time later that I found out that I was user No. 14."

Peterson, 37, started out writing about health care, something he knew about from a stint as vice president of Health Care for All's North Carolina chapter. As a volunteer for John Edwards, he also wrote a lot about that campaign.

When that ended, Peterson became interested in the race for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.

He says that the main contributors to BlueNC agree on a few basic principles: They support increasing health care coverage for the uninsured; they think No Child Left Behind should be changed or scrapped; and they opposed the proposed landing field in Eastern North Carolina.

The one area where they disagree: Which candidates to support.

BlueNC has come of age.

Started in 2006, the liberal group blog has had its moments in the political spotlight: Helping Larry Kissell's unsuccessful Congressional campaign in 2006, targeting a proposed Navy landing field on the coast, breaking the news of Senate candidate's Jim Neal's sexual orientation in a live blog.

But none will be as big as next week's live online debate between Democratic gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue.

The debate will be notable in a few ways. Moore and Perdue have only squared off a handful of times in this campaign. It is also certainly a historic first for two gubernatorial candidates to debate online. And it marks a milestone in the growing power of the netroots in North Carolina.

Dome is working on a dead-tree story about BlueNC's role in the Democratic primary. We're interviewing readers and contributors of the site in an open thread here and have started a profile of co-founder James Protzman here and an FAQ on the site here.

If you have thoughts on the site, please share them in the comments below.

The U.S. Navy said today it will study two sites in northeastern North Carolina and three in Virginia for a landing field where aircraft carriers pilots can practice takeoffs and landings.

The Navy said it was abandoning further consideration of its preferred site, which straddles Washington and Beaufort counties near a national wildlife refuge, reports Wade Rawlins. That site drew vigorous opposition from many local residents, environmentalists and the state's top political leaders.

The sites in North Carolina to be considered are Hale's Lake in Camden and Currituck counties and Sandbanks in Gates County.

They are within about 50 miles of Naval Air Station Oceana, where the fighter jet squadrons would be based.

But local officials in both counties as well as state leaders have expressed opposition to locating the airfield in the counties.

State Senate leader Marc Basnight of Manteo issued an immediate statement vowing to continue to oppose the sites.

"For nearly a decade, Senator Basnight has opposed the Navy's efforts to build an OLF in northeastern North Carolina," said Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight. "He has said that locating an OLF in a rural, economically distressed is absolutely unacceptable. With today's disappointing news, Senator Basnight vows to continue to fight on behalf of families who have worked this land for generations."

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole said she was discouraged by the Navy's failure to consult with local leaders in Camden, Currituck and Gates counties. She said she would oppose the Navy's efforts to acquire any site that lacks broad local support.

The Navy plans to gather public comments in the spring on the sites.

North Carolina’s governor and two U.S. senators told the Navy Tuesday that local support is essential to placing a proposed practice airfield in the state.

They suggested that a site closer to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point might be more acceptable, reports Wade Rawlins.

"We take the position that if an outlying landing field were to be located in North Carolina, the Navy must work more effectively to secure the general support of the local population,“ Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr and Gov. Mike Easley wrote in a Dec. 4 letter to Donald Winter, secretary of the Navy.

“And we see little purpose in your pending announcement of a narrowed list unless the issue of economic benefits for the affected communities is squarely addressed.”

The Navy wants to build a $230 million training airfield in a remote area for fighter pilots to simulate night landings on aircraft carriers.

Read more after the jump.

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* Former Young Democrats leader Jay Ottivore officially announces he's running for the nomination to face U.S. Rep. Howard Coble. (Capital Beat)

* U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole says Gov. Mike Easley's request for more alternatives to a Navy landing field is "bizarre." (New Bern Sun Journal)

* U.S. Rep. Mel Watt says the fact that no one likes a bill cracking down on mortgage lenders "may be the best tribute of all." (AP)

* At debate, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton says John Edwards' attacks are "throwing mud" and "right out of the Republican playbook." (NYT)

Gov. Mike Easley said U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is letting down North Carolinians.

In an unusually sharp exchange, the Democratic governor attacked the Republican senator for not listening to local opposition to a proposed outlying landing field in Eastern North Carolina.

"The people in Gates and Camden Counties do not want the OLF, therefore I do not want the OLF in Gates and Camden," Easley said in a prepared statement. "It is time for Elizabeth Dole to learn that she represents the people of North Carolina, including those counties."

The Easley administration has worked with the Navy to develop a list of six alternative sites, but on Wednesday he asked the Navy to look at more alternatives.

Sens. Dole and Richard Burr responded by saying that they do not think the Navy should look at any more sites, but should make a decision from the ones it has already considered. (N&O)

Clarification: Sens. Dole and Burr were responding to a letter Easley sent earlier in the day, not his statement about Dole.